We judge the quality of a team by winning and losing, and that’s a good thing, we have finality. If the ball bounces off the upright and in, our team is superior and has performed memorable feats. If it bounces out, then our team is inferior and the weaknesses glare. This is, of course, a dreadful measure of quality. The fact is that if teams play an even game, as they often do, then the teams are of about the same quality. That’s boring, but true. There are too many variables—injuries, chance, unique plays—to really say much else. I don’t discount that winning close games is a critical attribute for a team, and Belichick and his Patriots excel at this skill like few others, but still, if you play a very close game there’s limits to how much better you can really say you are than your opponent.
Second, NFL teams fluctuate in the quality of their play during a season and often the best team down the stretch, the eventual champion, is not the best team during the season. It’s quite common—the 2007 season, 2006, 2005, 2003 (certainly early), 2002, 2001, … hell, it seems to be the general rule these days although we all ignore it in week 10 year after year. Whoever the consensus best team is in week 10 is unlikely to be the best team down the stretch. In the evaluation of playoff quality, Sept-Nov has little relevance.
So, how good were the 2007 Patriots down the stretch? Well, if we use the flawed but emotionally satisfying analysis of winning or losing, they were great. But winning is a whimsical evaluative tool. Reviewing weeks 12-17:
31-28 Eagles
27-24 Ravens
34-13 Steelers
20-10 Jets
28-7 Dolphins
38-35 Giants
...think back through just these games—how good was this team? They looked pretty average in three or four of these six games, despite their magnificent accomplishments of pulling out the wins. Imagine how your opinion might have changed if, by relatively minor changes in history of little relevance to the overall quality of the Patriots, they had lost one or two of these games (or three).
And so let’s take the playoffs—they looked pretty good against Jacksonville, for the most part, but all-time great? Against San Diego?
So, what I’m thinking is that despite all the hoopla, and despite all our deep-seated desires to have our team be “Great”, maybe the 2007 Patriots team that went to Arizona just wasn’t THAT good. I mean, they were pretty damn good, hell they almost won a Super Bowl, but maybe they just weren’t this all-time great team that we wanted them to be, not during the stretch run of the season.
Of course if they had won none of this would matter, and we’d pleasantly allow victory to rule our judgment. But they didn’t, and so it goes.
I think this makes me feel a little better about the loss, somehow. I know I had a sinking feeling down the stretch, many of us probably did, in those close games against mediocre teams (Ravens, Eagles, Jets), against the Chargers, that this supposed all-time great team wasn’t quite acting that way anymore. The teams that are remembered as all-time greats, they steam-rolled down the stretch—check out the ’85 Bears playoff scores: 21-0, 24-0, 46-10. Maybe the Patriots just weren’t one of those teams, not this year, not down the stretch. And maybe it’s not that they choked or blew it, but that they just weren’t as good as the Giants, and they lost.
Second, NFL teams fluctuate in the quality of their play during a season and often the best team down the stretch, the eventual champion, is not the best team during the season. It’s quite common—the 2007 season, 2006, 2005, 2003 (certainly early), 2002, 2001, … hell, it seems to be the general rule these days although we all ignore it in week 10 year after year. Whoever the consensus best team is in week 10 is unlikely to be the best team down the stretch. In the evaluation of playoff quality, Sept-Nov has little relevance.
So, how good were the 2007 Patriots down the stretch? Well, if we use the flawed but emotionally satisfying analysis of winning or losing, they were great. But winning is a whimsical evaluative tool. Reviewing weeks 12-17:
31-28 Eagles
27-24 Ravens
34-13 Steelers
20-10 Jets
28-7 Dolphins
38-35 Giants
...think back through just these games—how good was this team? They looked pretty average in three or four of these six games, despite their magnificent accomplishments of pulling out the wins. Imagine how your opinion might have changed if, by relatively minor changes in history of little relevance to the overall quality of the Patriots, they had lost one or two of these games (or three).
And so let’s take the playoffs—they looked pretty good against Jacksonville, for the most part, but all-time great? Against San Diego?
So, what I’m thinking is that despite all the hoopla, and despite all our deep-seated desires to have our team be “Great”, maybe the 2007 Patriots team that went to Arizona just wasn’t THAT good. I mean, they were pretty damn good, hell they almost won a Super Bowl, but maybe they just weren’t this all-time great team that we wanted them to be, not during the stretch run of the season.
Of course if they had won none of this would matter, and we’d pleasantly allow victory to rule our judgment. But they didn’t, and so it goes.
I think this makes me feel a little better about the loss, somehow. I know I had a sinking feeling down the stretch, many of us probably did, in those close games against mediocre teams (Ravens, Eagles, Jets), against the Chargers, that this supposed all-time great team wasn’t quite acting that way anymore. The teams that are remembered as all-time greats, they steam-rolled down the stretch—check out the ’85 Bears playoff scores: 21-0, 24-0, 46-10. Maybe the Patriots just weren’t one of those teams, not this year, not down the stretch. And maybe it’s not that they choked or blew it, but that they just weren’t as good as the Giants, and they lost.
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