makewayhomer

exactly!! who "the best" team is is not an easy question to answer. once you come to grips with the fact that the best team is not always the one holding the trophy at the end (b/c of various things like referees calls, bounces of the ball, etc), you'll be able to analyze sports in a much more interesting intelligent way.

TomBrady'sGoat

too results oriented? the problem with invoking luck or happenstance as a big decider is that if a team deserves to win it will put the game away and remove late ame luck from the equation. If San Diego had not made other mistakes then NE would never have been in that game. If NE could have held a 21 point lead we wouldn't have watched as an Indy receiver fumbled just to have the ball fall right back into his arms, and we wouldn't have started swearing about how freaking lucky Indy was.

Colts are #1 as evidenced by the trophy they're displaying and the fact that Peyton, Dungy, Harrison, Wayne, Freeney, Sanders, etc. are returning. Did they lose a couple guys? Yes. Are the losses they suffered devastating? No.

As for the Chargers, we have no idea how they'll respond to last year's failure and a new coaching staff. They can put it all together or fall apart. They cannot play as undisciplined as they did against NE and expect to defeat NE and Indy in the playoffs.

The Broncos have a big question mark at QB. They look really good and they can win it all but I cannot put them ahead of NE, Indy, or even SD with a questionable QB situation.

Baltimore has a geriatric quarterback in charge of an awful offense. Their defense is good but not enough to carry that offense. They'll beat bad teams do well against good teams, but can't match up with teams that have both good offenses and defenses. And when you get to the playoffs those are the teams you play.

The Jets will fall back a little this year and I cannot take KC seriously. Jacksonville will continue to hover in the good-but-not-great realm, with an upside of making the playoffs and winning one game at most.

PatsMyBoyz!

You don't need the "best" assemblage of talent to win,the Pats have proven that. But the only true predictors we have are results. You can't predict the effect intangibles may have on winning,you can't predict the breaks along the way but you can make reasonable assumptions based upon certain measurables and past results/experiences.
In many ways the 01 TEAM was my favorite,but I didn't necessarily predict them to beat the Rams at that time but they did. Therefore they were the best. Utilizing talent,coaching,intangibles,heart,guts,confidence all came into play. I'm proudest of that team. Compare to the 04 TEAM who was the best in all phases, and the results confirmed that.
Based upon all that we know already,predicting the Pats is sound as is predicting the Broncs as a close 2nd or tied.
Also,based upon past experiences/results we know how unlikely it is to repeat a SB. We also know that the Colts haven't been able to upgrade much because of the cap situation so we can probably safely predict they won't do it again but the immeasurables and the breaks have yet to be determined because they can't be at this time. That's why it ends up being about results.

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MARQUISE HILL
1982-2007
RIP

SamBam39

I agree that the pats win in ways that aren't easy to understand to the media. most people just look at talent. the pats have a great philosophy, team approach, they out-work people, they practice situational football and are sometimes better prepared, and they have the best coahing there is. They have incredible gameplans and make great adjustments - that's all part of the formula that produces winiing - not just talent.

but we can't look at those things and just say therefore - that the pats should be the favorites every year despite lesser apparrant talent, so what we do when projecting for the coming season, is simply look at talent, and then sometimes the pats win anyway because of all those other things.

that's why I ranked the chargers the highest last year, because purely based on talent, with all those probowlers and play makers, they were hte 'best on paper'. I realize that doesn't make them the best, and that's why the pats won, and the colts won it all, but that's just what we use to rank them.


by the way, when you have us ranking the pats as the team to beat on paper before a season like some of us may be doing now, and then you combine all those other ingreients that they have - the intangibles that help them win, they start to look pretty formidable for the coming year.

Remember, last year they lost Branch after the season started and were surprised. This year, they have from now until the season starts to practice.
Stallworth, Welker, and Washington will be doing pretty well already by the time the season starts, and remember we'll still have Caldwell and Gaffney who are already in sync. we'll be fine and ready to go when the season starts.

I think the pats are gonna rock next season!

Tunescribe

OK, you tell me: You're suggesting that Buffalo was better and lost on bad luck. So, what made the Bills the better team that year? Player talent? Player talent doesn't always equate to the best team. A team is more than that, as I said -- chemistry, system, philosophy, front office acumen and coaching are just as important. An excellent argument could be made that the Giants were the better TEAM in Super Bowl XXV because of how Belichick's innovative defensive game plan kept a powerful Bills offense in check.

Certainly, luck can play a factor and occasionally it decides outcomes, but it is not a CONSISTENT indicator of who is a better team. Consistency of results over time shows who the best team is.

Back to Super Bowl XXV: I think when it gets to playoffs and championship games, the better overall team almost always wins. Cream rises to the top, and at that level the differences aren't that great. One team might have great talent and average coaching, another might have average talent and great coaching. One might not be obviously better than the other, so yes, had Buffalo won SB XXV they legitimately could have laid claim to being the better team.

PatsMyBoyz!

Here's one intangible that's really not so "intangible" so I'll factor it into my "prediction"... for a multitude of reasons the Pats are absolutely driven this year. Actually "driven" may be too mild a word. Whatever it is,jmo but I'm not sure we'd have it to this degree if we'd won in 05 or 06.

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MARQUISE HILL
1982-2007
RIP

PatsFanSince74

IMO, they were the team that played better in the 60 minutes they both had. were they the better team that day, or the best team in the NFL? i don't know and the record book doesn't care. were the patriots or the chargers the better team in san diego in January? i'd argue that the chargers were, but that the patriots played better, when it counted, that day. and, yes, they had a little luck especially when that brady fumble fell at his own player's feet.

luck and intangibles play a big part in this which is why Bob Carroll or K. C. Joyner or Football Outsiders can only take us so far with their analyses (which I enjoy and respect and only wish I had more time to dig into). They all give us a way to quantify the talent on the roster from different perspectives, but it is only predictive of part of what will actually happen on the field.

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makewayhomer

no, I'm not suggesting anything about who was better - I'm saying that you need to look past the final score of one game if you want to get an idea of who the better team is.

on one hand who the "best team" is doesn't matter, b/c fans care about getting the trophy.

on the other hand, if you want to try to predict what's going to happen over the next 16-19 games, then you're making a huge mistake to look at the "undisciplined Chargers who were lost to the Patriots" and ignore the Chargers that destroyed their opponents last year, were the best team in football over 16 games, leading the league in point differential.

evendelae

Hopefully this is welcomed. There's so many question marks and intangables surrounding the Broncos this year, I really don't think you can rank them accurately. They have a brand new QB, new additions to te offense in Henry, Graham, and offensive line personnel changes; and in defense, you have the addition of Bly (who knows how driven to play well he is), and "Big Daddy" Wilkinson, who might retire due to knee concerns. Add to that the huge amount of speculation that Shanahan wants to move into the top ten (no, not just normal speculations, it's coming from all over. Apparently there's already been two deals made and they fell through at the last minute, involving the #2 and #6 picks). And lastly, this team will be dealing with the deaths of two teammates this offseason.Darrent Williams died in Javon Walker's lap, so who knows how he'll do this year. Another WR, Brandon Marshall (very talented, I really hope it doesn't screw him up) was reportedly there when both teammates died. So this team is a true question mark. Absolutely no one knows what the Denver Broncos will do in 2007. It's really almost impossible to predict.

KontradictioN

I'm going to take a lot of flack for this list, but...

1. COLTS: Defending NFL champions. They are the best until next February.

2. BRONCOS: I've listed them at number two because they made the most offseason moves right next to us. And, the bottom line is that they have our number until we do something about it. Look for Jay Cutler to really come on next year.

3. PATS: We've improved at our weakest position last year (WR) which, along with LB, took the most blame for our loss against Indy. I think the defense will improve during the draft and next year will be a very good year for us. We'll probably start off a little slow (3-1, 4-2) but I think we'll come on at the end of the season.

4. RAVENS: A stout defense and McNair in his second year. Clayton grew up at the end of last season. Billick will have a full season to call the plays. But McNair is aging. He will lead them to the second round of the playoffs, but no further.

5. STEELERS: Talk about a team that isn't getting any respect. This team won the Super Bowl two years ago. The only reason they blew last year was because of the kind of year that Roethlisberger had off the field. Very talented team and a very stiff defense. They have two holes... the first being Joey Porter and the second being Bill Cowher. If they can replace them, watch out.

6. CHARGERS: Well, Rivers will be in his second year, LT is there, and the defense is pretty much the same. However, they lost more than half of their coaching staff from last year and that's going to be pretty tough to overcome. I can't wait to watch the Pats beat the **** out of them.

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CREDIT - Sicilian