After a week full of Fourth of July festivities, fireworks and unbridled patriotism in America, it must be asked again, which Team is really "America's Team"? The question at first glance seems like a rather arbitrary one, but with football and the NFL becoming possibly the most popular sport and league in America, it raises the question as to what team symbolizes the USA best.
Who are the candidates?
For a long time, the term "America's Team" really applied to the Dallas Cowboys. The Cowboys in the past were successful, interesting, and even patriotic.
Over the past decade though their past quarterback Tony Romo had many failures in clutch moments, causing Cowboy fans to become weary and America to laugh at the team rather than purely cheer for them.
Additionally they had controversy with their acquisition of Greg Hardy, a defensive end who was arrested for assaulting his ex-girlfriend and throwing her on a pile of guns.
Cowboys do have some serious rising stars on the team that have recaptured the country's attention, but over the past decade and more they have had serious failings both on the field and off. The Cowboys have at times felt like they may be representative of the America we do not want; America in its most flawed moments, not what America strives to and ought to be.
The Patriots are also a hugely successful team. Their five Super Bowl wins over the past couple decades have made them perhaps the most recognizable franchise in the league. Their quarterback Tom Brady lives the perfect American life after being overlooked in the draft, he is married to a super model, and he has even been referred to as 'Captain America' jokingly by teammates and analysts.
What could be more patriotic than the name Patriots? The answer is ironically anything; as the Patriots are perhaps the most hated team in the league. It may be because they are too successful, or their coach and quarterback, or because of their alleged cheating scandals. America simply loves to hate the Patriots and their fans.
The case for the Packers
This may come as a surprise, but there is a primary franchise in a hugely popular sports league that actually isn't riddled with corruption, for once. The Packers have no singular owner to make them a lucrative business, which is unlike all the franchises in football and most of American sports. Instead the Packers are, and always have been, a non-profit publicly owned team.
With over 300,000 stockholders, the Packers truly are an organization run by the people and for the people, and isn't that largely what the country is about? While American capitalism is deeply rooted within the country so is the idea of people that participate in their democracy and their own governing.
The Packers are interesting, they are talented, they have a super star quarterback; more than all that they are slightly reflective of what America has strived to be. The Packers really ought to have that label of "America's Team".