In his iconic feature for Rolling Stone, “Fear and Loathing at the Super Bowl,” Hunter Thompson predicted the demise of pro football. Tired of the plodding, robotic dominance of the Miami Dolphins in 1973 — as opposed to the more liberal and acrobatic passing attack of Al Davis in the 1960s — Thompson saw the whole Lombardi template pushing away the public as quickly as the Packers sweep trampled defensive linemen. The sport was finished by 1984, wrote Thompson.
The good doctor, while a prose master, was acutely wrong about the NFL. But it hasn’t stopped the media or the masses from morphing into psychics.