Nobody bitches when a WC wins the Super Bowl.
I disagree that nobody does, we have on here before.
But I think there are a couple of differences.
(1) We are used to having series in the NBA, and we know we can't get that in football, so we are willing to accept the flukiness of any sort of football playoff.
(2) the NFL playoffs are so much smaller, that at least you went through the bulk of more deserving teams to get there. A Wildcard that reaches the Super Bowl beat 3/5 of the other playoff teams from their conference, and the way the bracket is set up, almost certainly they were 3 of the 4 division champs. In the NCAA basketball tournament, you only play 5 of 31 teams on your side of the bracket, and there's no guarantee they are even the good ones. Like when George Mason made their run, even though they weren't one of the best 4 teams, they did go through Michigan State, North Carolina and UConn to get there, so we more accepted it. But the way things happened this year, it wasn't the teams that made it that knocked off the top teams, other teams knocked off the top teams, then Michigan and Loyola knocked off those teams.
(3) I was never talking about legitimacy of a champion. You have to be both lucky and good. That was my point about Purdue. I think they still are the best team in the Big Ten, but they didn't get the scheduling luck MSU had during the regular season; or other teams knocking of all the big boys luck that Michigan had in the postseason, so they are going home. I was simply saying as a neutral fan, I was a little bummed about the caliber of basketball we were stuck with on Thursday/Saturday. It was a shell of what we saw on Friday/Sunday, and as a fan, I feel a little cheated there. And that does carry to the NFL. I was bummed we didn't get a Patriots-Steelers AFC Championship. I have a little Warriors-Cavs fatigue at this point, but I'm glad we didn't get Warriors-Raptors or something last year.
