Re: OT: will the Colts go 16-0?
I guess this will become an annual topic, just like it was last year with the Titans and somebody else (Giants, perhaps?).
Personally I find it extremely doubtful that either the Colts or Saints will go undefeated. It has nothing to do with how good those teams are; it has everything to do with how difficult it is for any team to accomplish that feat - regardless of how dominant they are, or who they are playing.
Going undefeated has happened what, twice in the last seventy years? But now it is going to happen twice (or even three times) in the space of two years? I doubt it.
With the salary cap and free agency, teams are very evenly matched despite what some of those records may seem to indicate. And with teams playing sixteen rather than twelve or fourteen game seasons, the chance of a letdown increases dramatically - and that's without even taking the effect of injuries into consideration.
An undefeated season is an incredible rarity in the NFL. I don't know why so many NFL fans and members of the media act as if they expect it to happen when a team is undefeated barely more than half way through a season.
As for the concept that if or when the Colts and Saints lose it would be 'choking', I completely disagree. Choking comes from the word choke - that a person or team got so nervous they could not handle the pressure and were unable to breath (choked). Just because a team loses it does not mean they choked, even if they were the favorite. Underdogs win about five games every week of an NFL season; does that mean 85 teams "choke" every year? 69 out of the last 70 years the best team in the NFL finished the season with at least one loss; does that mean all of those teams choked at some point that year? Of course not.
