There is 1 thing wrong with this team

[Ring 6]

They dont know how to win.
They have played well enough to be AT LEAST 9-2.
They just are failing to make one key play (out of many chances) to put games away.
Good News: It is a learned trait, and can still be learned by playoff time
Bad News: It is the most important trait in a champion and so far we lack it

 

[aluminum seats]

They dont know how to win.
They have played well enough to be AT LEAST 9-2.
They just are failing to make one key play (out of many chances) to put games away.
Good News: It is a learned trait, and can still be learned by playoff time
Bad News: It is the most important trait in a champion and so far we lack it

Agree, essentially. Can point to coaching, lack of a leader/key playmaker on defense, etc. Number one would be Brady.

 

[SVN]

Well ,agreed but i think the team has no confidence in what its doing all the way from coaching to the players. BB always says every team has its own identity but right now they cant find it. For e.g we start being a 4-3 team exclusively and then sign seau and change things up there. Offensive playcalling and adjustments get unpredictable as the game progresses and even the players feel unsure about what to do. You can see so many timeouts now on critical 3rd downs.
I actually didnt think the colt game will have this effect on them but it has it seems because they cant seem to win tight games. One game they won was vs balt thanks to a dropped ball.

 

[Deus Irae]

Brady
Light
Mankins
Koppen
Neal
Kaczur
Maroney
Morris
Watson
Moss
Welker
Aiken
Warren
Wilfork
Green
Wright
Thomas
Sanders
Meriweather

All these players have been to a Super Bowl, and I've probably missed others. They know how to win.

 

[PatsFanSince74]

They dont know how to win.
They have played well enough to be AT LEAST 9-2.
They just are failing to make one key play (out of many chances) to put games away.
Good News: It is a learned trait, and can still be learned by playoff time
Bad News: It is the most important trait in a champion and so far we lack it

I dunno. I think that's way too hypothetical. That might or might not be one among a whole range of potential explanations for why the Pats are where they are (all of which have been beaten to death here since around 4:00 yesterday afternoon ). Personally, I've taken the view both last week and today that I don't even want to think about them until the end of the season.

For example, if we take away the Leodis McKelvin brain fart in the Buffalo game and the Mark Clayton dropped pass in the Ravens game, we could also say that they have played poorly enough to be 5--7. What's the point of saying they might be 9--2 or 5--7? To me, those are each vacuous discussions.

The bottom line is that the Pats are 7--5 in a so-so or weak division and have generally played like that, not winning a single game on the road and only beating one team that's above .500 this morning.

But, I do agree that can all change. I still say the Pats are the one AFC team that nobody wants to play in January and I ain't counting them out of nothing.

 

[PatsFanSince74]

Brady
Light
Mankins
Koppen
Neal
Kaczur
Maroney
Morris
Watson
Moss
Welker
Aiken
Warren
Wilfork
Green
Wright
Thomas
Sanders
Meriweather

All these players have been to a Super Bowl, and I've probably missed others. They know how to win.

Well said, Deus.

 

[Mack Herron]

Well ,agreed but i think the team has no confidence in what its doing all the way from coaching to the players. BB always says every team has its own identity but right now they cant find it.

The problem is, they have found their identify.

 

[chris_in_sunnyvale]

They dont know how to win.
They have played well enough to be AT LEAST 9-2.
They just are failing to make one key play (out of many chances) to put games away.
Good News: It is a learned trait, and can still be learned by playoff time
Bad News: It is the most important trait in a champion and so far we lack it

Bigger bad news: It's a learned trait that they've failed to learn in their 5 losses. Many of the mistakes, especially on the offensive side of the ball, have been repeated over and over. How many games do the Pats get the benefit of the doubt ("well, they'll learn from this") before we acknowledge perhaps they won't learn from the mistakes at all?

Regards,
Chris

 

[aluminum seats]

Brady
Light
Mankins
Koppen
Neal
Kaczur
Maroney
Morris
Watson
Moss
Welker
Aiken
Warren
Wilfork
Green
Wright
Thomas
Sanders
Meriweather

All these players have been to a Super Bowl, and I've probably missed others. They know how to win.

Point of the OP was that the current Pats TEAM has not shown that it knows how to win.....not that there aren't players on the team that have won in the past. Big difference.

 

[Deus Irae]

Point of the OP was that the current Pats TEAM has not shown that it knows how to win.....not that there aren't players on the team that have won in the past. Big difference.

No difference at all. The players who've won before know how to win. New players need to be taken in to the circle. That's just a reality. This team has a boatload of players who've been, and in many cases won, the Super Bowl. Claiming the team doesn't know how to win, when I was able to list 19 Super Bowl participants without even trying, is a cop out and just plain wrong.

 

[Ring 6]

Brady
Light
Mankins
Koppen
Neal
Kaczur
Maroney
Morris
Watson
Moss
Welker
Aiken
Warren
Wilfork
Green
Wright
Thomas
Sanders
Meriweather

All these players have been to a Super Bowl, and I've probably missed others. They know how to win.

The TEAM doesnt. Clearly.

 

[TruthSeeker]

Brady
Light
Mankins
Koppen
Neal
Kaczur
Maroney
Morris
Watson
Moss
Welker
Aiken
Warren
Wilfork
Green
Wright
Thomas
Sanders
Meriweather

All these players have been to a Super Bowl, and I've probably missed others. They know how to win.

And I think they've forgotten how to win. They have not beaten a good team all year. They've lost all the games against very good teams (Indy & New Orleans), and lost to average teams (Jets & Dolphins) and one to a slighty above average team (Denver). The problems are two fold, terrible defense and terrible coaching (too conservative with a lead, and terrible second half adjustments, we've been outscored something like 70-21 in the losses in the second half). The coaching and defense will be addressed in the offseason, too late to correct either problem.

 

[aluminum seats]

No difference at all. The players who've won before know how to win. New players need to be taken in to the circle. That's just a reality. This team has a boatload of players who've been, and in many cases won, the Super Bowl. Claiming the team doesn't know how to win, when I was able to list 19 Super Bowl participants without even trying, is a cop out and just plain wrong.

It's just a statement of fact. Team's identities evolve all the time. Now what you could say is that there are players on the team who have won before and so you are confident that will be able to regain that characteristic. Key there would be Brady, who for all his gaudy numbers this year, hasn't made the plays necessary to win several times. I don't doubt his ability to recapture his past form in that regard, but he doesn't have it yet.

So I suppose you could say that this team has forgotten how to win, but I don't see that being a particularly interesting distinction.

 

[QuinielaBox]

They are not winning enough. Probably that they simply do not belong as contenders to the Super Bowl in 2010.

They have played horrible football this year, especially in the 2nd half of games.

 

[PatsFanSince74]

Point of the OP was that the current Pats TEAM has not shown that it knows how to win.....not that there aren't players on the team that have won in the past. Big difference.

I disagree. I've sparred with Deus frequently, but he's right here. Knowing how to win isn't some sort of abstraction. It is indeed a function of the players. A team that doesn't know how to win in weeks 1--12 isn't going become a team that knows how to win in week 16 or 17. This team is full of players who know how to win. But knowing how to win doesn't mean that the talent and coaching on any given team are necessarily sufficient or sufficiently aligned to win. For whatever reason, the pieces haven't come together (yet) this season.

As I said in my other post in this thread, I think this is a vacuous discussion as we could just as well look at the season and say they "could be 5--7." What's the point of either discussion? They're 7--5 and in general have played like it. Are they lucky or unlucky to be that way? Is it a function of attitude or talent or the Coaches or whatever? I don't want to worry about that until the season's over.

 

[reflexblue]

Its lost its MoJo.

 

[Deus Irae]

The TEAM doesnt. Clearly.

The TEAM has won 7 games. It, therefore, knows how to win. Clearly.

The TEAM does not have a problem with knowing how to win. The TEAM has a problem with a lot of other things, though.

 

[PatsFanSince74]

The TEAM doesnt. Clearly.

Clearly? I'm sorry, but that's not clear to me. What is the "TEAM" other than its players?

To me this whole discussion is absurd. They haven't won in the way that most people expected them to win (but pretty much as I predicted pre season they would win, unfortunately).

Now, we are supposed to look at them and say, "well all the pieces where there, they just didn't know how to win?" A team headed by Brady and coached by Belichick doesn't know how to win?

That's far too facile a way of trying to explain why the team has been disappointing. I want to leave that discussion until the dust settles after the season is over.

And, BTW, I'm not going to say that the season might indeed not end until the first sunday of Febraury with a whole ****load of confetti dropping down around these guys who don't know how to win.

 

[aluminum seats]

Knowing how to win isn't some sort of abstraction. It is indeed a function of the players. A team that doesn't know how to win in weeks 1--12 isn't going become a team that knows how to win in week 16 or 17. For whatever reason, the pieces haven't come together (yet) this season.

As I said in my other post in this thread, I think this is a vacuous discussion as we could just as well look at the season and say they "could be 5--7." What's the point of either discussion?

I probably largely agree with your second point--there is a kind of pointlessness to the discussion because so many factors go into it it's hard to narrow things down. It's a herding cats deal.

Disagree with your first point though--"knowing how to win" is a sort of elusive quality that's hard to define. Doesn't mean it's not real.

 

[PatsFanSince74]

I probably largely agree with your second point--there is a kind of pointlessness to the discussion because so many factors go into it it's hard to narrow things down. It's a herding cats deal.

Disagree with your first point though--"knowing how to win" is a sort of elusive quality that's hard to define. Doesn't mean it's not real.

good comment. that's rational and i can respond. i'll grant you that pinning down "knowing how to win" might be as difficult as nailing the proverbial lemon meringue pie to a plate glass window, but in the final analysis it's way too convenient and nebulous an explanation for what has or hasn't happened on the field for the pats this year.