Underdog in Sports: Do We Need to Rethink How We View the Underdog?

The underdog has been winning in 2010-2011 like no other.

The Dallas Mavericks beating the Miami Heat.

The Boston Bruins beating the Vancouver Canucks.

Japan beating USA yesterday in a game USA let slip through their fingers.

The magical and very improbable UConn run.

Auburn being led by a QB who just came out of junior college to a BCS championship over an extremely tough Oregon team.

The San Francisco Giants not only making it to the MLB Finals, but winning it as well.

The Packers were a very good team, so it's hard to call them the underdog. However, they did barely sneak into the playoffs and put together an amazing run most people didn't see coming.

The underdog has been running rampant in sports this last year. 

So the question is: Do we need to take a look at how we view the underdog? It's hard to say.

The underdog is always a fascinating topic in sport. When you have teams like the Miami Heat, which have two of the best three players in the game, it's hard to bet against them. However, we also have to take the whole team factor into play. That's where the underdog comes in.

A team can have all the talent in the world, but if they don't play together as a team and capitalize on their opportunities, it doesn't matter. 

It's easy for anyone to sit back and say that most of the analysts and odds makers where wrong, but that's not exactly the case. In their position, most of us would have said the same things they said. 

Intangibles are very tough to measure, but they're also what wins championships. 

I think we should start looking deeper into teams as a whole in the future. Talent is nice and is needed to a certain degree. However, "Hard work beats talent if talent doesn't work hard."

How do you guys feel about the underdog? Do we view it in a wrong light?

Please leave a comment below.