New Orleans Vs Chicago
As always in all these post-season games, the conversation isn’t about the game. It’s about the hype and stories that each team can provide the susceptible national audience for the next two weeks leading to the game itself. Czech, from time to time in his rant that was hackneyed as Stuart Scott’s play call brought up a couple valid points. ESPN isn’t the only one pushing the Katrina angle nor will they be the only team to do so if New Orleans advances to the next round. It’s not an ESPN created monster. It was fashioned from years of the American Sports Media pushing the feel good story because it’s easier to get people to care about a story built as a soap opera rather then to focus on their playing ability.
Does Katrina matter in the context of the team playing good?
Not a bit. Katrina wasn’t last month. The reason the team has been successful is because of the changes the team made from Head Coach, Starting QB and a pair of tremendous rookies along with cutting a lot of dead weight from the team and infusing new blood. That was the catalyst for the improvement and success. Not the rallying cry of those fans. Look at that stadium and the people in it. Those aren’t the ones that got wrecked hardest by Katrina. The ones that really felt the sting of the damage aren’t spending their Sunday afternoons sitting in the comfortable confines of the Super Dome. They are sitting in substandard government issued housing and if they are lucky, they have a television to follow the team and maybe they’ll find that 4 hours sitting there watching the game offers a distraction but let’s not act as if the great hope exists because Reggie Bush can cut for a great run or Drew Brees can throw the fuck out of a pigskin football.
It’d be nice if we could just sit back and be entertained by the fact they are a fun team with a good story. That story being the typical rags to riches story. Unlike in Baseball where fans don’t care about the sport outside their market, Football attracts those skeptics to loving those hard luck teams once they do the improbable. People will love the Saints a lot if they make it to the Super Bowl. People might think from time to time about the impact and lost the citizens; the true citizens of New Orleans are feeling but will go right back to their comfortable lives on February 4th. Let’s just enjoy the performance. If Chicago wins, the media will construct some story to produce hype. It’s the Super Bowl tradition that really attracts those extra viewers.
I hope the Saints win because I like watching them play. They have a head coach that doesn’t play conservative football and likes to be aggressive. It might not work and they could get exposed for it. They have been quite vulnerable however. I don’t dislike the Chicago Bears, even if I’m as sick of the “REX GROSSMAN IS CANCER!” overreactions. Their defense is suspect given the depleted roster via the injuries but this is more important in gauging the ability of Lovie Smith rather then the questionable and inconsistent performance of their Quarterback. Lovie isn’t a sexy coach. He doesn’t chew out the media like the grumpy old men contingent or give them cutesy quotable sound bites like you know who nor does he have that history to fall back on.
This game should be more about Lovie Smith for the locals rather then Rex Grossman. Sean Payton is a rookie coach, he overreached his limit and anything past this level is just simply icing on the cake. He won’t have that pressure like Smith will. Smith was expected to build this team in this season to be playing in Miami. He was expected to win and falling short again despite being what appears to be the best team overall won't help.
Not that Smith is getting any of that total negativity just yet but lest we forget the short fused tempers of the fans and the speed of every network (not just ESPN, because ESPN doesn’t own you) to start spreading the smear campaigns. Fuck the worrying about whatever hype and stories will come out of a New Orleans win. Fuck Rex Grossman’s inconsistent play. Let’s enjoy what should be a fun match-up.
