Patspsycho
Veteran Starter w/Big Long Term Deal
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CLICK HERE to Register for a free account and login for a smoother ad-free experience. It's easy, and only takes a few moments.The 2007 edition of the NE Patriots peaked too early.
Ideally it would be better to take a few lumps early and
peak at the end of the season.
I would contend, the theoretical most dominant team of all time would be so balanced that no team could shut it down.
[That doesn't mean it wouldn't lose. In season losses are much different than playoff losses, which are exits.]
When your claim to dominance is beating some teams 50-14 for example (not an actual score) are the last 35 points indicative of dominance, given that there is no reward for total points scored, outside of a possible tie breaker? Even a tie breaker likely doesn't come into play because, if you are considered to be dominant, you probably have enough wins to avoid that outcome.
To me a dominant team can beat you playing their game, your game or some other. They are versatile, so virtually indefensible. Could that 2007 team beat you with defense, grind it out on the ground, or any other variation besides their established passing offense? Don't know. They didn't prove they could in 2007.
All right, without even searching the greatest teams of all time, I'll compare the running game to 2004. Had Corey Dillon been on the 2007 team and been used, we simply would have beaten the Giants. We had a dominant running game in 2004, nowhere near in 2007.There is no such thing as a 'theoretical' most dominant team of all time. The best of all time means the best of all the ones that have already played, not a fantasy team you can create in your mind.
Actually, that's precisely what dominance is... There's no extra benefit from beating a team by 3 vs 50, but beating them by 50 is dominating them while beating them by 3 is not.
I suppose you slept through the playoffs too, when Maroney ran for 122 yards in consecutive games, Brady only threw for 262 and 209 yards while the Chargers couldn't score a TD. Yep, the 2007 Patriots were nothing but fluff and passing game :/. Stop letting the disappointment skew your views of what really was an incredible team.
All right, without even searching the greatest teams of all time, I'll compare the running game to 2004. Had Corey Dillon been on the 2007 team and been used, we simply would have beaten the Giants. We had a dominant running game in 2004, nowhere near in 2007.
That's a different type of dominance. That's BDSM.
If you want to say 2007 Maroney was as dominant as 2004 Corey Dillon, be my guest.
How does this comment have ANYTHING to do with what you quoted me saying?
It's not theoretical. Corey Dillon was a real player and a force that changed how defenses had to play you.
The 2004 Patriots was a real team, a dominant team that could beat you in many ways, for instance if you shut down their passing game.
They were better on defense and the running game. Therefore, since defenses have two weeks to try and stop you, they were a more dominant team, because they could dominate even if you eliminated one aspect of their game.
Of course i could list a ton of teams that were more dominant due to balance than the 2007 Pats, but one will suffice.
The Pats won three Super Bowls by three points apiece. We could have just as easily had a whistle or a single play go the other way in each of those playoff runs and we don't have *any* Lombardi's.
But more to the point, the Pats lost to the Giants, and the only way that could have happened (as I argued with my friends before the game) was if all three of the following things happened:
1. The Patriots had to play a subpar game. If they played their best game, nothing else would matter as the Pats would cruise. But they didn't. They played, by their standards, pretty poorly.
2. The Giants had to play an excellent game. And they did.
3. The Giants had to get the breaks (a fumble bouncing to their guy, a bad call by the ref, whatever). They did. Other than the one Pats INT, every break went the Giants' way, including several crucial plays during that last drive.
This takes nothing away from the Giants, because they did their part - they played an excellent game. It was out of their control that there were highly questionable calls (no holding on the hail mary helmet play) or mistakes made by the Pats (Asante not intercepting that ball).
But here's the key: the Patriots had many, many opportunities to win that game, regardless of any single call. They failed to do that. The Pats had the opportunity to impose their will on that game and, except, really, for one drive in the 4th quarter, they did not do it. They played poorly and allowed the Giants to hang around, thus making it possible for a bad call or a bad bounce or a miracle play to beat them. The 1989 49ers or the 1985-86 Bears never allowed a playoff game to get to that point. They hammered the crap out of teams in dominant fashion. The Pats had the ability to do that, but they didn't. And it cost them the NFL title.
QFT.
Had any one of the see-no-evil zebras called any one of a number of holding infractions on 3rd/5, then all that would've happened is, the jints would've still had the ball; the d/d would just have been 3rd/15 instead. The game would cert. NOT have been over, yet.
I think people are starting to think it, but very few really want to say it, so I'm saying it: this squad is going to be even better than 2007.
QFT.
Had any one of the see-no-evil zebras called any one of a number of holding infractions on 3rd/5, then all that would've happened is, the jints would've still had the ball; the d/d would just have been 3rd/15 instead. The game would cert. NOT have been over, yet.
As for the OP: there is no way - none whatsoever - with the same, but older & deteriorating "injury-prone, try-hard stiffs" at OL, and the 3rd-string & worse crap that is OLB, that the Pats will be anything even remotely resembling dominant. They'll be fortunate just to make the POs at all.
The funny thing ~ from my perspective ~ is that that team's dominance was predicated on an overwhelming Passing Game that masked not only an aging and vulnerable Defense...but a pedestrian Running Game.
1990 Miners, anyone?
THAT team, too, went LONG into the season with its Quest for Immortality intact.
***
To describe this team as having THAT kind of potential, in light of our SEVERE vulnerabilities at Defensive End and OutSide MidFielder...is NUTS.
But, with a MONSTROUS wave of young Talent working its way in, ere the last 2 years, we are only a few pieces away from a truly AMAZING young Crew...And there's every reason to think we could lock those peices IN, in the next 20 months: OLB, DE, and O Line...
And, if SO...a 2012 - 2014 run at a Trifecta...AND a 19-0...will be IN PLAY.