Would you rather: Championship or sustained success?
I’m probably asking the wrong fanbase this question, but it’s something that always makes me think as a sports fan. Would you rather see your team win a championship and be relatively irrelevant for a long period of time, or have a 10-15 year stretch of great football – playoff appearances, division titles, etc. – without a championship?
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Being from New York, I’ve seen the New York Giants win two world championships in less than a decade. Their last world championship in the 2011 season has been their only playoff appearance in the last six years, while averaging eight wins a season during that span.
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Yeah, it’s cool to have the Super Bowl dvd’s and posters, but after awhile it gets old. Nobody wants to continuously watch the same game over and over again. I want to see new wins, not a game I already know the outcome to.
I know I sound spoiled, but I’d trade the last Giants championship for more meaningful football games over the last six seasons. Especially the last two years in which the team has basically been eliminated from playoff contention by Thanksgiving. Not to mention an 0-6 start in 2013.
On the flip-side, we’ve seen it with a couple of franchises that couldn’t get over the hump for awhile. The Indianapolis Colts and Peyton Manning for the longest time were the number one or two seed in the AFC, but always had trouble getting the job done, until their Super Bowl XLI victory over the Chicago Bears finally brought validity to their era of dominance.
The same can be said for the New England Patriots before their Super Bowl XLIX victory over the Seattle Seahawks. They went a decade without a championship, but dominated year after year while losing to lesser Giants teams in the Super Bowl.
This thought always comes to mind because I’ve heard so many fans over the years say “before I die I just want to see my team win a championship.” Every fan deserves the feeling of a title win at least once, I agree. To be honest though, the feeling lasts for that night, the next morning is pretty awesome watching highlights, the parade follows a few days later, and then it’s the offseason.
I’m not saying I would turn down a championship, but expectations these days are what have you done for me lately. If I told you the Cleveland Browns would win the Super Bowl this year, but be a bottom dweller for the next decade, or be serious title contenders for a decade and watch great football without a championship, what would you take?
I can’t wait to read the comments on this one.