Don’t get me wrong. I love Super Bowl Sunday and everything it has to offer its viewers. But to be 100% honest with you, the grand prize they hand out at the end of the game is a little too overvalued. Yes, you read that right, but let me explain my reasoning.
The symbolism and the award itself is the highest honor you could earn in professional sports. However, the outcome of one game shouldn’t have an impact on a player’s entire legacy. It’s unfortunate that nowadays, so much of a player’s worth is determined by how many pieces of jewelry he wears on his hand.
For example, when referencing an athlete’s chances of making it into the Hall of Fame, how many times do you hear people say “well, let’s see how many championships they won”? For reasons I’ll never understand, people always seem to make Super Bowl rings the one and only deciding factor
when it comes to the validity of someone’s Hall of Fame resume.
An Unbiased Experiment…
Okay, here’s a little game for every NFL stat geek out there. There’s three former NFL players, labeled A, B,
and C. Without giving away their names, here’s a little overview of their career statistics…
The table above shows the playoff resume of three hidden NFL players. As you can see, player A is the only one from the three listed to have actually won a Super Bowl. Players B and C never won a ring, but both managed to make it there.
If you want to go by the scoring rubric that rings always determine who the better player is, lets put that theory to the test right now. As you can see, by that logic clearly player A is better than both player B and player C, right? Now if you still believe that, don’t change your mind when I reveal the names of each player. With that being said…
A is Quarterback Joe Flacco
B is Quarterback Donovan McNabb
C is Quarterback Jim Kelly
The Key Takeaway
If you were one of the people that chose player A, do you still think that Joe Flacco is a better player than Donovan McNabb and Jim Kelly? Despite not winning a Super Bowl, Kelly and McNabb both had better careers statistically. But for whatever reason, in today’s world, we see Super Bowl wins as the deciding factor. Winning and losing one game somehow determines whether or not you deserve a gold jacket.
Jim Kelly just recently made it into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and he retired in 1996. McNabb, who has more career passing yards and just three touchdowns fewer than Kelly, still hasn’t heard his name called in Canton. He has both more rushing yards and rushing touchdowns, and fewer interceptions. It doesn’t make sense to me that he isn’t in.
But this article isn’t about Donovan McNabb. It’s about overhyping Super Bowl rings. If we’re only talking rings, Matt Stafford and Eli Manning should be Hall of Famers, right? Dan Marino shouldn’t have his bust in Canton. He never won anything. If losing the Super Bowl doesn’t make you a credible candidate for the Hall of Fame, we need to reevaluate how we conduct our voting.