Tell the truth when the season started did you really believe they would be in the championship game?
With all the players departing i believed this team had no chance.
Maybe because of seeing the pats from the 60 to 2000 i was brainwashed.
With all due respect, ... of course. Not many folks look at it this way, but probably the best indicator by far of what you can expect from a Belichick team is the 2001 team. This is a team that was not yet anywhere close to a balanced team put together by Belichick and Pioli. And yet, the Patriots won. This speaks volumes about how well Belichick coaches a team and how his teams can never be counted out. That may have been the most masterful coaching job of the three superbowl wins.
Any team that Belichick has had a chance to put together for a year or so is going to have the capability to win a superbowl.
However, there is another thing which I think folks sort of realize but don't quite understand the weight of. And that is, no matter how strong any team is, even a Belichick team, you have to have a significant number of 'breaks' go your way during the regular season in order to get a top record AND this is even moreso the case in the playoffs because it is sudden death elimination. This is what has been so absolutely unbelievable about the Patriots. Even with the strongest team in the NFL, I can't help but believe that the odds are against the team to make it all the way to a superbowl win just because of needing enough breaks to get through 3 or even 4 games with a win each time.
Even the 2004 Patriots team, which was almost certainly the strongest of the 3 superbowl teams, still needed an almost mind boggling number of positive breaks along the way. On the flip side of the coin, I doubt you could find a knowledgable observer who wouldn't say that the Patriots really outplayed Denver last year but had enough of those breaks go against them that they were eliminated. I am convinced that if they had beaten Denver, even with my pessimism about needing breaks, that they would have had an extremely strong likelihood of winning the superbowl having to face the Steelers at home and then a pretty weak Seattle team.
The interesting thing is, as Andy pointed out so well in another thread, that this team is probably stronger as a whole than even the 2004 team. Although the sky is falling folks can't look at it for a second, there are two ways to feel this way. One is just simply statistical performance in almost every category. (The team does not have a many wins, but, again, that's a statistical issue as much as anything. ) But the other thing, which I can't begin to fathom how folks miss, is if you go position by position and player by player, this is a more capable team (or the equal). !! !! !!
It's interesting to go down the list and you have started a good thread that's probably a good place to do this:
Brady (even more experienced and still in his absolute prime), Davey, Miller
Brady, Cassell, Testaverde
Light, Andruzzi, Koppen(2nd yr), Neal, Gorin
Light, Mankins, Koppen, Neal, Kaczur
Graham, Fauria, Hochstein !!!
Watson, Graham, Thomas
Dillon, Faulk, Pass, Abdullah
Dillon, Maroney, Faulk, Evans
Branch, Givens, Patten, Brown (nod to 2004 possibly ? We'll see)
Caldwell, Gaffney, Brown, Jackson
------------------------
Seymour, Traylor !!, Warren, Green, Wilfork (raw rookie) - Seymour was out for the AFCC !!
Seymour, Wilfork, Warren, Green, Wright !
Vrabel, Bruschi, Johnson, McGinest, Banta-Cain, Colvin (off of injury)
Vrabel, Bruschi, Colvin, (Seau), Banta-Cain
Harrison, Wilson, Samuel (2nd year), Gay (undrafted rookie !), Reid, Cherry, Poteat
Hawkins, Sanders, Samuel, Hobbs, Scott
Interesting, eh ??
