No one is going to get too bent out of shape—outside of Louisiana, Indiana and Minnesota—when the NFL owners, who are meeting in Atlanta, likely will award Super Bowl LII on Tuesday. New Orleans, Indianapolis and Minneapolis are all worthy cities, and each will get a Big Game in the near future. But my vote is for New Orleans. My five reasons why the decision shouldn’t be that hard:
1. This could very well be Tom Benson’s last time appealing for a Super Bowl. Owners are usually empathetic toward one of their veterans making a case for the Super Bowl. In this case, they should realize Benson likely won’t be part of such a host committee again. He’ll be 90 when the game will be played. He hasn’t been in good health; he just had serious leg surgery last week. It’s the humanitarian thing to give a deserving city, and owner, the game. Now, some would say it was Paul Tagliabue, not Benson, who forced the team to stay when Katrina devastated New Orleans eight years ago. Doesn’t matter to me. What matters is what a good owner overall Benson has been, and especially in recent years, what a good man for the city of New Orleans he has been. Witness his $5 million donation to local hero/ALS sufferer Steve Gleason.
2. It’s New Orleans’ 300th birthday in 2018, when the game will be played. This is a city the NFL went to great lengths to support and protect after Katrina. How can the NFL not give New Orleans the game in this historic year? It’s just the right thing to do.
3. New Orleans has one of the best Super Bowl perks in memory planned for its presentation today. The league has been vocal in its support for a safety program at the youth level called “Heads Up Football.” And if New Orleans gets the game in 2018, the local hosts will build a multi-million-dollar Heads Up Football complex adjacent to the Saints’ training complex and offices in suburban Metairie, with four football fields and a complex that would be used, in part, to teach coaches and players safe methods of tackling and playing football. Very smart move by the New Orleanians. Often, Super Bowl host committees do something overly nice for the 31 other owners in the league. But this magnanimous gesture hits the NFL just where Roger Goodell would want: in its future.