The "Needs vs Wants" Theory: Super Bowl LVI Edition

When it comes to the Super Bowl, I take a look at the two teams playing I decide who I want to win, you know, like a normal person would right? This year is a little bit different for me, because I kind of want both teams to win this year for entirely different reasons. Let me explain what I mean.

You remember back when you were younger and you first learned about the "Needs vs Wants" argument you had with your parents? Like you'd go to a Target or something and you'd see the toy you've always wanted, and you go to your mom and you like "I WANT THIS TOY MOM!!!" But alas, your mom kills whatever hope you may have with the reply, "You don't need this, you just want it." And then after that phrase is uttered you consider the fact that you may not ever trust your mother ever...ever...again. Point is, I have a team that I want to win the Super Bowl, and a team that I need to win it.

WHO DO I WANT TO WIN THE SUPER BOWL?

The Cincinnati Bengals are who I want to win the Super Bowl. The main reason is that I am a sucker for the classic underdog story. What would be cooler than to see a team like the Bengals go from just being happy to win their first playoff game since the first awful Bush was in office, to winning the Super Bowl all in one playoff game. And it's just fun to see a small market team like the Bengals win their first Super Bowl? Also, Joe Burrow and Ja'Marr Chase are awesome and should be a big time threat for years to come.

Also, I fucking hate the Rams as an organization. Stan Kroenke is a terrible owner and person, and I hate that this rams roster has been mostly bought rather than developed by their coaching. That's not a jab at McVay though, the Rams are doing what a lot of teams in the NBA are doing, just buying up all the big names as possible to try and win a championship. This team doesn't draft first rounds picks, their practically fucking allergic to them. They just pawn them so they can get the next big name out there for trade. Just in the last two years, the Rams have traded for Jalen Ramsey, Matt Stafford, Von Miller, and OBJ. That's not developing a roster that's some New York Yankee or LA Lakers "sign every big free agent available" type of bullshit. 

BUT I NEED THE RAMS TO WIN BECAUSE OF ONE REASON

This reason is very very specific and not even remotely related to any of these two teams. It has everything to do with one thing, and one thing only, slandering Aaron Rodgers. There's been a lot of newcomers to the "Fuck Aaron Rodgers" train this year for various reasons, and to that I say welcome aboard, we have fun here but we're also sad most of the time. But Aaron Rodgers has had a direct effect on my (and pretty much every Vikings fan's) happiness and general mental health for the last twelve years or so. Aaron Rodgers has been at the very least, a top two Quarterback in the league for over a decade now, and as much as I loathe the man, I have to give my respect to him for his abilities, because he will be a Hall of Famer when he decides to hang it up. 

(This should be his hall of fame bust BTW)

But the man has one significant black mark on his legacy, and its the fact that he only has one Super Bowl win under his belt and hasn't been to one since his first one back in 2010. If the Rams win on Sunday, and Matt Stafford gets his first ring, the amount of ammo that I will fire off on Twitter completely devaluing the legacy of Aaron Rodgers will be legendary. It will be my Magnum Opus, my Masterpiece, whatever you want to call it, I will spend the night slandering Aaron Rodgers until I'm fucking blue in the face. And it won't just be me either, I have no doubts in my mind that Aaron Rodgers legacy devaluing will be happening throughout NFC North fandom.

This is all I really want out of the Super Bowl this year, besides an entertaining game and for the halftime show to be good. Just give me one evening of slandering QAaron Rodgers and it will be my own personal happy ending of football season. 

The 2022 NFL Playoffs Proved One Thing: Don't Change The Overtime Rules

The NFL Playoffs have proven a lot of different things to me this year. First thing, is that playoff football can be fucking awesome to watch. QAaron Rodgers choking in the playoffs again, Matt Stafford making his first Super Bowl in his first year out of Detroit (LOL Detroit), the Bengals improbable run from just being happy to get their first playoff win in over 30 years to now being a win away from their first Lombardi Trophy, and let's not forget the absolute fucking instant classic between the Bills and the Chiefs, football never fails to make me fall in love again despite the NFL's best efforts. Speaking of the Chiefs, while their super bowl hopes were destroyed thanks to a well blended mix of Joe Shiesty and Andy Reid regressing back to his days without Patrick Mahomes as his QB with this level of choking, they did bring into a light an extremely controversial topic in the NFL over the last couple years, the NFL rules regarding overtime.

What's the issue at hand here? Well for those of you reading this who have only ever lived under a fucking rock, first off, how the hell did you get here, but to help you out a bit, here's what happened.

 After the aforementioned Bills vs Chiefs game people were very upset with the fact that the Chiefs won the coin toss in overtime and scored a touchdown on their first drive to win the game, meaning Josh Allen never had a chance to get the ball and try to score. Now, certain people among the sports world claim that the only way to avenge teams that lose these overtime games is to completely copy the overtime rules for College Football so that we can get score lines like this forever.

Now I'm here to tell people that changing the NFL overtime rules to be the same rules as college football would be the wrong move. While the idea of a multi-overtime NFL playoff game sounds  amazing on the surface, I think that people aren't taking player safety into account. One good multi-overtime game doesn't do much for me when players are getting injured and fatigued during that game, then have the next game to be an absolute fucking STINKER because too many players are out or still recovering from the previous game and it's either a blow out or a slow moving and low scoring game, fuck that.

On top of this, I don't think it's that big of a deal that Josh Allen didn't get the ball back. This is professional football not college. If the Bills defense, who by the way finished the regular season as the #1 defense in the league and was specifically designed to STOP PATRICK MAHOMES, can't stop Patrick Mahomes, then why should you automatically get the ball back? Nothing should come easy in this league, you should be fighting like crazy to get your offense the ball back. Get a stop, force a field goal, force a turnover (like the Bengals did against the chiefs of all teams, wow what a concept) do ANYTHING you fucking can to get your offense the ball back, it's a team game after all.

Now that whole rant that I just went on isn't to say that the current overtime rules can't be improved upon. I think that the biggest issue right now is that current rules have far too much emphasis on the flip of a fucking coin. So what needs to happen is that you either make it so the coin doesn't mean as much, or just get rid of it entirely. The two proposals that I think could work in the league's favor and add some extra entertainment to the league are as follows (there's more than two proposals in the article that I linked but shut up about it). The first proposal is call the spot and choose rule, where the coin flip is still involved but not nearly as decisive. After the coin toss, the team that won it will choose a spot on the field to start and then the team that loses decides whether to go on offense or defense, and then standard overtime rules go from there. The second proposal is called the field goal gamble, which involves all skill and no coin. The home team gets to choose a spot on the field to kick a field goal, and then the away team decides who kicks the field goal. If the kicker of said team makes it, they get the ball to start overtime, if he misses then it's the other team's ball to start.

I understand the frustrations behind the overtime rules, really I do. If you were the Chiefs in 2018 against the Patriots, the Saints in 2019 against the Vikings, or the Bills this year, you're upset that you didn't get your shot. But switching to the college rules isn't the answer, the current rules are fine as they are, just a couple of tweaks here and there and baby, you're golden.