- Sep 22, 2013
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This is a sports-culture parable inspired by Jerry Maguire.
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As the warriors of the NFL were arrayed for Season 52, everyone wondered if titan-QB Tom Brady's indomitable New England Patriots would once again win the Super Bowl or if an upstart-QB could provide the necessary spark for a challenger to take home the Vince Lombardi Trophy. In Season 50, upstart-QB Cam Newton and his Carolina Panthers lost to Peyon Manning's Denver Broncos in the Super Bowl. In Season 51, upstart-QB Matt Ryan and his Atlanta Falcons lost to Tom Brady's Patriots in the Super Bowl. In this Season 52, everyone thought upstart-QB Carson Wentz and his Philadelphia Eagles had what it took to take home the Vince Lombardi Trophy, but a season-ending injury sent everything into a funnel.
Now, with the season in anarchy, fans looked to Wentz' back-up QB Nick Foles to carry the gritty Eagles to the completion of an otherwise stellar season, a season which saw the Eagles finish tops in the NFC. The Eagles had never won a Super Bowl, and the Eagles were the only professional Philadelphia sports team to have never won the 'supreme championship.' Philly fans went nuts hoping that Foles' could congeal the team enough to carry them to the Super Bowl where they could potentially topple Brady's Patriots on the grand-stage. One fanatic fan went so nuts that he stole a chainsaw from a Home Depot and ran around pretending to be Leatherface (the iconic fictional chainsaw-wielding cannibal from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre horror-film franchise)! A vigilante named 'Batman' went chasing 'Leatherface,' hoping to restore some dose of civics sanity amidst all this sports-hysteria hoopla!
Tom Brady and his Patriots had appeared in 7 whopping Super Bowls in all and had won a whopping 5 of them! Brady had lost only 2 Super bowls, one in 2008, and the other in 2012 --- and both defeats came at the hands of hotshot-QB Eli Manning and his well-coordinated NY Giants. Eli Manning was the younger brother of Hall-of-Fame QB Peyton Manning whom everyone thought would be the 'real cookie' to topple the 'Brady Mystique,' but it was in fact Peyton's younger idealistic brother Eli who took home the bacon! After Eli's defeating of Brady (twice!), NFL fans across America started taking bets on which 'upstart/hotshot/phenom-QB' would be the one during the next season to dismantle the Goliath-like Brady and his Patriots. Basically, sports fans wanted to feel optimistic about pedestrian cheering for David-v-Goliath sports fanfare --- after all, isn't that what sports is all about? When a famous sports-writer started calling Eli Manning 'Captain America' (Marvel Comics), sales of Captain America comics went through the roof!
So, Batman apprehended Leatherface, Hollywood started making multiple films about Captain America, and Foles' Eagles prepped to buckle-down and try to salvage a Wentz-less season a muster a heroic run to the Super Bowl where they could buckle-down even more and perhaps take down the Brady-Patriots monolith. If Foles succeeded, sports-writers would begin calling Eli Manning the 'new Joe Namath' (since Namath took down the monolith of Unitas's Colts in the past millennium). The drama read like an American spirit pedestrian-daydream sports-fanfare cheerleading party, and everyone was invited. The only one not joining in all this brouhaha was Eagles QB Carson Wentz, sidelined because of a torn ACL which effectively ended his phenom-season. Wentz hoped anyone or any team would take down the Brady-Patriots monolith and carry the 'torch' lit by Eli Manning and his Giants. Wentz started taking bets in Fantasy Football to see who could take down Brady's Patriots --- would it be the Minnesota Vikings, or perhaps the Pittsburgh Steelers, or maybe even the New Orleans Saints? Sports fanfare was consumer-friendly and the sports-fabled film Jerry Maguire and the NFL-classic video game Tecmo Super Bowl became the new favorite Christmas-season 'American Dream' gifts for husbands/boyfriends across the USA.
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As the warriors of the NFL were arrayed for Season 52, everyone wondered if titan-QB Tom Brady's indomitable New England Patriots would once again win the Super Bowl or if an upstart-QB could provide the necessary spark for a challenger to take home the Vince Lombardi Trophy. In Season 50, upstart-QB Cam Newton and his Carolina Panthers lost to Peyon Manning's Denver Broncos in the Super Bowl. In Season 51, upstart-QB Matt Ryan and his Atlanta Falcons lost to Tom Brady's Patriots in the Super Bowl. In this Season 52, everyone thought upstart-QB Carson Wentz and his Philadelphia Eagles had what it took to take home the Vince Lombardi Trophy, but a season-ending injury sent everything into a funnel.
Now, with the season in anarchy, fans looked to Wentz' back-up QB Nick Foles to carry the gritty Eagles to the completion of an otherwise stellar season, a season which saw the Eagles finish tops in the NFC. The Eagles had never won a Super Bowl, and the Eagles were the only professional Philadelphia sports team to have never won the 'supreme championship.' Philly fans went nuts hoping that Foles' could congeal the team enough to carry them to the Super Bowl where they could potentially topple Brady's Patriots on the grand-stage. One fanatic fan went so nuts that he stole a chainsaw from a Home Depot and ran around pretending to be Leatherface (the iconic fictional chainsaw-wielding cannibal from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre horror-film franchise)! A vigilante named 'Batman' went chasing 'Leatherface,' hoping to restore some dose of civics sanity amidst all this sports-hysteria hoopla!
Tom Brady and his Patriots had appeared in 7 whopping Super Bowls in all and had won a whopping 5 of them! Brady had lost only 2 Super bowls, one in 2008, and the other in 2012 --- and both defeats came at the hands of hotshot-QB Eli Manning and his well-coordinated NY Giants. Eli Manning was the younger brother of Hall-of-Fame QB Peyton Manning whom everyone thought would be the 'real cookie' to topple the 'Brady Mystique,' but it was in fact Peyton's younger idealistic brother Eli who took home the bacon! After Eli's defeating of Brady (twice!), NFL fans across America started taking bets on which 'upstart/hotshot/phenom-QB' would be the one during the next season to dismantle the Goliath-like Brady and his Patriots. Basically, sports fans wanted to feel optimistic about pedestrian cheering for David-v-Goliath sports fanfare --- after all, isn't that what sports is all about? When a famous sports-writer started calling Eli Manning 'Captain America' (Marvel Comics), sales of Captain America comics went through the roof!
So, Batman apprehended Leatherface, Hollywood started making multiple films about Captain America, and Foles' Eagles prepped to buckle-down and try to salvage a Wentz-less season a muster a heroic run to the Super Bowl where they could buckle-down even more and perhaps take down the Brady-Patriots monolith. If Foles succeeded, sports-writers would begin calling Eli Manning the 'new Joe Namath' (since Namath took down the monolith of Unitas's Colts in the past millennium). The drama read like an American spirit pedestrian-daydream sports-fanfare cheerleading party, and everyone was invited. The only one not joining in all this brouhaha was Eagles QB Carson Wentz, sidelined because of a torn ACL which effectively ended his phenom-season. Wentz hoped anyone or any team would take down the Brady-Patriots monolith and carry the 'torch' lit by Eli Manning and his Giants. Wentz started taking bets in Fantasy Football to see who could take down Brady's Patriots --- would it be the Minnesota Vikings, or perhaps the Pittsburgh Steelers, or maybe even the New Orleans Saints? Sports fanfare was consumer-friendly and the sports-fabled film Jerry Maguire and the NFL-classic video game Tecmo Super Bowl became the new favorite Christmas-season 'American Dream' gifts for husbands/boyfriends across the USA.
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