Of course you could take any team in the NFL and give them 3 more wins or losses with what ifs.
What I was saying was that in all the years BB has been here we were something like 63-1 when we took a lead into the 4th quarter and we lost, I think 4 or 5 last year that we took a lead into the 4th quarter.
That is a hell of a lot more than a simple what if, or an excuse.
I wish I knew why, but whatever it is is at the heart of the problem.
That doesnt say we were better than a 10-6 team. It just says that if we hadn't lost that quality which was undeniable until last year we would have been. Closing out games is as much a part of being good as blocking, tackling, passing, coaching gameplanning or anything else.
Its an equal part of who they are/were.
I'm identifying it, not diminishing it.
There's a lot of talk about the Pats Fourth quarter "meltdowns" last year. I'm not trying to be argumentative, but I'm not sure it's accurate.
We lost six games last year. Putting aside the Houston game, because of the Welker injury and the upcoming playoff game, that leaves five losses.
Let's face it, we were never in the NOL game, trailing by two TD's going into the fourth quarter.
We lost to the jets by only a TD, yes, but we didn't score in the entire second half, after leading by 9--6 at halftime and then giving up 10 in the third quarter and an FG in the 4th.
Similarly, the Pats didn't put a single point up in the entire second half against Denver either. Again, the issue was the entire half not a last minute crash.
The Indy game was just a great football game that can't be neatly categorized as a meltdown but as a game where Peyton got into a rhythm where he wasn't going to be denied if he had the ball. Even then, we came within inches of a different outcome on "Fourth and Two."
The only game where there was an indisputable "meltdown," IMO at least, in the fourth quarter was the Miami game.
That said, the pattern that's interesting to me is the difference between the first and second halves last year. I think this is what Tommy was talking about when he spoke of "mental toughness."
In 2009, the Pats outscored their opponents by 146 points in the first half (282--136).
But, in the second half, they scored roughly half as many points and were outscored by their opponents by a point (146--145). The D gave up virtually the same number of points in each half, but the offense was only 50% as productive.
The Pats quarter by quarter scoring last year was: 99, 183, 70, 75.
To me, this isn't a "fourth quarter meltdown" but a pattern of not coming out to play two halves; thus, I like Brady's use of the term "mental toughness" to describe it.
What do you all think?
