Winning in the NFL on a weekly basis is difficult enough, let alone winning four straight games in the playoffs against the best teams in the league. Generally speaking, the team that wins the Super Bowl deserves the right to be called the best. The Baltimore Ravens earned that right by beating the San Francisco 49ers this year, but Frank Gore is not willing to fully admit that.
“It’s tough,” the Niners running back said Sunday according to ESPN.com. “I just feel like we [were] the better team. They got away with one today. We showed we were the better team. It was just a couple plays here, a couple plays there.”
Any Super Bowl is bound to come down to a couple plays, but I disagree with Gore that the Niners showed they were a better team. If anything, they showed that they were completely outmatched until the stadium lights went out and things seemed to turn in their favor.
“I think we’re the better team,” Gore said. “[I’m] just happy the way we kept fighting. Any other team probably would’ve just laid down, and we let people know what type of guys we’ve got in the locker room, type of warriors we are. It just didn’t happen for us today.”
Gore has every right to be proud of what his team accomplished, but it seems like we have at least one person who pulls the “the better team lost” card every year. Last year, it was Baltimore linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo who refused to give credit to the AFC and NFC champions. Would the Niners have beaten the Ravens three out of five times if the two teams played a series? It’s possible, but this is the NFL. The team hoisting the Lombardi Trophy at the end of the season is is No. 1.
