More broadly, the conference championships came down to Intellectual Man, in the person of Peyton, in one game, and Instinctive Man, in the person of Brett Favre, whose Vikings played the Saints in the other. For once, blessedly, Intellectual Man won the day. Instinctive Man, to be a little hard on him—though it’s my own view that you can never be too hard on Instinctive Man—cost his team a title for the second time in three years, throwing an interception (this one right across the grain of the play) that was not merely ill-timed, but dim-witted. Credit to Favre for getting them there, but let us have no doubt that he throws those things not because he thinks he should, but because he feels inside that he can, with predictable results.
Gopnik has another good line in referring to the Jets, “just when they needed the Audacity of Audacity. (Larger life-political lesson here, of course.)”
Yup, a little less audacity of hope and a little more audacity of audacity, that’s what we need.