NYPatsFan

I just heard a stat on NFL Network that 23 teams in NFL history have been undefeated at this point in the season. If the Pats win tonight, they will be the 19th team to be undefeated after 10 games.

The media is unbelievable. They've been hyping the undefeated season for so long now, you forget how many other teams have made it to this point without dropping a game.

It's a good thing the Pats have the "one game at a time" mentality. Otherwise the constant media attention would doom them.

italian pat patriot

anyway i'm excited to see our beloved Pats undefeated...i admit it...

but now let's concentrate only on Buffalo: one game at a time !

Pats726

They did start early Tomase..**hole that he is started the talk way way early..KNOWING how much the hype will be, I think Patriot fans wish to dimisnish it, lessen the pressure and look at one game at a time. I know there have been many other teams to this point..nothing at all special...and what is interesting is that from here on in, EACH team will be wishing to take a whack at the Pats to prevent it...so in effect, it's almost like every game is like a playoff game. BUT that is OK..it revs the team up for teh January playoff run.

bigdgp

The only things being overblown about this is the possibility of it not happening and that it's such a big deal. It wasn't long ago we won 21 games in a row.

Rainy-Day Patriot

Fans will be fans. Media will be media.
Undefeated talk is ridiculous, but so are the fans and the media.

I don't talk about the Pats going undefeated, but it's because I think they are destined to go undefeated, but, if I talk about it, I'll jinx it. If that's not ridiculous, I don't know what is.

Let's say, even though I think it is an overestimate, the Pats have on average a 90% chance of winning each of their remaining seven games. That still puts them at less than a 50% chance of going undefeated. This is math, plain and simple. Unless I crunched the numbers wrong (which is always a possibility), this is inarguable. Of course, we can argue about the 90% premise. I think 90% is liberal, but you may disagree, and neither of us can say for sure. Whatever average percentage you believe, turn it into decimal form and put it to the power of seven, and see what you get. That's the rational schmational thing to do.

Final analysis:
We don't need no stinking rational!

PatsFanInVa

For me the whole undefeated thing hinges on two factors:

- how good are we at beating teams we should beat (actually, pretty good over the years, due -- one would think -- to the "one game at a time mentality"),

and

- How many points do you ascribe to the officiating in the RCA Dome?

The second question is the key to where we stand against the best of the rest. I think it's being generous to say the Colts got 1 TD worth out of the officiating. It was definitely to the point where we threw the ball, and a flag went up. Maybe I'm wrong.

If you call it 7 points for the refs in that game, that "makes us" 11 points better than the closest team we've faced.

Of course you can't go by that, because they might send the refs out to do a hatchet job at any remaining game (for example, Pittsburgh.) If that is not the case, however, I'd say yes, we're at the 50% mark at this point.

9 down, 7 to go, in the regular season, that is.

PFnV

NEPatriot

While the possibility is out there, there's so much media that they have to fill the air and pages with something. I personally try to enjoy the journey and not focus on the destination. It reminds me of all of the "are we greatest dynasty ever" talk.

vyrago

Totally. So let's stop talking about it.

Rainy-Day Patriot

Argh! My math is wrong. Averaging the likely probabilities of the next seven games provides an overestimate compared with finding the probability for each game and multiplying them all together.

Suppose there are two remaining games. One with an 85% chance of our winning. The other with a 95% chance of our winning. The average is 90%.

However, 0.90*0.90 does not equal 0.85*0.95.

0.90*0.90=0.81
0.85*0.95=0.8075

Note to self: Take a course in probability to understand why!
Intuitively, the likelihood of two independent events both happening is
less
when one event has a 100% chance and the other has a 0% chance
than
when both events have a 50% chance.

My overall point is actually stronger. Yippy skippy for me! This blind pig stumbled across a truffle.

BelichickFan

Sure, it's too early considering we aren't even halfway there. However few teams have ever looked this good getting to 9-0 which is why it's difficult not to think about.