Now that we know which teams will meet in the Super Bowl, I’m sure you are all anxiously awaiting my ruling of who the Official Socialist Pick for the game is…
The obvious storyline of a Chiefs/Eagles matchup, to me, is Andy Reid vs. His Former Team. Reid, of course, coached the Eagles for 14 seasons, including taking them to the Super Bowl in 2004. But his reputation there was always as a coach who couldn’t quite get his teams over the hump, and always choked in the big game (the Eagles lost four NFC Championship games under Reid); the team let him go after 2012. Then he went to Kansas City and, after drafting Patrick Mahomes in 2017, built the best team in football. They won the Super Bowl in 2019, and are back for the third time in four years.
But it’s not obvious which way that cuts for socialists. Should I want Reid to get vengeance on his former employer? Or will that only reinforce the notion that coaches deserve more credit than players for a team’s success?
The other pro-labor argument that stands out is the QB matchup of Jalen Hurts vs Mahomes (the first time ever that two Black quarterbacks will face off in the Super Bowl) — specifically that Jalen Hurts is on his rookie deal, and Mahomes has a 10-year, ~$500 million contract. There are some who will insist that the pro-labor position is to root for Hurts, so that he can earn a bigger payday when it comes time to sign his extension with Philadelphia. But my feeling has always been that socialists should root for teams that have already spent money on their players, so teams realize that compensating labor fairly leads to success.
Both of these have me leaning slightly towards Kansas City, so I think the Chiefs are the Correct Leftist Team to Root For, but I am open to arguments the other way. (Admittedly, I am somewhat biased against teams from Philadelphia.)
Anyway, here’s everything from Undrafted this month:
The Congressional investigation into Dan Snyder was, in most respects, a total waste of the government’s time, but it at least generated a lot of interesting testimony for me to write about. There’ll likely be at least one more piece in this series, so be on the lookout for that….
This was a Martin Luther King Day post about the divergent paths of two civil rights icons. Spoiler alert: It didn’t end great for either of them….
In light of this Super Bowl matchup, it’s kind of interesting to compare the Belichick/Brady relationship to the Reid/Mahomes one. Reid has had far more success without Mahomes than Belichick without Brady, and yet I don’t think many football fans would say Reid is a better coach than Belichick. Honestly, the more you think critically about Belichick’s reputation, the more baffling it becomes…