Can the New England Patriots go perfect?

First of all, I’d like to say here that SKY CABLE may have underestimated its subscribers letting Solar Sports, Basketball TV, Crime/Suspense and the rest. Skycable had the cojones to say that “BALLS” channel is better than Solar Sports or BTV and Fox Crime is better than C/S. Now, I’m going to miss the NFL playoffs, UFC. Hmmm, how about Dream TV?

While I can say goodbye to seeing the NFL Playoffs live, it’s hard for me to disregard what the New England Patriots has done in the regular season- go undefeated, aka 16-0. This is the second time that a team in the NFL has gone undefeated, the first being the 1972 Miami Dolphins (the 2007 version was an awful 1-15!) who went on the win the Super Bowl.

The ’72 Dolphins arrogantly believed that their record would not be broken that they are said to get together and pop champagne after the loss of the last unbeaten team. For 34 years, they did that but this season the champagne remained iced.

Going 16-0 is like going 82-0 in the NBA. While you may argue that it’s easy to get a perfect record in the NFL because they play only 16 regular season games, then you should watch at least one game to know why. The game is so hard on the body that if the NBA were played like the NFL, I bet that there would be no players left on the court to play after 16 games.

The Pats are led by QB Tom Brady, the unanimous Athlete of the Year Awardee, probably the best QB in the NFL, maybe better than Joe Montana. His number one receiver is Randy Moss, who broke Jerry Rice’s record of 22 catches in a season. The team is coached by the “hooded one”, Bill Belichick, the most paranoid of all coaches in the NFL.

Brady wasn’t supposed to be this great. In the second game of the 2001 season, QB Drew  Bledsoe got injured and the 6th round draft pick led the team to 11-5 record and beat the defending champions St. Louis Rams in the Super Bowl. They would win again in the 2003 and 2004 SB but after that they plateaud. They were still great but they lack a player or two to make an SB run.

The Pats were known for a team first philosophy and would not hire players with questionable characters. But after two 3 frustrating seasons, they traded for the enigmatic Moss, a player known to tank when his team is losing. With the Pats, Moss was in a situation akin to Dennis Rodman in Chicago, where he was surrounded by players with accomplishments equal to or greater than his own. In this environment, Moss not only revived a dying career but got the respect of everybody.

Another out of character thing that the penny-pinching Pats did was to go after high priced defensive linebacker Adalius Thomas and wide receiver Donte Stallworth. With Moss on the roster, this made the sports media think that Belichick was on his final ride with the team and that he wanted to go out with a bang! While the Pats seemed to close the season with close games, they beat their opponents by an average of 20 points and were not afraid to run up their score.

But what made the 16-0 titillating was that early in the season, the Pats were accused of illegally taping the offensive calls of an opposing team resulting in 500k fine for Belichick, 250k for the team, loss of draft picks. According to the ’72 Dolphins coach Don Shula, “an asterisk” should be placed beside their record. While they wouldn’t admit it, this “asterisk” became the rallying point of the Pats.

While the Pats still need to win 3 more games to become the first 19-0 team in NFL history, the Vince Lombardi Trophy is still not a sure thing. Just as I didn’t like the Bulls then, I don’t like the Pats now (because they beat my favorite, the Rams!), but I wouldn’t mind them going perfect.