Beware Betting On The Aggrieved Football Team

I am not a gambling man. But if I were a gambling man, I would take everything I have and put it against the Miami Dolphins and Minnesota Vikings this weekend.

Why? Because they fall squarely into the category of Teams That Have Spent Too Long Being Annoyed About Horrible Calls.

For their part, the Dolphins are still steamed about not being awarded Big Ben’s fumble in their loss to Pittsburgh on Sunday:

"For the game to end like that and us to get the raw end of a deal, it hurts," Miami safety Yeremiah Bell said…

"If it looked like the ball was loose, play it out," (QB Chad) Pennington said. "Don't throw your hands up in the air, especially in the last two stinking minutes of the game."

I sympathize with the Dolphins, as I do the Vikings, who were told by the league yesterday that Visanthe Shiancoe’s reversed touchdown call was the wrong call. If that call had been made correctly, the Vikings would have won the game. Brad Childress called it the worst officiated game he’d ever seen (failing to mention that he could have challenged an earlier Packers TD to help the Vikings).

Again, I understand why it would make a team angry all week long to be the victim of such lousy officiating. Games are tight. Teams are even. The refs in the MIA-PIT game never should have blown the whistle on Ben’s non-touchdown. Those teams were screwed, the Fins most of all.

But you only get the day of that game to complain. Any team that complains for days after being victimized is bound to get crushed the next week.

It’s the same in college football. If you complain about your BCS ranking during the week, you will get knocked off by an unranked opponent the next Saturday. It’s a mortal lock, which is why you never hear Boise State play the victim card. They know it would be their downfall.

This isn’t fair, karma wise. If you get hosed by the refs one game, you should totally get payback the next. But football doesn’t work that way. In football, if you get hosed, the Football Gods will MURDER you if you dare speak of it. You are to keep your mouth shut and then maybe, just maybe, luck will turn your way.

But open your mouth and say what’s really bothering you? DOOM.

So beware the Dolphins and Vikings this week, children. History is never on the side of the aggrieved.

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