Last night, the Philadelphia Eagles outscored the favored New England Patriots 41-33 to win Super Bowl LII. The blue states of New England wept, while the rest of the nation rejoiced at the upset of golden boy Tom Brady’s dynastic team. It was a wild game, with a number of records or near-records. Among them was Tom Brady passing for 505 yards, and the Patriots amassing 613 yards of offense. In contrast, Eagles quarterback Nick Foles passed for 373 of his team’s 538 total yards.
Yes, indeed, the Eagles were outperformed on offense, but managed nevertheless to win.
Lest you think this is an unprecedented occurrence that should lead to the abolition of scoring as the arbiter of victory, consider that, just two years ago, in Super Bowl 50, the Denver Broncos, who defeated the Carolina Panthers 24-10, gained 194 total yards to the Panthers’ 315.
No one is whining about the injustice and unfairness of the rule set that allowed this tragedy.
Yet, here we are, more than a year after Trump upset Clinton to win the White House, and some cranky folks on the Left are still refuting the legitimacy of the outcome because Clinton got more total votes than Trump did.
Eagles head coach Doug Pederson called a brilliant and gutsy game, but one wonders if he’d have managed his game differently were the contest to be decided by yardage rather than points. Indeed, the Eagles rushed for 27 of their 71 offensive plays – would Pederson have opted to pass more if he knew that total yards mattered?
For that matter, 9 of 16 kickoffs were downed in the end zone for touchbacks, rather than being run out for yardage. If return yards counted towards the game victory, wouldn’t the game have been played differently?
Obviously, if the national popular vote decided the presidency, the candidates would have campaigned differently. In addition, voters would have behaved differently. We don’t know how many voters in non-swing states opted to stay home, because they knew the rules of the election.
So, if you’re one of those who brings up Clinton’s popular vote majority every time Trump does something you don’t like, just stop. It’s childish, it’s petulant, and it means nothing. And, if you think that this outcome is a reason to abolish the Electoral College and the state-by-state Presidential election system it represents, take a breath. Mucking with the system because you don’t like one outcome is a sure way to destroy it. Besides, there’ll be another election in 3 years. You know how the game works, so play accordingly.
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