The beautiful thing about the Super Bowl is that, for the high majority of the people watching it, they have no “team” to root for. Sure everybody’s got back-up teams and teams that they bandwagon onto during the playoffs, and most people pick a team from the final two to “root” for. But for the majority of the fans who have been watching from opening day and before, their team is at home doing the same thing they are; watching the final football game of the season. The Super Bowl is fantastic because, for the spectators who aren’t busy actively rooting on their team, it serves as a reminder that below the loyalties of fan to team lies a primal love of the game.
I was reminded of this during Super Bowl XLII between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots. I was absolutely torn during this game. As a die-hard, lifelong fan of the Washington Redskins it made me sick to my stomach to think of the New York Giants hoisting a Lombardi trophy. Not only would it give the Giants their third Super Bowl Championship pulling them into a tie with the Redskins for number of Super Bowl Championships, but the gloating and bragging rights I knew I would have to endure from a number of friends I have who are Giants fans was going to be unbearable.
On the other hand, as a fan of parity and competitive football I hated seeing the New England Patriots march straight to Phoenix leaving behind them a scorched field of would-be upstarts who would dare to challenge their undefeated record and their dynastic ambitions. I wanted to see them fail and fail miserably. Tom Brady and Bill Belichick were the villains in this particular narrative and I would have loved nothing more than for them to get shut out and embarrassed.
Seeing as how they couldn’t tie, and that there had to be a winner, I was forced to stop watching the game from the perspective of a rival team’s fan or as the bitter supporter of a team long-since disqualified. I was forced to watch the game at its simplest form, a football game between the two best football teams in the world. It took two teams that I detested to remind me that I love the game. And I was thankful for the experience.