Rallying points
This year’s Super Bowl field could leave Trump all atwitter,
Donald Trump spent most of last year’s Super Bowl, according to the bewilderingly brash information source that is his Twitter feed, utterly bored and sensing that politics offered far more excitement than football’s biggest game.
Maybe he had a point. Admittedly, Trump’s resounding comeback at crunchtime of the presidential campaign nine months later offered the kind of remarkable upset rarely seen even in the world of sports.
Yet Trump, who seems to have been at the center of everything written, read and discussed from the kickoff of his campaign right up until his impending relocation to the White House, is unlikely to be so apathetic to this year’s Super Bowl. Whatever the outcome of Sunday’s NFC and AFC Championship Games, Trump will find himself with a link to whichever teams trek to Houston in February for pro football’s ultimate referendum.
If Trump the candidate found Super Bowl 50 a snoozer, the White House’s latest occupant might discover Super Bowl LI far more to his liking, what with so many of his pals potentially involved in the action.
First of all, there is the obvious connection, in the form of a certain New England Patriots quarterback. No one knows for sure whether the relationship between Tom Brady and Trump is or was a full-fledged bromance or simply a convenient acquaintanceship that was seized upon by the incoming POTUS and played for political leverage.
However, few links between a politician and a pinup pigskin hurler have generated more discussion, right from the moment that “Make America Great Again” cap was spotted perched in Brady’s locker in September 2015.
Back then, Brady described Trump as “a good friend” and said it would be “great” if he took office, though that prospect seemed like little more than a Hail Mary at the time. The Patri- ots star has largely kept quiet on the matter since. Trump, though, had no reservations about celebrating his connection with the football icon, telling a pre-election rally in New Hampshire that he had secured the quarterback’s vote and wholehearted support.
Trump is also friends with Patriots owner Robert Kraft and coach Bill Belichick. The business tycoon-turned-politician dined with Belichick and his longtime girlfriend, Linda Holliday, last year and revealed he’d received a letter of support from Belichick just days before November’s victory against Hillary Clinton.
However, it should not be assumed Trump roots for only the Pats. Just like with Brady, Trump also has been a frequent golf partner of Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, as he excitedly detailed to a rally of supporters in the battleground state of Pennsylvania in October.
The timing of that event came at a crucial part of the campaign, just as it appeared Trump’s bid for the White House would be derailed by the release of a lewd recording. Many wondered if referencing Roethlisberger, who had his own problems regarding complaints of his conduct toward women, was a mistake. Yet that didn’t stop Trump, who offered up an odd anecdote of a golf adventure in which Roethlisberger crushed a ball so hard into a tree that the tree subsequently died.
Trump has fewer links to the NFC Championship Game but still has meaningful connections to it. Four weeks ago, he was presented with a Green Bay Packers jersey by Wisconsin political heavyweights Paul Ryan and Gov. Scott Walker, with his name and No. 45 (the number of his presidency) stitched onto the back.
Vice President-elect Mike Pence also was given a jersey, a replica of the No. 12 worn by Aaron Rodgers. Ever since the rally the Packers have been perfect, winning their last three regularseason games and two more in the playoffs, including Sunday’s nail-biter against the Dallas Cowboys, the kind of late campaign run of which Trump is proud.
That leaves us only with the Atlanta Falcons, who host the Packers in the final game at the Georgia Dome, where support for Trump might be in short supply.
When it comes to his current bonds with Atlanta, Trump wasn’t content with getting involved with just a team, he contrived to take on a whole city. Trump’s adversary of choice over the last week has been Rep. John Lewis, who said he’d skip Friday’s inauguration and says Trump’s presidency is not “legitimate.”
Trump hit back with a series of scathing tweets about the city of Atlanta, claiming sections of it are “crime infested,” “in horrible shape” and “falling apart” and that Lewis should spend more time worrying about problems closer to home.
The ruckus was perhaps the only thing big enough to knock the Falcons’ win against the Seattle Seahawks off the front page of the local newspaper, though the city has been gripped with football fever in the days since.
The Falcons are the least storied of the remaining teams with a single, unsuccessful Super Bowl appearance in their history. As the postseason reaches its most critical stage, they are faced with some famous names yet spurred by having confounded their skeptics just by making it this far.
In that sense at least, maybe not so different to Trump after all.