Polian takes swipe at Pats...

[shmessy]

Do you honestly think the Patriots would have won the SB had they tanked a game at the end of the 2007 season??
It's funny how many Patriot fans take that for a given. Not me!!
IMO the Patriots lost the SB not because the pressure of undefeated got to them but because they peaked too soon and played their best football before December that year.
Tanking a game at the end of '07 would have taken the edge completely off that team, a team that wasnt playing all that well at the end of that season. If BB tanks a game in 2007 I believe the Chargers would have beaten us in that very close AFC championship game.

The Patriots lost the Super Bowl because their coaching staff had to lose half their Saturday giving depositions to NFL attorneys.

 

[MillCityPatFan]

What bothers me is nobody (that I've heard anyway) has given the Colts' situation a proper moniker as it so richly deserves...so let's hear some suggestions?

Quitgate?
Surrendergate?
Paintergate?
Poliangate?

Someone can do better than me

 

[Ice Cold Bruschi]

Re: Polian takes swipe at pats..

That rotten sonuffab|tch

 

[RhodyPatriot]

That's an incredibly defensive reaction on Polian's part. He must really be feeling the heat.

You know it!! Chicken Little is reeling from his coast to coast pounding.
Does it get any better for BB and the Patriots when they see Bob Kravitz calling THEM "noble" for going after perfection as he's slamming PoliOn and the Indy Chickens in the Indy Star? Ouch!!!
No wonder Chicken Little is so unhinged and targeting the Patriots with his demented rants.

 

[BelizePats]

If Payton busts his hand on a helmet during a follow through, that whole franchise is in deep $$%$. If Polian is uncomfortable now with the heat that his or his coaches decision to rest starters is causing, can you imagine the fire if Manning can't go when the playoffs start.
That is why I understand the decision.

 

[aluminum seats]

To clarify my position, I think that 16-0 was a wonderful season. But to me (and I can only speak for myself) the ending was absolute torture. I could barely speak for about a week after the Superbowl. 2007 was a season that brings up some heavy emotions for me. And not just because of the loss at the Superbowl. The whole Spygate crap helped dampen my enjoyment of that season. I say this because of the constant abuse the media dumped on the team, the crap I got hit with at every opportunity from friends, clients, etc. I cannot count the number of times I had to defend the Pats that year, both from other fans as well as from people who had no interest in football whatsoever. Everyone who knows me or knows of me, knows I am a die hard Pats fan and everyone had an opinion, thanks in large part to an irresponsible commissioner and a pitifully lazy 5th Estate. I was happy to tell people to piss off and I gave it back good and hard. The Pats are my team, in spite of what a couple of newbies on this board might say.
2007 was an unusual year, on a couple of fronts. And not all of it was great! (Just my opinion)

I understand all this--all Pats fans have similar stories. I'm still not getting why a perfect season wouldn't matter to you as a fan. The pain after the loss, quite honestly, is what it's all about. The Pats dared to be great. And that's awesome. Again, objectively, none of this "matters." But if you're a fan, history does matter. A lot.

 

[RhodyPatriot]

What bothers me is nobody (that I've heard anyway) has given the Colts' situation a proper moniker as it so richly deserves...so let's hear some suggestions?

Quitgate?
Surrendergate?
Paintergate?
Poliangate?

Someone can do better than me

How 'bout Chickengate??
Or in honor of Bill PoliOn - Emptysuitgate or Patriotobsessiongate??

 

[Patriot_in_NY]

Those are pretty easy words.................... from a quitter. F**K Polian. I actually feel bad for Indy fans at this point.

 

[upstater1]

I have no problem with 16-0 especially if it leads to 19-0. Ours did not. That's the way it goes sometimes. This is football where on any given Sunday....
I loved the 2007 season. I was happy that we went for 16-0. But I would have understood completely if we had done what the Colts did on Sunday, with a game or two left in the 2007 season.

Belichick offered a defense of what the Colts did, and he said, if you need to rest players, you rest them. You do what's best for your team.

And yet, when the pull of history was there, Belichick did not let up one iota.

 

[BelizePats]

I simply don't place the same importance on 16-0 that you and some others do.
How about getting an additional first round pick awarded by the league for going 16-0. Then it would mean something to me. And it would likely eliminate the Colts or any other team not going for it. Just an idea!

 

[aluminum seats]

If Payton busts his hand on a helmet during a follow through, that whole franchise is in deep $$%$. If Polian is uncomfortable now with the heat that his or his coaches decision to rest starters is causing, can you imagine the fire if Manning can't go when the playoffs start.
That is why I understand the decision.

Oh, come on. Manning had a better chance of slipping in the shower than getting hurt in the last quarter and a half of the Jets game. It was a pathetic decision to stop playing.

 

[Dr Pain]

How 'bout Chickengate??
Or in honor of Bill PoliOn - Emptysuitgate or Patriotobsessiongate??

I think it should be pressuregate. They quit because they could not take the pressure. Polian and the Colts are just too fragile to handle the pressure of trying. This is just working so well for them Losing totally took the pressure off (massive sarcasm).

 

[Joker]

I think it should be Peytie-Face Gate

 

[ausbacker]

Everything about Bill Polian screams Patriots inferiority complex. He simply cannot stomach the fact that the Patriots have had more success than the Colts, often destroyed at the hands of the Patriots too.

And for anyone kidding themself that 16-0 and 19-0 don't matter, you're a fool. I've never met a person who likes to lose. Ever.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

To clarify my position, I think that 16-0 was a wonderful season. But to me (and I can only speak for myself) the ending was absolute torture. I could barely speak for about a week after the Superbowl. 2007 was a season that brings up some heavy emotions for me. And not just because of the loss at the Superbowl. The whole Spygate crap helped dampen my enjoyment of that season. I say this because of the constant abuse the media dumped on the team, the crap I got hit with at every opportunity from friends, clients, etc. I cannot count the number of times I had to defend the Pats that year, both from other fans as well as from people who had no interest in football whatsoever. Everyone who knows me or knows of me, knows I am a die hard Pats fan and everyone had an opinion, thanks in large part to an irresponsible commissioner and a pitifully lazy 5th Estate. I was happy to tell people to piss off and I gave it back good and hard. The Pats are my team, in spite of what a couple of newbies on this board might say.
2007 was an unusual year, on a couple of fronts. And not all of it was great! (Just my opinion)

You poor, persecuted victim of all the adversity being a fan of this team has team has entailed over the last decade...

Overcoming the BS of spygate only made what they did in 2007 all the more remarkable. This is the most remarkable team of this and probably any decade.

Polian always had his priorities straight in Indy, put fans in seats and get them to pressure taxpayers to build his otherwise penniless dolt of an owner a new stadium. His belief is you do that by winning the regular season. He finally got his ring in 2006 after failing in Buffalo and Carolina. Now he's had his kid named the GM of the Colts. He is about as out of touch with players and fans as any executive in the league. He has always believed that it was some sort of consipracy that kept him down. On the heels of winning a ring he is stunned at the backlash he's facing in Indy and the only way he can figure to counter it is to take potshots at the only thing he believes Indy fans must still despise more than him at this moment...the team whose backyard he grew up in. Bet there's a story buried somewhere there, too.

Someone commenting on one of the earlier stories over on PFT, the one about how the team sponsored message board was demanding irate fans knock it off, raised a great point. For a league lobbying for an 18 game regular season this is proof positive you will get the same crap at the backend of one of those that you get in the preseason now, only it will effect playoff berths and seedings and viewing fans as opposed to just season ticket holders will eventually revolt.

 

[shmessy]

Everything about Bill Polian screams Patriots inferiority complex. He simply cannot stomach the fact that the Patriots have had more success than the Colts, often destroyed at the hands of the Patriots too.

And for anyone kidding themself that 16-0 and 19-0 don't matter, you're a fool. I've never met a person who likes to lose. Ever.

To me, 16-0 is something that makes one go "hmmmm". Just like whatever hell record for consecutive regular season games won Indy broke off the Pats this year. Hmmm, interesting. Or the other "big" record polian was talking up tonight about winning the most games in a decade. Interesting, to be sure.

For sure, 16-0 is something WE will always have to cherish. In terms of American history, it doesn't make a ripple.

19-0 is in a different stratosphere. of course, you can't go 19-0 unless you get to 16-0 - - and THAT is what Polian conveniently leaves out in his argument.

 

[Deus Irae]

To me, 16-0 is something that makes one go "hmmmm". Just like whatever hell record for consecutive regular season games won Indy broke off the Pats this year. Hmmm, interesting. Or the other "big" record polian was talking up tonight about winning the most games in a decade. Interesting, to be sure.

19-0 is in a different stratosphere.

19-0 means nothing. "Undefeated" is what matters, not the game numbers. That's why 17-0 is still pointed to, and not 18-1.

But, if 16-0 didn't matter, or only made you go "hmmmm", Colts fans wouldn't be looking for the tar and feathers right now.

 

[shmessy]

Everything about Bill Polian screams Patriots inferiority complex. He simply cannot stomach the fact that the Patriots have had more success than the Colts, often destroyed at the hands of the Patriots too.

And for anyone kidding themself that 16-0 and 19-0 don't matter, you're a fool. I've never met a person who likes to lose. Ever.

To me, 16-0 is something that makes one go "hmmmm". Just like whatever hell record for consecutive regular season games won Indy broke off the Pats this year. Hmmm, interesting. Or the other "big" record polian was talking up tonight about winning the most games in a decade. Interesting, to be sure.

19-0 is in a different stratosphere. THAT is the brass ring. THAT is the legacy that would last decades. Winning a second SB in a decade just doesn't separate their organization from the others in American cultural history.

19-0? That's Babe Ruth. That's Bill Russell. That's being remembered when all is said and done.

 

[BradysBunch12]

They weren't going to go 19-0 anyway. Either the Pats or Chargers would have, and still will, take care of them in the playoffs.

I was actually hoping they'd go 16-0 and lose in the playoffs to deflect the attention off the 2007 Pats, but this Painter-Gate is almost as good, especially after we or the Chargers (whoever gets them first) beats them in the divisional round.

 

[ausbacker]

To me, 16-0 is something that makes one go "hmmmm". Just like whatever hell record for consecutive regular season games won Indy broke off the Pats this year. Hmmm, interesting. Or the other "big" record polian was talking up tonight about winning the most games in a decade. Interesting, to be sure.

19-0 is in a different stratosphere. THAT is the brass ring. THAT is the legacy that would last decades. Winning a second SB in a decade just doesn't separate their organization from the others in American cultural history.

19-0? That's Babe Ruth. That's Bill Russell. That's being remembered when all is said and done.

To me 16-0 is an accomplishment as it's an undefeated regular season. Week in week out we see how hard it is to win a game. However, to get to 19-0 and an undefeated season, you need to go 16-0 in the regular season.

16-0 is nice, but as rightfully pointed out, 19-0 undefeated is the ultimate.