First,
let me just say this will be a long thread, but it's worth all the reading and words.
Anyway,
Who were some of the least liked champions in sports history?
By that, I mean teams that were either loathed/hated by many or dull, boring, and uninteresting to many.
Some of it's personal, some of it is from reading information.
Here are my choices:
1990 New York Giants: While the reigning SB champs had the feel of an underdog and a lot of people rooting for them and the 1986 team was a wrecking crew of a team that left fans in awe, I could not say the same about the 1990 team.
I know they had a fierce defense and played an all-time classic SB against the Bills, but IMO, they felt like an 9-7 team disguised as a 13-3 team.
Spurs- pick a year, any year. Nobody was watching most of their series- the ratings were awful. Tim Duncan is like ratings poison- when he plays in June, the ratings are on par with New York Islanders games, and that's NOT a good thing.
1997 Marlins- The 2003 team, like the '07 Giants, had that feel of a team many people could root for. Also, unlike the 1997 team, they kept their key players for at least a few more years.
While the '03 team could be cheered by many because they went against the almighty Yankees, I doubt many people wanted to see a team a few years old win a title. Oh, yeah, and they beat Cleveland- like I could root for a team of players that seemed like they wouldn't stick around for a while.
(If anyone brings up the D-Backs of 2001, big difference. That team had been building for a few years- this Marlins team was put together on the fly.)
1995 Cowboys- This falls under the 'team many love to hate/couldn't stand' category. This isn't personal, but more from a 'I remember what others said' view. Jimmy Johnson's two SB teams were a silent winning machine that had a bit of attitude, but not all the time. They talked big, but not gigantically big.
Barry Switzer's team, OTOH- talk about attitude! Big mouths, big money, flashy players, glitz, glamour, on TV all the time (and that's just the commercials!) and a confidence that bordered on cockiness.
Remember the signing of Deion Sanders? It was viewed like "the Whopper going to McDonald's."
Here are some quotes that sum up how many people felt about this version of the Boys. These are from actual newspaper articles, not my personal thoughts:
"These Cowboys simply have too many good players, too much bad money and too little taste."
"their fans are smug and insufferable."
"their cutesy pie, dancing, prancing receivers and especially their too-rich-for his-own-good, gazillionaire owner Jerry Jones.
What person in their right mind would pay Deion Sanders $35 million to play football?"
"it's their fans who really drive me over the edge.
I work with a couple of them. They gather at water fountains, in hallways on Monday mornings whooping it up about how the Cowboys walloped some unworthy opponent.
They hug and yap it up about victories like little girls talking about their first kiss."
"The Cowboys, and Jerry Jones in particular, need to learn that money can't buy happiness, money can't buy friends and money can't buy Super Bowl titles."
"How do we loathe thee - thee being those stinkin' Dallas Cowboys?
How about for their smug, superior, we're-the-Cowboys-and-you're-not attitude? Make you want to slap somebody?"
I'll conclude this thread with how Michael Irvin views a trip to the SB:
"The way Irvin sees it, the Cowboys going to the Super Bowl is the Cowboys going home.
``It`s our house. Last year we just let somebody borrow it,`` he says. ``Now we`re going to go check it out, see how it was left, see if it`s dirty . . . and then take it over again. We`re going home.``
Well, that was long.
Anyway,
feel free to react and give your choices.
