Do You Want the Patriots to Win the Super Bowl?
Posted by SBG on Sunday, December 30th, 2007 at 11:17 am
I definitely do.
It's not that I'm a Patriots fan -- I'm not an NFL fan. But, I am a fan of achieving excellence and this team is in position. I want the 1972 Dolphins in the dustbin of history.
Listening to the morons on ESPN this morning, I'm just outraged with their bullshit. Where is the logic? According to the talking heads, the Patriots would have been better off losing the game against the Giants if they lost the Super Bowl. What? Heads is tails. Better to lose now, in case we lose in the future?
The New England Patriots just finished the greatest regular season in NFL history. Bar none. No matter what happens from here forward, that should not be forgotten. And here's to a Super Bowl Championship to cap it to shut up that dope fiend and convicted cocaine trafficker Mercury Morris and his doddering old granddad Don Shula.
Here's Shula. He's at least got enough sense to back away from his ridiculous stances in the past. He's probably got some people around him telling him that he needs to be gracious.
(Damned ESPN. They give you the embed clip, and then make the video unavailable.)
But, watch this clip. Bob Griese tries to be magnanimous, but that fucking Morris will have none of it.
For the life of me, why doesn't someone from that 1972 team stand up and tell Morris to shut up? He's an embarrassment.
Then again, if they don't win, I'd accept a brilliant performance by Peyton Manning to knock them out and complete a back-to-back Super Bowl run. That'd make Sports Guy's head explode, which wouldn't be a bad thing.
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I am not opposed to the back-to-back Colts Super Bowls idea. If anyone else was taking a run at 19-0, I'd be behind them 100%. But since I've hated the Patriots for as long as I've paid attention to football, the lot of them can go straight to Hades.
Colts/Pats AFC title game will be the real super bowl this year, of course. And I wouldn't put it past Dungy to find a way to win, even outdoors in Foxboro.
Hey, SBG. Every husband needs a wife. And Griese's looking might fine in them jeans.
...to shut up that dope fiend and convicted cocaine trafficker Mercury Morris and his doddering old granddad Don Shula.
Don't sugar-coat it, boss. How do you really feel? You ask why some '72 teammates don't tell Morris to STFU? Because if past statements I've read from the likes of Nick Buoniconti and Larry Csonka (among others) hold true, they feel exactly the same way.
I guess I wouldn't mind seeing the Pats run the table and make history. They're fun to watch, unlike the majority of the league's franchises. The fly in the ointment is that an already insufferable fan-base becomes even more insufferable. The mind reels...
The insufferable fan base is somewhat irrelevant. My sis-in-law is part of that fan base -- BabySBG got a Patriots cheerleading outfit for Xmas (ugh!). I'd probably be insufferable too if the Twins had two recent World Series championships, the Vikings had won three recent Super Bowls and looked to be the favorite for a fourth, and the T-Wolves had traded for KG to try and win a 17th championship.
Maybe Shula changed his tune. Again.
I'm also a fan of excellence, and as a fan of excellence, I guess I'd say that I want the Patriots to win as long as they continue to play well. If someone out there beats the Patriots on a day where the Patriots played well, though, I would also be interested in seeing that.
As a Minnesota sports fan, I feel like I've seen a lot of poorly coached/managed teams, so it's refreshing to see someone like Belichick making smart decisions on the sidelines. He might be an ass, but I can respect how well he does his job on the field, much the same way that I respect how Torii Hunter does his job on the field.
And I like Randy Moss.
I loved his "I mean, hell, I'm Randy Moss. What do you expect?" comment the other day.
I like Moss, too. Sure, he may have said and done some stupid stuff while he was here. He's a professional athlete. It's in the job description. Randy is hands down the most exciting player in Vikings history. Not even close, really. (And yes I'm old enough to remember Tarkington, Foreman, Sammy White, Anthony Carter and anybody else you might wanna match up with him.)
I'm with you on that. He's the best player in franchise history.
better than Alan Page? Hmmm. I'm not so sure, although an argument can be made.
Yeah, I'm not ready to name him the best player in franchise history, but he's top tier, no doubt.
You'll note I said "most exciting."
I didn't say he had the best career as a Viking. I said he was the best player. I think he was, even better than Page. But, if anyone was a better player, it was Hizzoner.
I, for one, found Page's play pretty darned exciting. But then, I was doomed to be a lineman in my own football "career".
mind you, I wouldn't describe Gary Larsen/Doug Sutherland's play as "exciting". Or Jim Marshall's, save the famous/infamous wrong way play. But Page (and Eller) were exciting.
One thing to remember about this team and the Super-Bowl-or-it's-worthless talk is that this team has already won three Super Bowls. And this is in the free agency/salary cap era, a profoundly different time than the early 1970s. The 2000s Patriots shouldn't be compared with the Dolphins -- they need to be compared with SF, the Aikman Cowboys, and the 1970s Steelers. When talking about the greatest teams of all-time, the Dolphins don't really get a serious mention.
three straight Super Bowls, including 2 straight wins.
that 1972 team lead the league in scoring and scoring defense, outscoring their opponents by 15.3 ppg. they were essentially tied for second in yards per play allowed (in the top 5 in both passing defense and run defense). they were second in turnovers forced. On offense, they were second in yards/play (second in both net passing yards/att and in rushing yards/att). 4 offensive players and 6 defensive players were named 1st- or 2nd-team All-NFL (No Name Defense my ass).
that was a dominant team.
in 1973, the Dolphins were 5th in scoring and again first in scoring defense. They score more than twice as many points as their opponents again, with an average margin of 13.8 ppg. they lead the league in yards per play gained and on defense in yards/play allowed. Seven offensive players, 5 defensive players and the kicker were named 1st- or 2nd-team All-NFL. Again, a dominanting team.
and the 1971 team that lost the Super Bowl didn't exactly suck.
the 1974 team went 11-3, losing 28-26 to Oakland in the playoffs. that team had 5 1st- or 2nd-team All-NFL players on offense and 3 on defense. That was one heck of a run.
so why don't they get more notice?
three straight Super Bowls, including 2 straight wins.
Those three Super Bowl victories were by a combined 9 points. Sub in anyone else for Vinateri and there's a chance they only win 1 or 2. That's not to say that making 3 out of 4 SBs is an easy task, but they weren't the 1992-1995 Cowboys that won 3 SBs in 4 years by a combined 109-47.
that three straight/2 straight was in reference to the Dolphins, Andrew.
They got crunched in the 1972 SB (24-3), dominated the Over-the-Hill Gang in a deceptively close 14-7 game in 1973 (Washington scored its only TD on a return of Garo Ypremian's "pass" on a botched figgie), and crushed our purple gang 24-7 in 1974's game.
I'd feel a little better about the Pats if Boston hadn't already signed on the dotted line with the Devil re: the BoSox. A lot of the fans are finding that their caps are way too tight now.
I like the way the Pats play and hope they win the big one. Boston's current insufferability notwithstanding. I like how both the Pats and Jints played it tough to the end last night even though the game was meaningless for both of them playoff wise. I haven't heard today if there were any injuries that may come back to hurt either team.
Barring such an injury I think that both teams playing full tilt will be a benefit, especially the Pats since they have a week off. Too bad teams like the Vikes and Browns have virtually no chance today because two teams that would probably win easily (Dallas, Indy) will treat their game like an August scrimmage. (I know both the Browns and Vikes made their own bed, but it is a 16-game schedule, not 15, and I understand Manning's and Romo's value but Brady and Manning-lite survived last night's game).
Any way go Pats, go Moss, Go Maroney, go Belicheck. Shut up those over rated 'fin boys for good!