Perhaps the greatest vice of American television – and please remember that it also spawned reality TV, Fox News and Donald Trump – is to personalize even team sports as if only one actor mattered. For example, an ad for a basketball game on the eve of the Super Bowl might say, “LeBron James and his Lakers play against Steph Curry and whose Golden State Warriors.” For football final previews: “Can Joe Burrow his Lead the Bengals to victory?” And in flashback, Kobe Bryant is still praised for his egomania, for genuinely believing his team could only win with him: “There is no ‘I’ in Teamvery well but in Win.”
Me, me, me – that’s the mantra in US team sports, but it also works the other way around: If you don’t win a title with your team as an individual, you’re considered incomplete; he can have been as good as he wants. Basketball player Charles Barkley: no title, and he is ridiculed for it to this day. Quarterback Dan Marino: no Super Bowl win. Ice hockey goalkeeper Henrik Lundqvist: no Stanley Cup triumph. Baseball legend Harmon Killebrew: no World Series success.
Rams quarterback Stafford didn’t win this Super Bowl alone
Matthew Stafford played for the Detroit Lions for 12 years. He was there, everyone was pretty sure, one of the best playmakers in the league – but not only didn’t he win a title, he didn’t even manage a playoff win. You could say: Okay, it’s the Lions, they’re legendary losers; the only club that has existed since the beginning of the Super Bowl era and hasn’t even reached the Super Bowl yet. But at some point on US television it was said: Stafford and his Lions are losers, maybe he’s not that good, he’s definitely overpaid. It stuck in people’s minds: Brady, seven-time Super Bowl winner, is a winner; Stafford is a loser.
One thing Stafford never did: complain about Detroit or the Lions. During the summer break he asked for a change, cautiously and on the grounds that he would like at least one chance in his career to win a title. He came to LA, and when things didn’t go well for a short time during the season due to arrivals, it was immediately said: Stafford and his Rams, they don’t win anything. Sure, it must be because of him, this legendary loser.
Stafford didn’t win this Super Bowl alone. He played solidly (three touchdown passes, but also two interceptions), but the most valuable player was pass recipient Cooper Kupp (two touchdowns, a total of 99 yards gained), and defender Aaron Donald made the decisive moves at the end. The most important message therefore: Stafford is a Super Bowl champion as part of a really good team in a team sport. It is only questionable whether they see things the same way on American television and whether they are conveying the message to the children in this country that you can only win together with others.
