made me scik because denver wouid had beat seattle plummer playaed a awful game that day
Greatest teams to NOT win the Super Bowl
- Thread starter BaseballJones
- Start date
The 07 Pats in the first 2/3 or 3/4 of the season were as good as any team in history. Late November and December you could see they weren't as good a team especially in the playoffs. That's why I think the 04 and 03 Pats were better. They handled the injuries better then the 07 team. And it's taken me years to admit that the Giants were the better team that day and deserved to win. The 2011 Giants were the luckiest team after the Niners practically handed them the title game. That won hurts almost as much because the Giants were a 9-7 team.
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This is a very good point. I think people forget that the 04 Pats won with their top 2 corners out (holding prime Manning to 3 points).
The ‘04 team will always be my favorite. They manhandled both the Colts and Steelers on the way to the Super Bowl. They were top 5 in both offense and defense.
86 Bears were damn good but would the Giants have had home field? That Giant team was a great one.
Yes they were great. Poor Gary Anderson. I'm not sure they would have beaten the Broncos but I think they give them a better game then the Falcons.
2010 Chargers:
1st in total offense
1st in total defense
Missed the playoffs
View: https://youtu.be/UAL5X3TRA2A
1st in total offense
1st in total defense
Missed the playoffs
View: https://youtu.be/UAL5X3TRA2A
By efficiency, they were not the top offense or defense. They also had one of the worst special teams of the last thirty years. All told, they were second in points and tenth in points allowed.
Those teams were both really good. Would have been an interesting Super Bowl, but Belichick and LT and Mark Bavaro didn't let that happen.
The 2010 ones might have been better, save one major component: special teams.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAL5X3TRA2A
I always thought SRS and DVOA overrated the 09 Pats. That team never looked as good as those stats made it seem. DVOA would have that team as better than any of the Super Bowl winners outside of 2004.
But the offense had a bad run game, bad tight ends, no receivers after Moss and Welker, while the defense had bad linebackers, and bad defensive backs. All with Brady in what (from the eye test) was his worst performing year of his career.
Is there a single team of the era the 09 team beats outside of like the 05 squad?
Some it is a strength-of-schedule adjustment. Both DVOA and SRS think the Pats played a hard schedule that year. In particular, DVOA thinks they played a difficult schedule of opposing pass defenses: Brady's stats get a huge boost from the SOS adjustment.
yea and while that's definitely true - aided by the two Jets games - that was also the 'he's seeing ghosts' year.
That team could easily have won 13 games though and that doesn’t include the finale in Houston. Lost by 3 in OT in Denver with Gost missing a 40 something yard FG in OT. Lost the BS 4th and 2 game. Lost 22-21 in Miami blowing a 21-10 lead including a Brady pick
inside the Miami 5. We think of them as being not very good due to the Saints and Ravens blowouts, but they were pretty good. 6th in points for and 5th in points against. +1200 yards on the season.
inside the Miami 5. We think of them as being not very good due to the Saints and Ravens blowouts, but they were pretty good. 6th in points for and 5th in points against. +1200 yards on the season.
The 2009 team's unadjusted stats also got boosted by the 59-0 win in the snow over Tennessee, where they outgained Tennessee 619-186 and were 5-0 in turnovers.
I believe that TN game was the first against them since the Bobby Wade game…could TB and BB have still held a bit of a grudge? I know I never forgave Fisher or the Titans.
...basically on a missed 35 yard field goal indoors by a guy that didn't miss all season.
That was the year Brady came back from the injury suffered in the first game in 08. That team was so up and down. And remember they were lucky to beat the Bills on opening night MNF when the Bills handed them the game on a fumbled kickoff and the Ravens who were driving but threw an INT at the end of the game. They could have also been 9-7 or 8-8.
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in 2010 they were looking so good at the end of the year. They crushed the Jets 45-3 in early December but wound up losing to them in the playoffs. That really sucked. 2009 they underachieved and 2010 was a big end of season loss to Rex and the Jets. I thought that 2010 team was one of the best Pats teams. Better then 2011.
It's true with a couple bounces they could have had a worse record than their 10-6. They were absolutely fortunate to beat the Bills in week 1.
Not sure what you are referring to in the Baltimore game. The Pats stopped Baltimore twice on 4th down in the 4th quarter with a 6 point lead. I don't consider that to be a lucky win.
They had the pythag of an 11.4 win team, which suggests they underachieved in the regular season. Their 6 losses:
16-9 vs. the Jets
20-17 vs. Denver
35-34 vs. Indy
22-21 vs. Miami
38-17 vs. New Orleans (their only non-competitive loss of the season until the playoffs)
34-27 vs. Houston
Whereas of their 10 wins:
7 were by multiple scores
1 was by 7 (at Buffalo; the Pats had a two score lead for most of the game; Buffalo made it 17-10 with 3 minutes to play then the Pats ran out the clock, so Buffalo never had possession in the second half with a chance to tie the game)
1 was by 6 (Baltimore)
1 was by 1 (Buffalo)
Again, they were far closer to being a 12-13 win team than an 8-9 win team.
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The Giants defense won that game and one BB decision, I'm sure, haunted him thereafter. The Patriots in SB42 had 5 possessions where they could have made it a two score game, including one at the start of Q3 where they burned 7 minutes off the clock. That was the possession where they got a big break on a replay that showed the Jints had a 12th player inches in bounds when the ball was snapped and ultimately passed on attempting a 48 yard field goal.
The 2010 team could at one time roll out a passing game featuring Moss, Welker, Gronk and Hernandez. If Moss had been able to buy in to a lesser role, they would have been unstoppable once the rookies rounded into form.
You could probably argue the TEs might not have rounded into the form they eventually did if Moss was still around though
Possibly. IIRC, Gronk wasn't featured much in the first part of the season, but Hernandez was already making an impact.
Either way, I don't look back at 2010 and think "if only Randy had stayed". If anything I think "good thing they got rid of Randy, it allowed them to achieve their potential"
Yeah, I also felt like Brady was locking in on him too much, which no longer worked because Moss had lost a step or two from his 2007 form.
Yup this is my recollection as well. Someone said it in another thread but in some ways Moss brought out the worst in Brady by this point. He was targeting him too much to the detriment of the other receivers. I think shipping him out was as much about that as it was about Moss being OK with a lesser role.
I dunno how much his physical skills had eroded, but after he left New England:
28 games
91 targets
47 catches (51.6%)
688 yards (14.6 YPC / 7.6 YPT)
5 TD
N'Keal Harry career:
33 games
107 targets
57 catches (55.3%)
598 yards (10.5 YPC / 5.8 YPT)
4 TD
He obviously still had some level of explosiveness based on the YPC, but he was far from productive.
I don't know if anybody mentioned the 2005 Colts.2nd in offense, 2nd in defense 15.4 pts per game given up. I think that was Peyton's best team. Lost a fluke game to the Steelers. 07 Colts were almost as good. Both better then the 06 team that won it all.
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