Fred Clark at Slacktivist has an interesting post on the Philadelphia/New Orleans playoff game. The summary version: It is grand that the Philadephia Eagles are in the playoffs. However, so is New Orleans, and they could really use the morale and economic boost more than we could. Then again, if they win, the rest of the country might get the mistaken notion that New Orleans is doing just fine. So, hmm.

I know, I know — it’s just a football game. But I also know this: New Orleans needs this…. [W]hen a team gets into the playoffs, everybody gets on the bandwagon. Everybody. Even if it’s only for something vicarious and of little real-world consequence, that’s a Good Thing.

I guess I found this interesting for two reasons. One is that it hadn’t occurred to me that New Orleans was in the playoffs and that this could help its team (or even that it had a team, as I’m only vaguely aware that the Eagles are in the playoffs because my roommate went to a game last night).

The other thing I found interesting is Fred’s comment that “everyone” gets swept up into the game spirit, much like Christmas spirit. I’ll admit that it’s enough people getting swept up to make a noticeable difference among strangers. That said, my own stunning lack of awareness about football should probably be evidence that not “everyone” really does get swept up. For those of us who don’t care about professional sports pretty much ever, it can be hard to fake it sometimes. And if you don’t fake it well enough, you look like kind of a freak. So I kind of have to imagine that there are some people in New Orleans who are still thinking, “It’s just a stupid football game, and we need more than a football victory here.”

The truth is, though, that no game is “just a game”—there’s something very real and potentially important about the sense of enjoyment and even achievement we get out of entertainment. Pretty much nothing’s going to make me care about football, though, so the best I can do is to hope that New Orleans gets something out of all this, one way or another.