Perfect Pats to thrive on playoff pressure

[SVN]

http://www.news-tribune.net/sports/cnhinssportsopinion_story_365232754.html

i hope he is right

 

[BelichickFan]

One thing that is for sure is we're playoff tested. Even those new to the team, every game starting with Indy was a playoff type game. We are primed and ready to go for sure.

 

[pheenix11]

This article is dead on. The team will never admit it but I think the pressure of going undefeated was incredibly mentally and emotionally draining. Thats why it is so hard. Now that they have that and the records out of the way they can get back to what they are familiar with, playoff football.

 

[psychoPat]

I'd like Bill Burt to be right - that the pressure is off now.

But the perfect season, however alluring, has never been the objective.
Neither have the records.

Those are all just frosting on the Lombeli ...
which remains to be claimed in February.

 

[FrontSeven]

As I posted right after the final game, the team's biggest problem (not being naturally jacked for every single game, like some of their super-jacked opponents) is now behind them.

Now they get naturally jacked and that is where they thrive. They are like a high-compression engine that needs to be running at high RPM and doesn't like the slow traffic of the regular season.

Fill it up. Fill it with high octane.

 

[JR4]

....
But the perfect season, however alluring, has never been the objective.
Neither have the records.
......

You are right ... that it wasn't the objective but as the season came to an
end ... the last 4 games or so ... you don't think the possibility of going
undefeated began to come to their minds more that once?

I am quite sure they had to fight to keep focus in those last weeks and
the possibility of doing something no other team had done was NOT
something they easily dismissed.
I believe there was pressure ..... and it got more intense the closer they got.

But why is the pressure off? They haven't finished. 19-0 is the goal now.
But they can now focus on 3-0 in the playoffs which WAS one of their
original goals. So in a way they have put that undefeated pressure behind
them and are now back to realizing one of their original goals
... one game at a time.

 

[QuinielaBox]

You are right ... that it wasn't the objective but as the season came to an
end ... the last 4 games or so ... you don't think the possibility of going
undefeated began to come to their minds more that once?

I am quite sure they had to fight to keep focus in those last weeks and
the possibility of doing something no other team had done was NOT
something they easily dismissed.
I believe there was pressure ..... and it got more intense the closer they got.

But why is the pressure off? They haven't finished. 19-0 is the goal now.
But they can now focus on 3-0 in the playoffs which WAS one of their
original goals. So in a way they have put that undefeated pressure behind
them and are now back to realizing one of their original goals
... one game at a time.

The Patriots are 0-0 in 2008. That is a good thing. Let the opposition be intimidated by what happened last year and having to come into Foxboro.

 

[Patriot_in_NY]

http://www.news-tribune.net/sports/cnhinssportsopinion_story_365232754.html

i hope he is right

I've been thinking this all along. Three more games left. win or go home. This is familiar territory for us. Fits us like a glove.

Oh yeah, the first game comes after a bye week. Not sure of the exact record, but we are pretty good after a bye.

 

[Bella*chick]

The pressure isn't off (all the playoffs teams have it) but the pressure of the undefeated regular season and all the records, etc. is.

I can't even really explain it, but even as a fan, I was feeling it and then after the Giants game, I felt elated and relieved. I didn't really expect that. I can't even imagine what the team was feeling. It had to be a real emotional high.

Which is why a loss would have been awful. It would have been so deflating. THere were some theories about how it would have pissed the Pats off, etc. and motivated them to win the SB. Well, maybe they still would have won the SB, but a loss would NOT have helped them. A loss is poor motivation, unless it occurred, say, last year in the AFCCG.

 

[FrontSeven]

I can't even really explain it, but even as a fan, I was feeling it and then after the Giants game, I felt elated and relieved. I didn't really expect that. I can't even imagine what the team was feeling. It had to be a real emotional high.

As I said in another post, Mercury Morris said that the Pats have dealt with a lot more pressure than the Dolphins did. Incredibly, it started after just a couple of games. I remember Mike Greenburg saying after the first Jets game that he thought the team would go undefeated. That is a lot of pressure to face week in and week out.

 

[GameDay]

Unfortunately, the writer used an absolutely flawed and non-sense logic ...

In fact, the evidence states it is much easier winning a Super Bowl, like 41 teams have done since the birth of the Super Bowl era in 1966, than it is to win every regular-season game, like only one team had done before (Miami in 1972).

but he hit a right note here...

The beefy 20-plus point spreads didn't help matters. It seemed every offended foe took it personally and played their best against the Patriots.

... and reached a reasonable conclusion anyway.

The playoffs are a different animal, an animal the Patriots basically had to play every week since the midway point when the "undefeated" season picked up steam.