The Patriots are in the NFC North? Since when? 
But the Dolphins also played most of the season with their backup quarterback. Lets see the Pats do that.
Won’t mean shit unless they win the Super Bowl. You can’t claim to be the best team ever if you weren’t even the best team that season. Their early-season dominance is gone, the opponents are better, the weather in January figures to largely neutralize the passing game, still plenty to worry about.
It’s been hard to relax and enjoy the Pats’ ride in the Belichick years. The intense focus, the paranoia, the constant (and not always overblown) worry about the next opponent, their ability to play down to the level of the opponent out of what seems to be pure tension (notable in all the dropped balls by the WR’s lately), the team-enforced limitations on celebration and self-congratulation … only the last seconds of the Super Bowl and the victory rallies have really been *enjoyable * moments for the fans.
But I wouldn’t rather be a fan of any other team, obviously.
Even *former * Vikes?
Thanks for Garnett and Ortiz too, btw.
Oh, and part of the reason the rest of the AFC East looks so bad is that they each have 2 losses to New England. Against the rest of the league, not so bad, and even so Buffalo came close to making the playoffs.
I think that most people on the New England team and coaching staff would probably agree with you.
Nah, there’s at least three other divisions vying for that title this year.
And even if we accept your designation, they still had to win 10 out-of-division games. Of those 10 games, no fewer than 4 were against Division-winning teams (Steelers, Colts, Chargers, Cowboys), 1 was against a Wild Card team (Giants), and another was against a team that might be a Wild Card team after today (Browns).
When 50% (or more) of your out-of-divisions games are against teams that make the playoffs, and when 40% of your out-of-division games are against division-winning teams with records of 10-6 or better, you have to be pretty damn good to go 16-0, no matter how weak your own division is.
Well, i’ve only been watching NFL since 2000, so i haven’t seen most of the legendary teams in action. I tend to think, as a general rule, that trying to match teams up against one another across time periods is often a pretty pointless exercise, especially in team sports where it’s very hard to gauge how individual performance and team performance correlate. It’s easier in baseball, where the nature of the game and the complexity and comprehensiveness of the stats allow a certain amount of accuracy in making cross-era comparisons and matchups, but in football and other similar sports it’s never much more than a giggle-and-guess proposition.
As i noted in this thread, however, i certainly believe that Patriots’ record suggests that they are better than the 1972 Dolphins. To rehash my argument from that thread (updated to take the last couple of weeks’ play into account):
If you take the teams that the Dolphins played in 1972, and look at their collective records in all games except the games where they played the Dolphins, their combined record for the season was 78-108-4 (.396). The Dolphins played against a total of two teams that finished the season with winning records.
By contrast, if i’ve calculated correctly, the combined record (after 15-16 games per team) of all the teams that the Patriots have played, in games where they did not play against New England, is 101-79, or .561. Of the 13 teams that New England play this season, 6 are guaranteed to finish the season over .500.
Well, i certainly agree that the Pats winning the Superbowl is no guarantee. Anyone who think it otherwise is kidding themselves.
But i disagree about the Colts match. If the Colts had won that match, it would have been one of the great injustices of the football season. The officiating in that game was a travesty, and just about every close or questionable call went against New England. There was an offensive pass interference call on Randy Moss that had my jaw hitting the floor, and the defensive pass interference rule appeared to apply to only one team. That the Patriots could still beat the Colts under those conditions is pretty impressive.
The eras don’t allow a proper comparison in terms of death since the Dolphins were playing in a league with a lot fewer teams and without free agency. It was a lot easier to keep capable backups on the roster back then.
Having said that, the Patriots did play their backup for most of the 2001-02 season and they still won the Superbowl against a hugely favored opponent. 
Wow, the ability of some New England sports fans to whine about how stressful their life is, even in the face of multiple championships, really has to be seen to be believed.
It’s bad enough that plenty of Red Sox fans continued to complain about the Yankees and the Curse and whatever-the-fuck-else after their 2004 Worlds Series win (hopefully they’ll STFU now that they’ve won it again), but it’s truly incredible to hear complaints like this from fans of a team that has won 3 out of the last 6 Superbowls, and has just become the second team EVER to go undefeated in the regular season.
That hairshirt fit you OK?
Just in terms of size and athletic ability, the '72 Fish wouldn’t even be able to compete in today’s NFL. In a straight up game between the '07 Pats and the '72 Fins the Pats would win by like 70 points.
They’re also probably going to win the NBA championship this year. It must be rough to be a sports fan in a city that wins every championship in every sport.
And Don Shula would whine about it being an asterisk win.
Hey, Dio, not every championship – the Bruins are looking lousy so far.
Don Shula is a dick, and is one of the reasons i’m happy that the Pats won last night.
Well, to be fair, most Americans barely consider hockey a sport.
The Bruins are above .500 unusually late in the season. That isn’t sucking by their own standards, those of a franchise that’s been ruined, in one of the sport’s hotbeds at that, by an ownership that just doesn’t give a shit and never has.
The Celtics haven’t looked dominant against the premier teams. That record could be pretty hollow come playoff time. ’
mhnedo, I did say that I’d rather not be any other team’s fan. I had thought the reasons were clear - nobody else can be relied upon for that sheer joy at the end of the Super Bowl. I wasn’t whining at all. As for the Red Sox, nobody ever *liked * all that losing, no matter what all the pseudointellectual tree-wasters have written. The “curse” wasn’t of the Bambino but of Tom Yawkey and his executors, with their tightfistedness and disdain for pitching (and colored players) for way too many decades. Clear now?
Dio, the sport is different now, so are training methods. You might as well ask if the 1934 Bears could beat the 2007 Patriots as ask about the 1972 Dolphins.
Patriots certainly are on the path towards being considered the greatest team in the Superbowl era. They have to win the Superbowl to cement this, which isn’t a foregone conclusion. However, they have the unusual advantage of having once beaten this year practically all the teams that could stand in their way.
Their division isn’t as bad as you make out. They also have played a rather difficult schedule that includes as many as 7 playoff bound teams out of 16 games.
Not sure where you get the mistaken idea that their defense is “average”. Their defense is top-ranked in almost all statistical categories, including yardage allowed, scoring defense, points allowed, etc. Ditto special teams.
There are no historically great teams with talent to stop top-ranked passing attacks. That is why the greatest teams in the Superbowl era have all been passing teams. Two of the three best statistical teams versus the pass were both beaten by the Patriots this season (Colts and Steelers, ranked #1 and #3 versus the pass, respectively).
If you started lining up other historically great teams, you would find the Patriots, at least statistically, blow them away in practically every category. Points scored, points allowed, difficulty of schedule, special teams, defensive scoring, etc. Even the Patriots running attack fares very well when compared to historically great teams, simply because great teams rarely ever have a great running game.
It is rather rare to have a team that has won so many recent Super Bowls to be in a position to win yet another championship with such a dominant team. It is even more rare to have said team be so under-rated and outright hated/disliked by so many football fans.
You should probably be reading Football Outsiders and Cold Hard Football Facts because your opinions sound ill-informed.
Heh…I was actually hoping we could trade them all off for something more useful, or send the entire team down to LA as a gift (a companion piece to the Lakers). I haven’t liked a Viking since Scott Studwell retired.
Not arguing that they aren’t really damn good. They played a very good schedule and deserve all the credit they get for going undefeated. My point about the weak division, and anyone trying to say it isn’t awful is kidding themselves, is just that divisional games tend to really test a team. It’s almost more difficult to beat a mediocre team twice that knows your team well than it is to beat a divisional champ from the other conference once. In years past it was always an NFC East team that knocked off those dominant Cowboys, Giants and Redskins teams and often a NFC West team that upset the 49ers. Even in 2003 one of the Pats losses was to a crummy Bills team. I think divisional games are always going to be the biggest roadblock to an undefeated season. The Pats were helped by facing such a weak group this season.
Agreed, but it’s still damn fun to consider.
You have a very strange definition of top-ranked. They are a good defense, but they got killed by a few of the better running games in the league. If those teams had better balance I think they’d have been in trouble. The Elway-Davis Broncos, Young-Montana-Craig 49ers, Simms-Morris-Anderson Giants and Aikman-Smith Cowboys all would have really strained this defense.
This is completely asinine. The two teams often considered to be #1 and #2 all-time, the '85 Bears and '72 Dolphins, were pure running teams. By no definition are they “passing teams”. They were ball control defensive juggernauts. The rest of that list is the teams noted above, and every single one of them had a league leading running game. They had elite QBs, but everything they did was predicated on the run. Or do you not consider Roger Craig, Emmit Smith and Terrell Davis to be good running backs in run-first offenses. Even the 2003 Patriots were a run-first team with a 1600 yard RB. There’s basically been one great passing team in the Super Bowl era and that’s the 1999 Rams, and they had Marshall Faulk who still accounted for over 50% of that teams offense. If the Pats win it all this year they’ll have done so with the one of the worst rushing offenses in Super Bowl history, and the other teams who are close aren’t even in the conversation for best ever.
Clearly. :rolleyes:
Umm. Right. They are ranked #4 in yards allowed, will likely be #2 in fewest points allowed … and I have a strange idea of what constitutes a top-ranked defense? Even Football Outsiders has their defense ranked as #7 in the league before last nights game.
Hey, I admire that you won’t let a little thing like the facts get in the way of a spectacular argument. :rolleyes:
Actually wrong. Rather big misconception - the '72 Dolphins was a dominant passing teams in their era. The '85 Bears dominated on defense, their rushing game wasn’t highly ranked.
For example, the 1972 Miami Dolphins averaged 8.63 yards every time they threw the ball. Of all the teams that have made a Super Bowl, the '72 Dolphins rank as the 9th best passing attack. Of the 41 Super Bowl champions, the 1972 Miami Dolphins rank 5th.
Further, nobody … NOBODY considers the 1972 Dolphins the #2 team of all time. That is a silly assertion. Few experts would rank them in the top 10. They played a rather soft schedule, only beating 2 winning teams during their regular season. They were rather large underdogs even in the Superbowl. Their claim to fame is simply not losing, a statistical anomaly more than anything, all things considered.
Again, don’t let the facts get in your way.
I would … again … refer you to Cold, Hard Football Facts. You might also read their discussion of great rushing teams . You didn’t bother to read it the first time, so likely an exercise in futility on my part.
Oh yes - Patriots are averaging 115+ yards rushing every game. That hardly would put them in the category of “worst rushing team to win a Super Bowl”.
You might remember that Bill Walsh said that the most important single statistic for winning football is yards/pass attempt. You can separate the winners from the loser pretty quickly with this stat, and his offenses were built around the concept of efficient passing.
According to that concept, you should expect to see the Patriots vs. Cowboys in the Superbowl. Certainly, if the '07 Patriots win the Superbowl, there will be no denying they are the greatest team in the Superbowl Era.
“Top ranked” means 1st. They aren’t first in ANY category. They range from 4th to 14th in the major categories. They are a fine defense, but they simply are not elite.
More utter crap. The '72 Dolphins had 2 RBs with over a 1000 yards (averaging over 5 yards a carry) and a third with 500 yds. They had a thousand more yards rushing than they did passing. They were an efficient passing team, almost all run-first teams are, that does not make them a passing team
The '85 Bears were ranked #1 in Rushing Yards and 5th in Yards per attempt. You really need to stop saying things that are so easy to prove fundamentally wrong.
Nobody? Really? I challenge you to find a top-10 list that excludes them.
115 yards a game puts them in the bottom 6 of all Super Bowl winning teams. 2 of the teams lower than that were the '01 and '03 Pats. Most of those teams average about 140 yards a game. And that “passing squad” of the '72 Dolphins has the highest at 221 yards per game.
Personally, I think it’s a magnificent thing, and I hope they win the Super Bowl so as to cap the accomplishment.
If there’s anything a sports fan should be able to appreciate, it’s transcendent excellence. I was never an Oilers fan, but to watch Gretzky at his peak was to watch genius manifested in physical form on the ice. It was really like nothing else you had ever seen, and any hockey fan loved to watch the man do the things only he could do. It’s cool to watch records broken, comebacks made, and amazing individual feats. This was one of those cool things.
Agreed, I just wish it had been a more likable group that did it.