In the game of "what if's" the 2002 team shouldn't even be a thought. Here's how I would rank my 'what if's'....
1.) 2007 - easily #1, most dominant team all year and literally just a play or two from winning the Super Bowl
2.) 2011 - only a high 'what if' because they were a Welker catch away from winning the Super Bowl. In the grand scheme of things, however, Green Bay or New Orleans would have been a more deserving champ that year. The Pats defense was full of holes and replacements.
3.) 2006 - Blowing a big lead in Indy that discarded their opportunity at facing the Bears (who did not have a lot of fight in them).
4.) 2015 - Tough because we blew a great opportunity at home field advantage which I think definitely would have made the difference in the AFC Championship game. It's tough to say that we would have beat Carolina however, a team that was dominant ALL year. I think it was Denver's D and not Carolina's ineptitude that made that look human in the Super Bowl. As such, I think Carolina would have and should have beaten us, but it's alwasy fun to wonder 'what if' in a one game scenario.
Those are the only four I really think about. 2010 we had a great team but if you lose in the divisional round it's tough to definitively say 'well we would have won the next two games if we won that game'. Same goes for 2005. The 2009 team was bad but was still better than 2002. Those teams shouldn't even be on your radar.
