How Super Bowl III taught us never to trust conventional wisdom

Every Super Bowl Sunday reminds me of a few things, especially arriving in the US not knowing a thing about football, and the problems with believing in conventional wisdom.  

I learned about football in a few months watching Bart Starr hand off to Jim Taylor.  

I learned about the pitfalls of conventional wisdom, too.

On this day in 1969, conventional wisdom had the Colts destroying the Jets in Super Bowl III. However, the Jets upset the Colts 16-7 and Joe Namath forced us to take the AFL seriously.   

I’ve always thought of Super Bowl III whenever “experts” make predictions, such as Hillary Clinton is going to be nominated and win the next election. According to a recent poll, she has the biggest lead ever in pre-nomination history:

“Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 61-point edge over Joe Biden in new Washington Post-ABC News polling makes her the single biggest frontrunner for a Democratic presidential nomination in the history of the poll, an affirmation of the conventional wisdom that the nomination is hers for the taking.”

Maybe these are the same “experts” who said the same thing back in 2008! Or the same ones who picked the Colts to beat the Jets!

Let me say it again.  Every Super Bowl reminds me of that Sunday afternoon in Wisconsin when my dad, brother and I watched Joe Namath prove the experts wrong.  

I hope that Hillary Clinton is not working on her acceptance speech or figuring out what White House aide is going to keep an eye on her husband!

It’s way too early to figure out 2016.  My guess is that the nominees may not be people that we are talking about in 2014. 

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