I want to talk about the media today, in light of this weekend's NFL championship games.
I will begin by offering this disclaimer: I am a diehard, lifelong Philadelphia Eagles fan who “bleeds Eagles Green”. That being said, I am also of necessity a realist and know what is going on when I watch an individual or a team play. I have watched pro football since 1958 and have extensively studied it, read up on it, and I’m familiar with the history and complexity of the sport. I have watched it on television essentially all my life, and have watched the evolution of coverage from virtually nonexistent in the early 1960s to what it is today, possibly the biggest single thing in sports or entertainment.
For both personal and academic reasons, I watched six hours of Pregame coverage on the NFL channel and several hours on ESPN and local stations for the coverage after the Kansas City game. I did this for a reason which transcends football.
In the pregame shows, I watched the Network profile three of the four teams extensively as well as certain personnel associated with those teams . My Eagles were largely ignored while all this was going on. The profile of what was the third string quarterback for San Francisco 49ers made him out to be the second coming of Tom Brady, who was called into action himself, when the starting quarterback went down for an injury all those years ago. The quarterback for the Cincinnati Bengals was said to be the best quarterback in the league presently, and in a class with Staubach, Montana, and a few other remarkable players who are by all accounts regarded to be at the pinnacle of the history of the sport. The glowing reports of these individuals’ talents were transcendental, and if my team were mentioned, it was generally in passing. if you were really paying attention, you would think that the San Francisco team happened to be playing in Philadelphia Pennsylvania against… Someone who will be unmentioned. They went to far as to have three panelists sitting in front of the stadium in Philly, all three originally born in the Delaware Valley including one Hall of Fame quarterback, and virtually no mentions made of the home team while everything else under the sun was discussed.
Now I don’t know much about much, but I do know relative talent of a football team, and for two weeks in a row I have said that the Eagles were vastly superior to both the teams which they played, and the games probably wouldn’t even be close. In fact, the Eagles set a record for being the first team to score more than 30 points, while holding both teams to fewer than 10. Now, yes, I know that the Niners were playing with their third, then fourth, then fifth string quarterbacks, I understand that, but I don’t remember anybody dissing Seattle’s team when the Eagles were playing them in the playoffs, and our quarterback was injured and the no-name gentleman filled in for the rest of the game. Every team has injuries, and it is very much a part of the game. I will say that after the Eagles destroyed their opponent, the vast number of contributors on sports networks gave them their due.
Now, why am I talking about this? Because sports are covered, teams are covered, individuals are covered, exactly the way political candidates and parties are covered. The media decides in advance who they’re going to promote, and that person is the subject of the vast amount of discussion and conversation Plus the imminent red wave, which never occurred much like the immune pounding which the Eagles were going to take from the Giants last week and the 49ers this week, who were “clearly“ better teams. Unfortunately, for these commentators, the Eagles and the Democrats forgot to lose which they were supposed to. That just messes up the whole discussion of everything. The only thing missing from Yesterdays lineup on the pregame shows was Jonathan Lemire and Chuck Todd discussing “conventional wisdom”, and what has happened before in the past and previously and before as though it were a near-certain predictor of future events.
I love watching people eat crow, and very much look forward to the game in between Kansas City and Philadelphia. Two weeks hence. They are both excellent, clutch teams and the final score may well be be close. Then again…maybe not.
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