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January 31, 2000
NFL paritybestowsRams aschampionsAt least we got a good game. But did we get a true champion? Yes and no. We got a true champion in the sense the St. Louis Rams survived the NFL's annual playoff. In any tournament, every team but one loses its final game. The team that doesn't lose its final game is the tournament winner. By virtue of that fact, the Rams are the champions of the NFL. It's better than Division I college football where a champion is decided by polls and BCS ratings, and a lot of bowl and television money. But what does an NFL title mean today? What does it mean when two teams like the Tennessee Titans and the St. Louis Rams play for the Lombardi Trophy? In a sense, the Rams are not true champions. True, the Rams burst on the scene in the 1999 season, went 13-3 and then eliminated two NFC opponents in the playoffs before holding off the Titans 23-16 Sunday night in Super Bowl XXXIV. But the "best" team in the NFL lost to Philadelphia and Detroit during the regular season. The Rams lost to one of the worst teams in the league, and one of the more mediocre teams that, in the latter stages of the season, became one of the worst. Oh, by the way, they also lost to the Titans. To a certain extent, the line between winning and losing in the NFL has always been a narrow one. At a level where the talent differential from the best to the worst has always been relatively slight, any team can beat any other team. A lot depends on who's ready to play the game that day. Play the game a week later, and you could have a different result. In today's NFL, the margins are even narrower. It was no longer sufficient for a lowly, last-place team to just have a chance at beating the best teams in the league on any given Sunday. Now the the lowly, last-place team can be one of the best teams in the league -- in just one year. Rams quarterback Kurt Warner completed his dream season Sunday and completed his rise from Hy-Vee stockboy to NFL MVP to Super Bowl MVP. In doing so, Warner -- a backup to Trent Green in the preseason -- took the Rams on a fairy-tale journey that mirrored the one of their quarterback, winning the franchise's first NFL title since 1951 when the Rams were still in Cleveland. This is parity. Pete Roselle, somewhere, is smiling. Parity diminishes the crown. The crown is tarnished by the Rams winning the Super Bowl, or any team winning the Super Bowl. Here's why. If the two teams played next Sunday, the Titans could just as likely beat the Rams. Jacksonville could beat the Rams. Tampa Bay could beat them; the Vikings could beat them ... OK, well, maybe that's going too far. That's why we can be hesitant in calling the Rams true champions. With the Rams' victory comes no affirmation. There's no feeling that, beyond any shadow of a doubt, this was the best team this season. The only fact we know for certain is they were the best team Sunday. Parity hates dynasties. Parity loves mediocrity. So in a league that has some of the best athletes in the world, we have no dominant power. The dynastic reigns of the Green Bay Packers in the 1960s or the Pittsburgh Steelers of the 1970s are barely remembered. Parity is not a conspiracy. It is not an evil; neither are salary caps and free agency. It is just part of the business of football today. And make no mistake, football is a business first and a game second. Football, at all levels, is a violent game played by violent men. The essence of football is still the same -- a game determined by the acquisition and defense of territory. But there is no longer a spirit in the game at the professional level. Instead, it is spectacle; it is entertainment. What better entertainment than the story of a team -- downtrodden, one of the league's worst in the decade of the '90s -- that rises to the pinnacle of the sport? It's a TV movie of the week played out in front of millions of fans for 17 weeks. Warner will be hyped as the game's best quarterback, the Rams will be hyped as the game's best team. But the game's best quarterback and the game's best team were separated from defeat only by an incredibly stupid decision by the Titans to go for two, and one yard. That's how fleeting fame and NFL supremacy are in these days of parity. Column by Journal Sports Writer Bob Varmette
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