Its not how you start the season, its how you finish.
 

After losing the Superbowl last season I decided this was the attitude I would have going into this season. The Pats went 29-3 in the regular season in their 2 superbowl runs and lost both to teams that were a combined 19-13. If history tells us anything, teams that finish strong have a good chance at getting to (and winning) the superbowl. Its happened in 9 out of the last 12 seasons. Examples:

11 Giants: Started season 7-7. Finished regular season 2-0. Had only 1 home playoff game, went 4-0 and won the SB.

10 Packers: Started 3-3 and (8-6). Finished 6-3 (2-0). Had no home playoff games and won SB

08 Cardinals: Went 9-7 (8-7 first 15 games). Went 3-1 in playoffs and lost SB

07 Giants: Went 10-6. Had no home playoff games, went 4-0 in playoff and won SB

05 Steelers: Started season 7-5. Finished 4-0. Had no home playoff games and went 4-0 and won SB

03 Panthers: Started season 8-5. Finished 3-0. Had 1 home playoff game and went 3-1 and lost SB

02 Raiders: Started season 4-4. Finished season 7-1 and went 2-1 in playoffs and lost SB

01 Pats: Started season 3-4. Finished 8-1. Went 3-0 in playoffs and won SB

00 Ravens: Stared season 5-4. Finished 7-0. Had 1 home playoff game, went 4-0 and won SB.

The good news is the Pats are in a bad division and I still feel confident they will win the division. Hopefully they can fix (or cover up) their issues and play their best ball at then end of the season.

Re: Its not how you start the season, its how you finish.
 

Pats should win the division and finish anywhere from 12-4 (optimistic) to 10-6 (probably more realistic). If they finish strong and get the secondary shored up even a little, they'll be a very tough out and have as good a chance as anyone. I'm not worried. They could easily be 6-0 right now.

Now if they lose to the Jets this week........

Re: Its not how you start the season, its how you finish.
 

As long as we keep our D coaching staff and DBs, we can kiss the playoffs goodbye, let alone making it to the Superbowl and winning it.

Every goddamn third string QB looks like Joe Montana against our secondary. We have the number 1 offense, and a great front 7 on defense. But if the secondary is not replaced, we will continue to blow games.

I've noticed this interesting trend with the Pats lately. When we play, one of two things can happen: We start weak, and make a second half comeback. Or we come out fire off on all cylinders right out of the gate, just to blow the game late in the second half.

If we can only replace the D coaching staff and DBs, this team could easily be the number 1 out there.

Shame.

Re: Its not how you start the season, its how you finish.
 

Watch Sanchez turn into Aaron Rodgers next Sunday in Foxborogh.... It is quite obvious. If even us, the little fans out there noticed that, you can rest assure the rest of the league has taken note: If you want to beat the Pats, forget about running the ball - throw deep. You will either get a catch, or at worst, you'll be awarded with a DPI. :mad:

Re: Its not how you start the season, its how you finish.
 

I do wonder why the Pats play so vanilla on defense. If they can't stop the deep ball playing straight-up, then maybe it's time to rethink things. Generally, deep passes require a lot of time to develop. Even the fastest runners take a few seconds to shed a chuck and get 30 yards downfield. If the pass rush isn't getting there, why not blitz and make them get rid of the ball quicker? It seems like every time opposing QBs go deep it's either completed or a penalty on NE. So why not make them throw short passes. Our DBs generally are pretty good tacklers...even if they complete them they shouldn't go for big gains.

I dunno....but then again, I'm not a world-class caliber football coach.

Re: Its not how you start the season, its how you finish.
 

I posted something very similar weeks ago.

My rhetorical question was basically: "How would the majority of Patriots fans handle the type of rollercoaster season the SB winning wildcard Giants and Steelers had?"

Sure, its great to look back at both SB winning Giants teams and rave about their pass rush and 'clutch' QB - all of that may be true - but for large parts of the regular season they looked anything but potential SB winners.

In 2007 there was alot, ALOT of midseason talk about the Giants having to drop Eli as their starting QB - so underwhelming had their, and his, start been.

Fans talk alot about 'peaking at the right time' - its quite obvious that they are a little less happy with the practicalities of living through the early season struggles in order to experience the late season 'peak'.

The level of success the Belichick has supplied over the last decade is un-matched - it is unfortunately the nature of fans of the team to act like this should now be the 'norm' - that anything less than a dominant regular season (lets say a 14-2) followed by a SB appearance should be accompanied by a whole load of hand wringing, wailing and general gnashing of teeth.

I have experienced following a hopeless team - it definitely gives you perspective on what we are experiencing now.

Of course, alot of the teeth gnashers would be off the bandwagon long before they had to experience a genuinely struggling franchise - probably with some parting shot at a multiple SB winning, HOF head coach regarding his 'arrogance'.

Re: Its not how you start the season, its how you finish.
 

I have an idea......why don't they start with the idea : 'it's not how you start a GAME, it's how you finish'

forget finishing a season......they can't finish a game unless they score 50

Re: Its not how you start the season, its how you finish.
 

This is one of the 2 truths of the NFL. You look at past SB champions and you notice 2 things:

1. As touched upon, at this point in the season most of them did not look like favorites, some of them didn't look SB material at all.

2. There is no team in the NFL that doesn't have a weakness or something that can be exploited. For us it's pass defense. IMO that's bad but for January purposes, it's not as bad as not being able to stop the run, which we do very well.

Make the playoffs, get hot at the right time. Regular seasons anymore are essentially irrelevant. So the keys is avoiding IR for major players and keeping yourself in the race, hopefully improving upon your weaknesses. The main issue right now is there's 2 AFC teams ahead of us by multiple games and we may not achieve a bye which would improve our chances immensely, winning 4 games against top teams is a 33.3% increase over winning 3 games.

Re: Its not how you start the season, its how you finish.
 

AMEN! :cool:

Re: Its not how you start the season, its how you finish.
 

This defense will be better than last year's defense, and this year's offense is already better than last year's offense.

This team is better than last year's team.

That doesn't mean they'll beat the Texans, but honestly I'd rather face this year's Texans than last year's Ravens.

The NFC is the cream of the crop, and should the Patriots be fortunate enough to get to the SB, the opponents will be the Giants, 49ers or Packers.

The Patriots will be an underdog against all 3 teams.

But I do believe this year's team will be improved over last year.