Team Trump: Patriots Enter Super Bowl Joined at the Hip With the President
(T)he Falcons are playing a team where the owner, the coach, and the star quarterback all love and support Donald Trump. So I’d really like them to lose by a score of a million-fucking-thousand to none.
– Bill Maher
It was revealed in a Public Policy Poll earlier this week that the Atlanta Falcons will take field on Sunday night in Houston with much of America in their corner. By nearly a two-to-one margin, fans say they’ll root for the Falcons to turn back the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LI.
There are likely many reasons for this: Fans are often partial to the underdog. (The Patriots are favored by a field goal.) People also don’t want the same team to win all the time. (The Patriots are gunning for their fifth Super Bowl title since 2002. Sunday will mark their seventh appearance in the game during that span.) And the Falcons have established themselves as a fun team to root for with one of the most exciting offenses in all of football.
But one factor which cannot be overlooked is that the New England Patriots are, unquestionably, joined at the hip with President Donald Trump.
As Bill Maher noted above, Patriots owner Robert Kraft, coach Bill Belichick, and quarterback Tom Brady are all friends of the 45th President. Kraft once appeared on The Apprentice, Belichick’s wife, as you can see above, shared an Instagram photo of the couple with Trump down in Mar-A-Lago. Brady once had a Make America Great Again hat on display at his locker.
Indeed, the New England Patriots are Team Trump.
The extent to which the Pats have advertised their connection to the President this week has varied. Brady and Belichick dodged Trump questions during their media session on Monday. Kraft has been more forthcoming.
“In the toughest time in my life, he was there for me when my beloved wife died five and half years ago,” Kraft told Fox News. “He came to the funeral with Melania. He visited me at my home memorial. He called me once a week for a year.”
Trump has been more open to discussing his connection with the team. In a New York Times magazine feature this week, the President heaped praise upon his “great friends,” and even recalled a time when Belichick, the stoic field general, gave him a smooch.
So I go to the Patriots game last year. I’m on the sidelines with Kraft. He’s got Les Moonves right here. He’s got a lot of different people. And Belichick comes over in his Patriots sweatshirt and the hoodie and the whole thing. He hugs me, and he kisses me, and he said: ‘I love you. You’re the greatest.’
It must be noted, in the Public Policy Polling data cited above, that Trump voters are more likely to root for the Falcons than Hillary Clinton voters. (Overall, people are rooting for the Falcons by a 53-27 margin. Trump voters break 56-24 for Atlanta. Clinton voters go 52-30.) It also must be noted, though, that the Falcons hail from a state Trump carried. The Patriots represent a region with six states which were all carried by Clinton.
And so you have the anecdotal evidence like Bill Maher’s anti-Patriots monologue on Friday night. And social media calls for fans to boycott the game because of the Patriots’ Trump ties. And the inescapable fact that the Falcons hail from Congressman John Lewis‘s district.
The numbers may not totally back it up. But we believe this game has become, as the AP put it, a political football.
Photo credit: Instagram
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
