This was a great way to end the season though.....the Giants played tough, and I called it. I said they would win but it wouldn't be easy. That Brandon Jacobs is a steamroller!
And Eli looked pretty darn good too.
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Best regular season in football history. Even if the patriots don't in the superbowl, this is the best team the NFL has ever seen. No other team has beaten such a collection of talent, ever. Parody struck the NFL, so the patriots only played one truly awful team (miami), while beating the #2, #3, #4, and possibly #6 seeds from the AFC, as well as the #1, #5, and possibly #6 seeds from the NFC.
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As a Cowboys fan it kills me to say this, but I think there is no chance that the Pats won't win the Superbowl. (Especially considering TO's recent injury.)
I was pretty proud of Eli Manning last night, though. At least they made the Pats work for it. I was afraid, with everyone saying the game didn't matter, that the Giants would rest their regulars and essentially hand the game to NE. That would have ticked me off royally. I would have been screaming, "Asterisk!"
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The reason they play the games is to decide who is the best team. You don't decide the best team by saying, "They beat such and such yesterday." That's just saying who the best team was yesterday.
I am far from certain that the Patriots will will the Superbowl, but I would not be surprised. They've just come too close too many times lately to losing to pretty mediocre teams. Time will tell.
It would be interesting to see how things would've gone if the regular season was longer back in `72, though.
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"The reason they play the games is to decide who is the best team. You don't decide the best team by saying, "They beat such and such yesterday." That's just saying who the best team was yesterday."
Yup. And the best team this season is the patriots. They might LOSE a game, but it won't be to a better team. It will be to a team that plays much better that day.
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quote:Yup. And the best team this season is the patriots. They might LOSE a game, but it won't be to a better team. It will be to a team that plays much better that day.
Nope, the season isn't over, so you can hardly say who the best team has been. You can say who the best team is now, and has been so far, but that's quite different.
By your curious reasoning, the best runner in a marathon isn't the one who wins, but the one who ran the best before the end of the race. The 'better team' is the team who actually wins, and you win in the end, not in the regular season.
I'm not saying the Patriots aren't an exceptional team, even outstanding and extraordinary. I'm just saying that, barring extraordinary circumstances such as death or injury, they aren't the best team this season unless they win the Superbowl.
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quote:Originally posted by Paul Goldner: Best regular season in football history. Even if the patriots don't in the superbowl, this is the best team the NFL has ever seen. No other team has beaten such a collection of talent, ever. Parody struck the NFL, so the patriots only played one truly awful team (miami), while beating the #2, #3, #4, and possibly #6 seeds from the AFC, as well as the #1, #5, and possibly #6 seeds from the NFC.
Are you high?! They play in the AFC Least! They played SIX games against the three worst teams in the NFL!
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Miami's role this year was to make the Jets, the Bills, and the Patriots all look better than they actually are.
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No, the Dolphins succeeded in ruining the symmetry of it all, the bastids. If they had kept an all-lose record, it would have been the perfect mirror to the Pats' perfection.
Also, if anyone has an issue with the Pats player who poked the other player in the eye, my husband has this to say:
If that other player had used the Three Stooges Block, he would have been fine. Ha ha. We chuckled over this image for a long time today.
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Wilfork was out of line, and I say that as a Pats fan. There wasn't intent to hurt, but it was a personal foul, and we were lucky it wasn't called.
I guess it makes up for the BS celebration call that led to the Giants TD return earlier in the game.
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We kept bursting out in giggles, then my son continued the story. The other guy, after the eye-poke, would grab a big two-by-four and crack it over the eye-poker's head, and so on.
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Loved watching that game (the Pats vs. Giants). It was well worth watching.
Mostly loved them doing the back-to-back long pass plays from Brady to Moss (after the first one was incomplete). That was awesome.
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"Nope, the season isn't over, so you can hardly say who the best team has been. You can say who the best team is now, and has been so far, but that's quite different.
By your curious reasoning, the best runner in a marathon isn't the one who wins, but the one who ran the best before the end of the race. The 'better team' is the team who actually wins, and you win in the end, not in the regular season."
Other then the 1972 dolphins, no team has EVER won all their games. The best team each year, in any sport, loses games. The dallas cowboys of the early 90's lost 4 games in a year once, and yet people consider them one of the best teams of all time. The 1942 bears did not win the championship that year, yet they were clearly the better team then the redskins. The 1985 bears lost a game, to a non-playoff team. The buffalo bills of the early 90's were easily one of the best teams ever, yet they NEVER won a super bowl.
In other sports, its much more common for the best team not to win the championship. Things can happen in a short series, or one game, and those things do not tell a whole story... they tell the story of one game. Remember the mariners of 1998? They won 116 games in the regular season... and didn't make it to the world series. Wild card teams have won the world series a lot of different times over the last decade, in baseball... by definition, the wild card team is not the best team in the league.
Playoffs don't determine the best team. The totality of games played by a team determines who is the best team. And the best team, ever, based on a variety of methods of looking at football, are the 2007 new england patriots. Obviously, that will get colored in perception if they do not win the superbowl. But the patriots broke the single season scoring record... obviously in an era of high points allowed, but they ALSO had the fourth best scoring defence, and the third best points per game differential of all time. And the teams with BETTER points per game differentials played far easier schedules. Yes, it is true that the patriots beat up on the AFC east (which only has 2 awful teams, not three. The bills beat some good teams this year). But they also beat 6 playoff teams, including all three of the division winners in the AFC, and the the number 1 seed from the NFC... and remember, they won three of those four games on the road. They also beat the 5 and 6 seed from the NFC, as well as a 10-6 team that did NOT make the playoffs, in the browns.
Look at their list of opponents
Indy Dallas Pittsburgh San Diego Giants Cleveland Washington Buffalo twice Miami twice Jets twice Philly Cincinatti Baltimore
Thats an easy schedule? No. Its FAR harder then the 1972 dolphins, who INCLUDING their playoff run, had one of the easiest schedules of all time.
Look at the parody around the NFL right now. With the POSSIBLE exception of miami, there's no team that can't beat any other team if they get the right breaks. That wasn't true until the late 90's, so any schedule after 1995 is going to be a tougher schedule then prior to 1995, and usually by a LOT.
But, really, the argument is summed up thusly: Statistically, no other team has ever been better, and no team this year is CLOSE to as good as the patriots. The patriots might lose. It happens. The best teams always lose a game. But losing in the playoffs is statistically no different then losing the first game of the season, and if you want to be objective about determining the best team, you can't value one game more then the others. Winning one game does not make you better then your opponent. It means you beat your opponent in that game. There is no team in the NFL right now that couldn't beat the patriots, with a few breaks, or the flu hitting the patriots the day before the game, or by making a couple spectacular plays. That does not mean that, given the right set of circumstances, miami, or washington, or tennessee, is a better team then the patriots. If the patriots get knocked out of the playoffs by washington or tennessee, you could argue that those teams are better then the patriots. It would be a freaking stupid argument. And thats essentially what you are trying to argue. That one game can determine who is the best team.
None of us has ever seen a better team then the new england patriots this year, and nothing that happens in the playoffs will change that. They might not win the championship, but neither did some of the other best teams of all time, both in football, and in other sports.
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Hrm. I thought they lost to the giants. Anyways, the point stands, and you didn't actually address the argument. You found a factual error. Apparently, then, the 1985 bears were worse then the 1985 dolphins.
Thanks for playing, your post is irrelevent.
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Take away the Jets and the Dolphins, and the Buffalo Bills were 3-9 over their remaining schedule. Oh yeah, a .250 team. They weren't awful at all. What was I thinking. Even playing a quarter of their games against the two worst teams in the NFL didn't give the Bills enough of a head start to get to .500 for the season. Think about that. Half of the wins they needed for a .500 season were given to them, and they couldn't pick up the remaining four.
The Bills also ranked 30 out of 32 in offensive yards per game this year (below the Dolphins and Jets, in fact). They also ranked 30th out of 32 in offensive points per game this year (below the Dolphins and, in fact). The Buffalo Bills also ranked 31st in yards allowed per game this year (worse than the Dolphins and Jets, in fact). In fact, the only major category, other than wins, of course, in which the Bills outperformed the Dolphins and the Jets was Points Allowed per Game, in which they were a most excellent 18th in the league.
The Bills were clearly better than the Dolphins and the Jets, because they beat each of them twice. The only other games they won were against Baltimore, Cincinatti, and Washington. Of those three, the one with a winning record was Washington, who plays in the weak NFC.
The Bills were ab awful team, and only playing in the AFC East hides that.
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I didn't address the argument because in a post filled with that much talk, I have to take it one thing at a time. Also, because you're argument that the best team isn't necessarily the champion is not one I disagree with--Did you really think you were all that insightful? Did you really think you were the first to discover that the transitive property can't be applied to sports?!--but it's one that's irrelevant. More on why later.
posted
As for the weak schedule of the 1972 Dolphins, it was weak for exactly the same reason as the 2007 Patriots. Eight of their games were against division rivals. Of course, part of the reason for the bad records of the people in the AFC East that season was that they each had to play the Dolphins twice. It goes both ways. Outside of that, the '72 Dolphins only played two teams with losing records. And in the playoffs, they played the 10-4 Browns and the 11-3 Steelers (pretty much the basis of the team that would go on to dominate the rest of the 1970s). And then they beat the 11-3 Washington Redskins. What was wrong with any of that?
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Now, your point. As I see it, you have two. One is obvious, and the other meaningless and unverifiable, and a matter of opinion.
The best team doesn't win all of its games, nor does it necessarily win the championship. Conceded. The 1973 Dolphins were by all accounts better than the '72 Dolphins, but they didn't happen to go undefeated. The '74 Dolphins, by most accounts, were better than either, but they lost in the playoffs to the Raiders. Ohio State lost to Illinois, Illinois lost to Iowa, Iowa lost to Western Michigan, and Western Michigan lost to Ball State. Therefore, Ball State should play for the Bull Crap Series National Championship, right? Of course not. Nobody really thinks that way.
But this is why the NFL (or any league) doesn't crown anybody The Best Team. No team has ever won that distinction in any sport with the possible exception of the XFL. Leagues crown Champions. Who is the best is undeterminable, and just a matter of opinion. Instead, what people care about is accomplishments. Going undefeated is an accomplishment. Winning the Superbowl and being the champion is an accomplishment. If you go undefeated and don't win the Championship, like the two Chigago Bears teams that did it, that's a pretty lame accomplishment. If you have a perfect season, that's an unbeatable accomplishment. If the Patriots win the Superbowl, they will have equaled the accomplishment of the Dolphins, which is pretty damned impressive. If not, then nobody will give a crap that you think they are the best team ever. They will be losers who won when it didn't count but lost when it counted most. They will not be forgotten, but they will be a joke, and the answer to a trivia question. Nobody but their fans will call them the greatest ever.
Which brings us to your second point:
The 2007 Patriots are the best team Evau. *shrug* I disagree. There is no way to prove it. My favorite flavor is chocolate.
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"Also, because you're argument that the best team isn't necessarily the champion is not one I disagree with--Did you really think you were all that insightful? Did you really think you were the first to discover that the transitive property can't be applied to sports?!-"
Nope. But the argument that rakeesh is making relies on the best team being the one that wins the superbowl.
Do you want to get in a "who can be a more condescending a-hole" fight? because you seem to have started one.
"As for the weak schedule of the 1972 Dolphins, it was weak for exactly the same reason as the 2007 Patriots. Eight of their games were against division rivals. Of course, part of the reason for the bad records of the people in the AFC East that season was that they each had to play the Dolphins twice. It goes both ways. Outside of that, the '72 Dolphins only played two teams with losing records."
Wow. 14 minus 8 equals six. 6-2 equals four. The dolphins played four teams with a winning record to get to 14-0!
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Take away two games the Jets lost to the Dolphions, and the Jets had a winning record too. See the thing is, when you're really good, then all those teams you beat have losses. To you.
As for being a condescending asshole, take a look at all of your posts. Frankly, all of them on this forum. I started nothing.
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"They will not be forgotten, but they will be a joke,"
I've never heard anyone refer to the 1942 bears team as a joke. A team that didn't win the championship? Yup. A team that didn't complete the perfect season? Yup. One of the greatest teams of all time? Yup. But a joke? No.
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Rakeesh was doing the same shorthand we all do: knowing that we can't compare quality in any meaningful way, we compare accomplishments instead. You can tell yourself you're the smartest kid in school, and you may be. But if you don't have good grades, it's just talk. So we call the kids with good grades "smart". We say, "If you're so good, prove it. Accomplish something." And then we look at the actual accomplishments as a measure of how good any person or group actually is. Can weak people of groups overachieve? Can strong ones underachieve? Of course. And Rakeesh knows this. But he's right. If the Patriots don't even win the Superbowl, people will laugh at the idea that they're the best team ever. Whether they really are or not.
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quote:Originally posted by Paul Goldner: I've never heard anyone refer to the 1942 bears team as a joke. A team that didn't win the championship? Yup. A team that didn't complete the perfect season? Yup. One of the greatest teams of all time? Yup. But a joke? No.
I've never heard them referred to as anything but an answer to a trivia question. They don't seem to make the conversation when we talk about the best teams ever.
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"As for being a condescending asshole, take a look at all of your posts." " I started nothing."
I refer you back to your "are you high" post, and rakeeshes "your curious reasoning" post, both of which preceeded me saying that a particular argument is "freaking stupid."
Your facts are wrong.
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Incidentally, the 2007 New England Patriots also played fewer than half of their games against teams with a winning record.
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"They don't seem to make the conversation when we talk about the best teams ever."
All last week in the lead up to the giants-patriots game, they were in EVERY conversation about best team ever, on ESPN, NFL network, NBC, FOX...
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The only reason they're in the conversation now is as a statistical oddity: because they had an undefeated regular season. If New England weren't unbeaten, the Bears unbeaten teams wouldn't be in the conversation.
Here's a pretty decent indicator, I think. ESPN.com's Page 2 did a column about what they thought the ten best teams ever were:
They received thousands of letters disputing their selections, and so they did a second column on who their readers thought were the ten best teams ever:
posted
Farmgirl, what do you think? Maybe if Icarus does the eye-poke, and Paul counters with The Three Stooges Block, then Icarus hits Paul over the head with a crowbar, but it glances off Paul's head and rebounds back and hits Icarus, then Paul pours some hot tar on Icarus, and he falls down in a bunch of feathers, wouldn't everything be OK then? It might seem like Paul has gained some advantage, but we know he will step into a bed of quicksand in the next moment, and will have to hold on to dear life by the end of Icarus's necktie. Icarus will feel compassion, try to help, and fall in the sand himself. Both will be rescued by a disgusted Moe, and all will be well.
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