A lesson for us all from the NFL

I like football, but don't always watch the Monday night game unless there is an especially intriguing match up. Sometimes, at the outset of the season, when the NFL schedulers start putting together these games in hopes to draw larger television audiences, they get it right. Sometimes they don't. Last night, New England traveled to Baltimore to take on a Ravens. At the end last season this looked like a match up that may hold the keys to home field advantage for the AFC playoffs. Now it looks like one team on the verge of absolute greatness and another stumbling through each game.

The Ravens knew they were playing an undefeated Patriots team some are calling the greatest they have ever seen. They new there chance at a playoff berth had long ago passed them by. They also new that if they had any hope of winning it was going be by hitting the Patriots square in the mouth. They didn't win, but they certainly hit the Patriots in the mouth.

I admire that perspective. The Ravens had little to play for and were out matched in most every category, but they fought and fought hard. When the game had ended they had nothing left to give. They barely lost, and they were pissed. They should have won. As a spectator you could seen their pain. There were tears on these men considered to be modern gladiators. In a world that has made us skeptical about professional sports, this game showed some one, or better some team, still cares about winning and loosing. The punishment they dealt to each other on that field was only surpassed by the pain they felt in defeat. From that we can all learn.