Thank You Bob, Bill and Tom

[TheBostonStraggler]

The Pats, like any of the 32 teams in the current NFL, only have to have a better record than the three teams in their division to make the playoffs. It doesn't matter what their record is, as long as it's better than the Bills, Dolphins and Jets. That puts them in a 4 team race.

No team in pro sports has been or is in the same ballpark as the 60's Celts.

If you were arguing 'Celts have 9 and the Patriots only have 3', ok, that is an arguable point of view. But then to mention the NFL divisional framework is only 4 teams as a reason why the Celts 1960s dynasty is more impressive? That very much weakens your argument. There are clear and critical differences between the two sports and eras that are more germane than the divisional framework of the NFL. For instance: (1) the 1960's Celtics never faced wide open free agency. (2) They did not face a strict limit on how much $$$ they could spend on players. (3) in a significant portion of BB's tenure the NFL scheduling framework made the Patriots (and any other division winner) have 3 more difficult(likely) matchups than those "only 3" divisional rivals. (4) the NBA in the 60's, I believe, had 50% of all teams go to the playoffs and there were only 12 teams in the league (I could be wrong on that -- don't quote me). (5) The physical nature of the sports themselves. How many games/seasons did the core players of the Celtics miss due to injury? I'm sure they lost some but how many compared to the hyper-extended knees, ripped muscles, broken bones, spinal cords absorbing gruesome levels of shock, concussions etc etc etc that occur in the NFL? With the amount of players that are inactive or unable to perform at their expected level each week due to what the game does to their bodies, an NBA team in the 1960s never had to deal with what BB (and other NFL teams) must deal with week in and week out to field a competitive team (not to mention what the players themselves have to endure).
Bottom line, the Celts of the 1960's did not have anywhere near, not even close! the task facing them that an NFL team has in being a dynasty.

The point of my post is not intended to say the Celts dynasty was unimpressive. You win 9 out of 11 championships and you deserve to be called impressive. The laws of probability alone make the task a high mountain to climb. Also it is only fair for me to mention I am not old enough to have seen the 1960's Celts play (I am old enough to barely remember as a kid watching my first Celts game - the final years of Dave Cowens.....also just old enough to wonder why the Patriot fans in the stands were singing "goodbye chuckie").

Now onto 4 out of the last 12 then 5 out of the last 13....

 

[crew1954]

Hyperbole, the bane of the GangGreen forum.

Hubris is the Jets' fans specialty.