I think Tom Jackson said it well on ESPN last night. An unproven quarterback like JaMarcus Russell of the Raiders will simply not get the same calls as a proven, established qb like Tommy Brady will. One of the other commentators pointed out that the same thing occurs in the NBA with players like Jordan, Bryant, and LaBron James. They get calls that other, lesser players won't.
A totally agree. The have to protect their meal ticket.
I'll take it a step further and say the same thing occurs for teams as well. Established teams like the Patriots, Steelers, and Dallas will get calls (and media hype) that other, lesser teams will not. And by lesser teams, I mean teams that don't regularly see the playoffs or win superbowls.
Here, I disagree. If you look at the stats for number of penalties and penalty yards of each team, you can see that its pretty mixed up and really the "established" teams dont really fare any better as far as numbers go. I mean, to say that teams like the Patriots, Steelers or Cowboys get special attention when it comes to calls is just wrong. First of all, the Patriots
(those dirty rotten...) defense has the second most penalty yards against it and is tied for second with the most penalty calls against it. Their offense has 24 calls for 195 which is about average. Second, to imply that the Steelers dont get bogus calls against them means that you didnt watch the game last night, hahah.
I dont think any teams get special attention from the refs. Honestly, I think the refs make plenty of terrible calls on both sides of the ball, no matter the team.
As for media hype, I disagree here too,
to a degree. First off, I'm sure the reason that the teams who do better more often get more media attention is because they excite people and excitement sells. Who gets excited wondering how awesome the Rams are going to be this year? I dont blame the media for this
too much, I mean, they're trying to sell papers and who's gonna spend money to read about a team that they know is going to stink or has NO chance of being a contender during the next season?
But seriously, there are plenty of mediocre or worse teams who get all kinds of coverage and all kinds of hype.
Look at the Bills. What have they done lately? The Vikings? The Jets? Heck even the Lions. All of the hype from each of these teams can be attributed to ONE player on the team, and we all know which one it is for each of those teams.
And of course a team like the Steelers are going to get hyped, they just won the Super Bowl. The Pats, Giants, Colts, they all seem to be teams who have been at the top of the pile in recent years. Thats the price you pay when you are a Champion.
I mean come on, look at all the hype Romo and Dallas get every year. When's the last time they won a playoff game? Right. So what's the reason for all the hype and attention? It's the fact that the franchise has a slew of superbowl wins.
The Cowboys on the other hand, I'm not sure how they get hyped every year. I don't think that it is because of their 5 Super Bowls. If it was solely that, like you suggest, then why are the 49ers not hyped every year? Its almost like people have
forgotten that the 49ers have 5 Super Bowl wins too. No, the Cowboys get hype I think because Jerry Jones has a zillion dollars to build the Cowboys a 500,000 seat stadium on the sun or whatever... though they havent won a playoff game since 96...
"America's Team"? That says a lot about "America", doesnt it? I think it also has to do with the fans. I mean, there is no denying, people from Texas are insane, in more ways than one, and there a lot of Cowboy fans out there, add the two together and BAM, instant hype! Yes, these poor, misguided folks are out there.
And if it sounds like I'm whining, I'm really not. I know compared to some other non-superbowl-winning teams, the Eagles actually get a lot of attention. However, we don't get nearly the attention and hype that other franchises get. But, we don't deserve it! We don't deserve to be talked about when it comes to superbowls because our franchise hasn't shown that we can win them.
Dude, I dont know
what you are talking about here, I hear about the Eagles WAY more than I should. It's like
every year some Blogster "Expert" is picking them as the NFC rep and ultimately the winner of the Super Bowl. I dont know why. This year was even worse with all the Vick talk. Yet another example of how one
infamous player can draw a boatload of attention to one team.
