A recap of the last couple weeks in the Middle East: Israel blew up an Iranian building in Syria and killed some important Iranian military figures, which led Iran to throw a lot of drones at Israel it knew were going to get blocked. Hopefully, this has left everyone satisfied and this particular channel of the proxy war settles down.
It is important that we equate Israel and Iran this morning to different NFL teams, because otherwise, this blog post titled “The NFL Teams Most Similar to Israel and Iran” would leave the reader wanting answers. Let’s get to it.
My assessment of Iran’s current government is that it sucks and we all hate it, that it’s repulsive and a nuisance and just kind of all-around bad. Some might expect me to equate Iran to the Bears, given my longstanding love of making fun of the Bears, but that isn’t fair to either party. The Bears are North Korea. They’ve been controlled by the same family for way too long. They can acquire useful things (nukes, Jay Cutlers) but that doesn’t make them a real threat. They are willfully delusional and spectacularly dumb. There are similarities, but it’s a different flavor. There’s no religious zeal motivating the Bears. They’re just goofs.
No, Iran is not the Bears. So who is Iran?
Iran is very hyped. Iran is also very ready to back down. This “attack” was so heavily advertised that CBS cut into the Masters to talk about it, like the Masters was some unwatchable college basketball tournament and the attack was an English mother of three announcing she has cancer. All that attention, and the drones didn’t even kill anyone?? This is exactly how the Jets would respond if Israel killed three of its significant commanders. They would talk so much. They would put up no fight at all. Iran is the New York Jets.
Israel, then…
If Iran’s the Jets, Israel must be the Patriots. They win a lot. There are a ton of conspiracy theories about them. They were a huge underdog when they came onto the scene. Everyone in their geographic division wants them gone. A whole lotta people hate ‘em, and a lot of those folks hated ‘em even before they started winning. We forget that Boston sports fans used to hold the same station as Philadelphia sports fans in the eyes of the broader public. In 2000, a lot of people already hated Boston sports fans. Much as it unfortunately goes for Jewish people. Me? I don’t hate either of ‘em. Give me a Nobel Peace Prize, because I think New Englanders and Israelis are both human beings. And yet. I also don’t have any need to defend Spygate or settlements in the West Bank.
Most importantly, for the comparison, these are two big rivals, and one is in charge of making sure the other never becomes a threat to the broader world. Generally, they’ve taken care of that.
