The Cincinnati Bengals were the basement dwellers of the NFL in the 2019 season, winning only two of their 16 games. Two years later, the Bengals are heading for the Super Bowl to compete against the Los Angeles Rams at SoFi Stadium, courtesy of the excellence of quarterback Joe Burrow. Cincinnati capitalised on the draft system in the NFL to use the first-overall pick in the 2020 Draft to select Burrow out of the LSU Tigers.
Over the last two years, Burrow has turned a perennial underachiever into a Super Bowl team, ending their drought without a playoff win that spanned 32 years. The 25-year-old can join an elite list of players to win the Super Bowl in their second year as a starting quarterback if he leads the Bengals to the Vince Lombardi Trophy for the first time.
One of the most common Super Bowl bets will be back to back Burrow to win the MVP award for the game, given that quarterbacks win the gong more often than not he is a sound option to take if lining up a wager on the game. A victory for the Bengals and Burrow would further champion the equality of the NFL system that may hammer home the point about the imbalance that football is experiencing across Europe.
In the Premier League, Manchester City are on pace to win the title for the fourth time in six years. Bayern Munich are on course to win the Bundesliga for the 10th time in a row, while Paris Saint-Germain should close out the Ligue 1 crown for the eighth time in the last 11 years.
Real Madrid and Barcelona have also enjoyed imperious runs in LaLiga, which have only been spoiled recently by the rise of Atletico Madrid. Juventus won nine-straight Serie A crowns before Inter Milan finally ended their imperious hold over the Scudetto.
Football has a problem with the same teams repeating their success over and over again based on their significant resources at their disposal rather than nous and skill. Teams have thrived in the NFL, none more so than the New England Patriots, who won six Super Bowls over a 20-year span, featuring runs of three titles in four seasons between 2001 and 2004 and three in five seasons between 2014 and 2018.
Possessing the best quarterback and best head coach in Tom Brady and Bill Belichick allowed the Patriots to be an outlier from the rest of the NFL, with the rest of the franchises forced to endure the peaks and troughs of the system.
You can argue that football has rewarded the same levels of excellence, featuring Manchester United under Sir Alex Ferguson and now City under Guardiola. However, the examples of the Bengals are few and far between outside of Leicester City’s one-off. In the NFL, the Bengals are an example of a number of teams that have risen from the bottom to the top.
The Philadelphia Eagles won the Super Bowl in 2017 by defeating the Patriots, while the Denver Broncos, Seattle Seahawks, New York Giants and the New Orleans Saints enjoyed rare peaks at the top of the league after significant periods of struggle. Meanwhile, Leicester’s triumph in the Premier League was enjoyable to watch due to the refreshing element of a new team winning the league rather than the usual suspects.
The system in place has ensured that those sides at the top are remaining a permanent fixture rather than subject to the usual ebbs and flow of the high-level sport. For the benefit of the game and fans across Europe, it should be time to address the issue head-on.
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