19 Reasons Why It's 'Stupid' To Discuss Patriots Going 19-0
By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- It's crazy that even amid the most steady, consistent, prolonged stretch of success by any team in the salary cap era, it's possible to take for granted the stability of the New England Patriots.
With a good owner and a Hall of Fame tandem at coach and quarterback, the Patriots have been able to maintain an unheard-of level of equilibrium with regard to keeping the ship on course. And when you look around the NFL, the Patriots are without a doubt the exception to the rule.
The Redskins fired their GM in March after two years and have a team president who apparently doesn't know the first name of his franchise quarterback -- the same quarterback he'll likely now have to trade. The Panthers fired their GM a week before training camp opens. The Bills fired their GM after the draft. The Chiefs did, too.
Add in all the constant coaching changes, all the bags of money being thrown at bad quarterbacks, and it's clear just how fortunate the Patriots have been to have Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, both of whom have never shown an interest in seeking greener pastures.
As a result of the Patriots' long run of success, which includes five Super Bowl wins and two more conference championships over a span of 16 years, people tend to talk about them as if they exist on a separate plane from the rest of the NFL. While you could make the case that the Patriots operate smarter and more efficiently than at least 95 percent of the league, the fact remains that they're not superhumans, and they are still bound by the laws of reality.
Yet lately, that's been forgotten, as talk of the Patriots going 19-0 in 2017 has somehow become a regular discussion. Julian Edelman's had to come out and say that such talk is "stupid," and yet, it's persisted. On the radio, on television, on the internet -- it's a topic. The chatter persists.
That's ridiculous.
Seriously.
To illustrate the ludicrous nature of this discussion, here are 19 reasons why the Patriots won't go 19-0.
19. They'll be playing their opponents' Super Bowl every single week.
The Patriots are the class of the NFL. They are the measuring stick by which other teams determine their standing in the league. A win against the Patriots goes a long way to boost morale in a locker room. As a result, it will be a very rare occasion when the Patriots get anything but an opponent's best effort and focus this upcoming season. This has been the case for some time; even the miserable Jets held a late fourth-quarter lead over the Patriots last year. Even the "easy" wins don't always come easy.
18. They don't usually make it out of their first four games undefeated.
In the past eight seasons going back to 2009, the Patriots have started the year 4-0 just twice. Under Bill Belichick, September has been somewhat of a learning month, whereas December is when the team really hits its stride. Losses in 2014 to the Dolphins (Week 1) and Chiefs (Week 4), consecutive losses to the Cardinals and Ravens in 2012, and a stunning loss to the Bills in 2011 stand out as some early-season losses in recent years.
17. Their schedule is more difficult than most people seem to acknowledge.
They've got trips to Pittsburgh, Denver and Mexico City (to face Oakland). They play five road games in a span of six weeks. They play five prime-time games. They'll host the reigning NFC champions. They'll play six teams that made the playoffs last year. They'll play three teams that won a playoff game last year. The Jets and Bills figure to be terrible, but the other 12 games on the schedule are no sure thing.
16. Week 4, 2016: Bills 16, Patriots 0
Sure, Jacoby Brissett started this game at quarterback, but nobody in the world predicted the Patriots would get shut out. At home. By the Bills. It was the first time the Patritos had been shut out in a decade, and the first time they had been shut out at home since 1993. An anomaly? Of course. But in the NFL, these things happen from time to time.
15. Week 17, 2014: Bills 17, Patriots 9
Unlike Week 17 in 2007, the older, wiser Bill Belichick showed in this game that if his team has nothing to gain, he's willing to punt away a whole game at the end of the season. That was certainly the case in this Week 17 meaningless matchup, when Tom Brady threw just 16 passes before being replaced by Jimmy Garoppolo at halftime. The Patriots treated this game like a televised practice. If the same situation presents itself in 2017, they could do it again.
14. Week 5, 2013: Bengals 13, Patriots 6
Bill Belichick and Tom Brady don't lose to Marvin Lewis and the Bengals. They just don't. And they certainly don't get held out of the end zone for 60 minutes. But that's what somehow happened in this game, which snapped a streak of 52 straight games with a touchdown pass. The New England offense went 1-for-12 on third down, while Brady took four sacks and threw an end-zone interception on the final drive to end the game.
When the Patriots were attempting a comeback drive in the final minutes, the skies opened up and a torrential downpour impeded their ability to play football very well. It took an act of God, but the Bengals were able to upset the Patriots.
13. Week 11, 2013: Panthers 24, Patriots 20
The Panthers were a formidable foe in 2013, yes, as evidenced by Cam Newton looking like Wayne Gretzky in NHL '94 on this one ridiculous play:
What a play!
Anyway, the Panthers led late, but the Patriots were driving, and they looked like they were going to get a shot from the goal line, because hey, this is a penalty, right?
Wrong. Not a penalty (allegedly). Patriots lose. Tough noogies.
12. Week 7, 2017: Atlanta Falcons vs. New England Patriots
Yes, yes, yes, it's very possible that the Super Bowl collapse sends the Falcons into a spiral of doom and derails the franchise for years to come. I recognize this possibility. But for now, on paper, this figures to be a game-of-the-year candidate in the NFL, as the defending NFC champs look to gain some level of revenge on the team that inflicted that emotional damage back in February.
There is something to be said for that revenge factor, as the still-not-quite-stable-after-getting-picked-off-at-the-goal-line-to-lose-a-Super-Bowl Seahawks were the only team that beat Tom Brady last season. Subject to change, the Falcons should be expected to play their very best when they make the trip to Foxboro.
11. Week 10, 2017: New England Patriots vs. Denver Broncos
The Broncos' quarterback situation may be a bit of a laugher at this moment in time, but that's hardly mattered in the past when the Patriots have visited Denver.
The Patriots lost to a Jake Plummer-led team in 2005. Twice. They needed to pull that intentional safety chicanery to beat a Broncos team quarterbacked by Danny Kanell in 2003. They lost to Brian Griese in 2001. They lost to Kyle Orton in 2009. They lost to Brock Osweiler in 2015 and a dead-armed Peyton Manning that postseason. (They did beat Tim Tebow, though.)
So whether it's Trevor Siemian or Paxton Lynch, this shouldn't be seen as a gimme for New England. Certainly last year, facing Siemian, it was not the easiest win of the year for the Super Bowl champs. Brady threw for just 188 yards, his lowest total of the year. He didn't throw a touchdown, which only happened twice. He posted a 68.2 passer rating, his lowest of the year. The Denver defense is surely good enough to make it difficult once again.
10. Week 15, 2013: Dolphins 24, Patriots 20
Winning in Miami has been a challenge for Belichick and Brady, and that was true on this mostly forgotten loss late in the 2013 season. Instead of waltzing to a clinched AFC East title, the Patriots found themselves blowing a lead late in the fourth quarter and then coming oh-so-close with their comeback in the final seconds.
But Michael Thomas (who?) recorded the only interception of his entire NFL career in the end zone to seal a Miami victory. The loss dropped Brady's all-time record in Miami to 6-6. He and the Patriots are 1-2 since then. Winning in Miami: difficult, for whatever reason.
9. Week 7, 2013: Jets 30, Patriots 27 (OT)
Pushing is generally a regular occurrence in an NFL game. It's not normally outlawed. But on this day ... on this day, pushing was deemed illegal. And it kept the Jets alive in overtime, giving them 15 free yards after a missed Nick Folk kick and setting up a chip shot for a victory.
Pushing penalties aside, Brady also made an uncharacteristically bad decision on a pass that ended up turning into a pick-six.
The Jets were an 8-8 team that year. The Patriots were 12-4. But sometimes, you lose a game because you pushed. And pushing is illegal?
8. Week 1, 2014: Dolphins 33, Patriots 20
It's hard to properly gauge what to expect in the opening week of any NFL season, but the Patriots as five-point favorites on the road were not expected to struggle with the Dolphins for the season opener in 2014. Yet the Dolphins blocked a punt on the Patriots' opening drive and scored four plays later. The Patriots then asserted themselves to take a 20-10 lead into halftime, but the Dolphins scored 23 unanswered points in the second half. Brady was sacked four times and lost two fumbles, as the Patriots' offensive line was a wreck. Knowshon Moreno ran for 134 yards. It was as bad a game as the Patriots could play.
The Patriots went on to win the Super Bowl. The Dolphins went on to go 8-8. The Patriots beat the Dolphins 41-13 in the December rematch. They probably shouldn't have lost in Week 1, but they did. Because it's the NFL.
7. Week 13, 2015: Eagles 35, Patriots 28
What's been remembered more as "the mortar kick game" than as anything else, the Patriots lost this game to an inferior opponent for many more reasons other than giving up a few yards of field position. Brady had his only two-interception game of the year. Rob Gronkowski was out due to injury. Malcolm Jenkins scored on defense. Darren Sproles scored on a punt return. Najee Goode scored on a blocked punt return.
As a result, the Patriots (who were favored by eight points) came up short in their late comeback attempt. It was a strange game all around, but in the NFL, such games tend to pop up from time to time.
6. Week 16, 2015: Jets 26, Patriots 20 (OT)
The Patriots really needed a win to help secure home-field in the playoffs. This game was no throwaway. And yet, the defending Super Bowl champs couldn't put away their division rival. In fact, it took a Brady touchdown pass to James White inside the two-minute warning just to tie the game late in the fourth quarter. In overtime, Bill Belichick controversially (and wrongly) elected to kick after winning the coin flip in overtime. Ryan Fitzpatrick marched the Jets down the field with ease, Eric Decker caught a touchdown, and just like that, the Patriots had lost to the Jets.
5. Week 17, 2015: Dolphins 20, Patriots 10
Risk injuries to key players and try to win to secure home-field for the playoffs, or rest the starters and just make it to the playoffs healthy? Belichick faced this question for the regular-season finale and settled on ... somewhere in between both options. It didn't work.
Not only did the feed-street-free-agent-Steven-Jackson-as-much-as-possible plan fail, but it didn't even keep Brady healthy. He got ripped apart by Ndamukong Suh and limped his way off the podium.
This was a truly confounding game plan put in place by Bill Belichick, smack dab in the middle of two Super Bowl wins.
The Patriots were nine-point favorites and had a lot to play for.
4. They trailed 28-3 in the Super Bowl.
The comeback was great. The comeback was magnificent. The comeback was downright miraculous. And the thing with miracles is they involve more than humans can control. Had any one big play gone a different way -- the Jake Matthews holding penalty, the Dont'a Hightower strip sack, the deflection that preceded the Julian Edelman catch, the overtime coin flip, etc. -- then the Patriots could have and/or would have lost the Super Bowl and nobody would be talking about 19-0 right now.
Of course, the Patriots did complete the comeback. It was an incredible achievement. But to act as if the Patriots function on a wholly different level than all NFL teams is to ignore the fact that they fell behind 28-3 in the Super Bowl and needed to be absolutely perfect for 25 minutes in order to overcome that deficit.
3. Their quarterback is 40 years old.
If anyone can continue to defy the limits of reality and outperform every quarterback in history, it's this guy. Even still, to expect Tom Brady to continue playing at an MVP level at age 40 is perhaps unrealistic. It wouldn't necessarily be shocking if he put forth another season like last year's, but it is possible that he actually shows some signs of age. (I know, I know; that's been possible for five years running and has yet to happen.)
It is somehow forgotten that Brady did indeed suffer an injury last season after taking a helmet to his right thigh. His famed pliability might have saved him from missing games, but it was a reminder that the human body can only withstand so much.
2. Teams don't repeat as champions in the NFL.
There hasn't been a repeat champion in the NFL since the 2003-04 Patriots. Of the players who won both titles, only two -- Tom Brady and Adam Vinatieri -- are still in the NFL. Most retired a decade ago. Many great teams have won Super Bowls. Very few have repeated. This sometimes gets overlooked.
1. Teams don't go undefeated in the NFL.
Yeah, the 2007 Patriots nearly did it. But for starters, that was a historically great team. Second, they needed to get flat-out lucky with Rex Ryan's timeout in Baltimore, they barely squeaked by A.J. Feeley and the mediocre Eagles, squeaked past the Giants in Week 17, and played a terrible game in the AFC championship against the Chargers, when Phillip Rivers and LaDainian Tomlinson both got hurt.
Quite simply, the level of dominance and luck that the 2007 team had was a once-in-a-lifetime combination, and even then, it ran out. Asante Samuel couldn't make the interception, David Tyree used his helmet, Corey Webster got his fingertip on Brady's prayer to Moss, and that was that.
The 2007 Patriots nearly wrote history in unprecedented fashion. To ever expect that to happen in any way is just preposterous.
You can email Michael Hurley or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.
