It’s over? Already?

The fat (but only because she was impregnated by serial commitment-phobe Tom Brady) lady sung, foreigner.

1972 The Faces

Final Record: Faces 187 – Hotel Rooms 0
Playoff scores: you talking babes or drugs?

The ‘Niners are still the greatest team ever. Let the Pats go win again, and I’ll reconsider.

I’ll see your 1972 The Faces and raise you 1967 The Small Faces.

Final Record: Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake
Playoff Scores: 5’2″ average height, 9″ average length

’89 Niners, hands down.

Speaking as a Colts fan… that was a great game. 🙂

85′ bears for d, 89′ Niners for o.

Derailing the thread to opine that Troy Aikman is shaping up to be one of the best franchise-NFL-players-turned-TV-guys ever. I always considered him kind of an idiot when he was playing, obviously unfairly, because he really knows how to call a game. Glad to see he and Joe Buck got to call this great game, they are good together.

Hope EA Sports gets on board and retires the Madden franchise to start up the Aikman franchise sometime soon.

It’s because the Patriots suck and are godless heathens from the homofascist coast, as opposed to the God-fearing Heartland, or something.

1976 Steelers.

13-2, 5 straight shutouts, 9 points allowed per game, Franco and Bleier crippled in the playoffs against Baltimore the season each rushed for 1,000 yards, heartbreak against Satan’s minions i.e. the Raiders.

The best Steeler team ever never got to the Super Bowl.

The Steelers of the 70’s are by far the best teams in NFL history with a never-to-be-repeated 4 Super Bowl titles in 6 seasons, but the best of them all were derailed by injury and unable to complete the five of six which would have rendered this and all future arguments moot.

Its. The. Steelers.

Everyone else is fighting for second place.

Everyone on that team is a legit contender, save for the Patriots. If you don’t win the Super Bowl, you are ipso facto not the best team in history, as you weren’t even the best team the year you played. That’s the New York Football Giants, and congrats to them.

(My pick: the Bears Shufflin’ Crew, shufflin’ on down, and doin’ it for you.)

Totally second urizon. ’89 ‘Niners football was really more like ballet.

Aplomb’s comment above made baby Jebus cry.
Joe Buck’s only achievement in life is being less shitty than Tim McCarver, something shared by pretty much every other cellular organism that has ever existed.

Diesel.

Have to agree with adb. With about 1:50 to go in the Super Bowl, Jints on 4th down and needing a TD, Buck and Aikman were talking about the ‘tough decision’ facing Coughlin, as in, whether to punt or go for it.

That was among the stupidest things I’ve ever heard in a long life of watching costumed men dance around with balls.

1996 Packers, thank you.

The corrected Patriots 2007-08 record.

Also, 76 or 83 Raiders ought to be mentioned.

To troll Teh Editors or not to troll? That is the question.

For years, the only professional sports team I ever hated was the Pistons. That goes way back, and is deeply ingrained. I don’t even know why anymore.

I can join in on hatin’ on the Yankees. It’s fun, and it brings people together. But I’m really just playing.

But this year, I really learned to despise the Patriots. I was elated when the Giants won. If the Patriots were the best team ever, well, they would have been a few more TDs ahead, and Little Manning’s last minute save would not have mattered.

2007-2008 Patriots: Tough? Sure.

Among the best team’s ever? Um, not in any reality-based reality.

Also, 76 or 83 Raiders ought to be mentioned.

Maybe mentioned, HTML, but as a fan of the ’76 Raiders and the great Niners teams (I abandoned the Raiders when they abandoned Oakland), I gotta say the Niners were better.

So my vote is for the ’89 Niners. They were poetry in motion during that playoff run.

One of these things is not like the others….

One of these things just doesn’t belong….

All great teams. 9ers might come out on top of the pile, but it’s a close call.

I’ll say it again, that was one hell of a football game.

HTML, there’s a question?

comsympinko, good to know you don’t have any strong feelings on the subject, or anything.

OK, greatest teams in history. All right. Yeah. OK.

And? Yeah? What? OK, yeah. OK, Pats this, Pats that. Right. OK.

Right. And? What’s that? Oh, right. OK

*Points at Patriots* (Nelson Muntz-style) Ha-Haa!

Right on, Teaflax.

Ha-Haa!

Oh, while I think of it.

Best NFL team ever?

1940 Chicago Bears.

Da Bears.

Walter Payton, RIP.

Here’s an OT link for those who don’t like sports – arguably the most batshit insane fundie on the internet:

http://www3.telus.net/trbrooks/juliet_4stepproof.htm

The ‘good news’ is that he’s offering $10,000 (which he totally super-honestly has and is ready to give) to the first person who can disprove his theory of proof for the existence of God, which as far as I can see amounts to “If God doesn’t exist, then wibble hamster telephone”.

Hundreds of entries already deleted from the forum due to their ‘flawed logic’!

Retardo: the answer is yes, you should troll the fuck out of the “pre-gloating” Editors.

However, coming from the other side of that great Midwestern divide, I’d have to reiterate my preference for the ’85 Bears, and reiterate it thusly:

SHUFFLIN’ CREW, BITCHES!

Oops, I mean http://www3.telus.net/trbrooks/perfectproof.htm

Gee, I wonder why you forgot to mention the 1986 New York Giants, who compiled a 16-2 record, scoring 105 points to 23 in three playoff games, not to mention Phil Simms earning a qb rating of 150.9 (out of a possible rating of 158.3)on 22 for 25 for 3 touchdowns. Seems like it’d be worth a mention. Since they did, you know, actually win a Superbowl and all. But yeah, let’s all talk about how great the team that didn’t win the Superbowl this year is instead.

Don’t forget Lawrence Taylor being freaking awesome that year.

One of these things is not like the others . . . .

Oops, someone beat me to that. Never mind.

But I will say that there’s no question that the 1972 Dolphins are the worst team on that list. Without question.

Worst team ever:

Frist/Carville

Sjofn said,

Don’t forget Lawrence Taylor being freaking awesome that year.

Plus Lawrence Taylor was freakin’ awesome that year.

Kodos: 17-2.

The ’84 Niners are probably the most underrated team on the list. The Dolphins (who were also 17-1 coming into the SB) monopolized the headlines that season, and then the Shufflin’ Crew blitzed the media the next year, so the fairly uneventful SB win (remembered only for the slo-mo shot of Roger Craig crossing the goal line) in-between gets overshadowed.

Thlayli said,

Kodos: 17-2.

Why, that just that makes them look even better!

Spencer and one other person beat me to it but:

One of these things is not like the other!

Here it is, Pats fans… here it is for you.

My, but Mr. Brady spent a lot of time on his ass yesterday evening.

Giants.

ELEVEN consecutive wins on the road. Outscored four teams in the playoffs on the road, 85-65. Beat the Patriots and ate their hearts, thereby gaining their strength.

“Greatest NFL Team Ever?”
“Final Record: 18-1 (lost Super Bowl)”

Great Teams don’t lose the Super Bowl. Did you mean ‘Best Single Season Performance’

The fact is, the best team ever is Team America. We win because of our hard work all over the world with democracy touchdowns and freedom field goals. However, liberals cheer for the other team.

If Tim Krumrie doesn’t shatter his leg, the 49ers don’t win the Super Bowl in 1989. So there.

78 Steelers would have easily beaten the 94 Niners. They were truly a great team.

(won Super Bowl)
(won Super Bowl)
(won Super Bowl)
(won Super Bowl)
(lost Super Bowl)

One of these things is not like the others.
One of these things doesn’t belong.

Anyone catch the game yesterday?

Brady got handled like a boy band member in the restroom with a republican senator.

Brady got handled like a boy band member in the restroom with a republican senator.

Speaking of which, I was brazenly groped on the train today. Now I know how it feels to be a woman.

Hey, if you don’t want all the unpatriotic midgets in the audience to derail yet another sports thread, you may want to create an alternative. Something with good lighting, but not too bright 🙂

’85 Bears Junk Yard Dogs winning ugly

Haven’t followed football since Steve Young retired, but I was definitely a fair-weather fan of the Niners. Young! Rice! Hanks! Argh! Where are the real manly men these days?!

Final Record: Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake

GREAT record, D.

Why are the 2007 Patriots on that list?

Is this just another case of the oh-so-famous narcissism that New England sports fans are known for?

“We lost…but pay attention to us anyways!!!”

Sorry, but the 2007 Patriots do not belong on that list.

You have to actually win the championship in order to be considered one of the best ever…or else you just become a footnote in NFL history. The 2007 Patriots team is analogous to the 2001 Mariners team that won 116 games and then failed to win the World Series.

Enjoy your new status as a footnote…

W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W L

’85 Bears.

Why are the loser Pats even included in the conversation? “Great” teams don’t lose the Super Bowl, especially if they cheated the whole way through. Despite what the NFL media wingers at ESPN tell us, in a few years no one will remember 18-0. We will ALWAYS remember 18-1.

I’m just so pleased about this.

I can think of 42 teams in the Super Bowl era that are better than this year’s Pats.

Doesn’t this prove that the Pats can’t beat a good defense without cheating?

And how are the 2007 Patriots on that list when the team that beat them in the Super Bowl, the 2007 Giants, aren’t on the list? Clearly, the Giants are a better team than the Pats.

About the greatest team ever. One thing that you guys aren’t taking into consideration is rule changes through the years. So you have to separate the Superbowl winner by that class.
After the Steelers wins, the rules were changed to allow quarterbacks to wear dresses and you couldn’t touch a poor wide receiver down field. No more head slaps by defensive linemen. Bunch of primadonnas on offense.
Wonder how Tommy Terrific would do if he had small shoulder pads and a leather helmut or if the defense could treat him like the Packers of the 60s or Steelers of the 70s? Can you say stretcher?
89 niners? Yeah somebody got it right… ballet. Because it sure wasn’t football the way it was meant.

Threads like this one are what makes me glad I know nothing about football.

I’m home sick today; I need entertainment, dammit!

Cue Bob Seeger………”beautiful loooooooooser”

Pats? Among the all-time great teams?

SADLY, NO!

Fuck you, Boston. You fake-ass fair-weather fans deserve nothing less than to accomplish everything in football that doesn’t matter.

A little honesty, please: before 2001, who in N.E. really gave sweet F-A about football? Prior to that, the only thing that got New Englanders interested in football was the awfulness of the Celtics.

Giants 17
Patriots 14

Suck it, Patriots nation.

ps: Billy Buckner.

Greatest Team Ever? The ’76 Tampa Bay Bucs. It took some big balls to suit up and play for that team week after miserable week (oh, and Coach McKay never left his players on the playing field…).

Come on, the best team, the best looking team, the best team to watch week after week?

forty-fucking-niners.

Though I will say it’s interesting how many people can easily dismiss this Pats team which, if we can trust the intertubes, it’s silly to talk about the Patriots as losers or a bad team. They’ve been a dominant force in football since the millenium. I don’t like the Pats. I give a fat rat’s ass about the jints.

Oh, and please quit whining about “cheating”. Sweet fucking jeebus how juvenile and wrong. How many of you that are Giants fans this morning backed “your team” with a big, fat bet yesterday?

Uh, I thought so.

Yes, Tom, it proves exactly that. I’m considering sending my brother in law who’s a rabid Pats fan a text to that effect this morning. Every year I go to the Jets-Pats game at the Meadowlands with him and his buddies. Me vs 20 loud mouths from fucking Beantown in a trash talking extravaganza and so many years in a row I’ve gotten my balls busted on the bus ride back to the city and now my second favorite team has ruined their season. Thank you FSM. But there’s this annoying feeling of compassion holding me back and I’m considering sending him and his friends a consoling email instead because they are all good dudes. Decisions, decisions.

And D. has to be fucking with us by including teh 2007 Patsies on the list. I’d suggest replacing them with the 1998 Broncos. I hated them but they should not be slept on.

ps: Billy Buckner.

WIN!

Er, the Patriots lost to ELI FUCKING MANNING.

Sorry–that alone disqualifies you from greatness.

[/troll]

“Oh, and please quit whining about “cheating”. Sweet fucking jeebus how juvenile and wrong. How many of you that are Giants fans this morning backed “your team” with a big, fat bet yesterday?”

I know, who cares if a team wins by using techniques outside the bounds of fair play?

Fuckin’ whiners.

And you’re absolutely correct..the only true measure of someone’s support ofr a team is how much money they are willing to bet on them. Who cares if you have cheered for that team for your entire life. If you aren’t willing to bet on them…you’re not a fan.

Brilliant Logic. Please continue to share it.

Oh, and please quit whining about “cheating”. Sweet fucking jeebus how juvenile and wrong. How many of you that are Giants fans this morning backed “your team” with a big, fat bet yesterday?

Huh? Are you saying that unless you bet on the Giants you can’t discuss the Pats history of cheating? Will you be passing that advice over to the US Congress?

Thank you, Jamey. Thank you very much for that. We are so relieved when Buckner gets the blame for that fiasco.

gbear,

Ah fix-ed it

probably should win the bowl to be considered truly great.

plus, the pats were handed that win at baltimore.

How can any “greatest ever” sports list not include Donald Bradman?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Bradman

I always considered him kind of an idiot when he was playing, obviously unfairly, because he really knows how to call a game.

No. When you call a game well you use the word “defend” as a verb not the word “defense”, and you use the word “containment” as a noun instead of the word “contain”.

Gods above, I think I lose a dozen IQ points every time I watch football with the sound on.

Why Football Is Republican

Everyone knows Football is Republican. Soccer is the only true sport of liberal fascists.

1) Mexicans (includes other brown people)
2) The French (includes other black people)
3) Takes a decent American word (football, liberty, freedom), gives it a namby-pamby meaning that is totally different, and tries to apply it to the whole world.
4) buttseks

Sorry, it ate my link for the last one:

HoosierX:

For years, the only professional sports team I ever hated was the Pistons. […] I don’t even know why anymore.

Probably because their team name spelled backwards is snotSip.

just me,

My sarcasm meter just redlined but I’m laughing and blushing at the same time. My only request is that you please move the ‘the most awsome and etc.’ part of it so it refers to Sadly,No!

Clearly, the Giants are a better team than the Pats.

Now, I am curious – do people really believe this, or are they saying it to annoy the Bradrocket? Because it’s clearly bullshit, unless you are limiting “better” to mean “better on this particular night.”

Because if the Giants were *truly* the better team over the course of the season – and not just over the course of the Super Bowl – they would be 19 and 0, wouldn’t they? Or they would have beaten the Pats a few weeks ago in their regular-season matchup. Hell, they would have at least won their division, right?

No, the Giants are a lesser team who outplayed a much better team on the single most important night of any NFL season. That in itself is a hell of an accomplishment and should be remembered for a long, long time.

But does it make the Giants actually better overall? Sadly, no. There’s a reason everyone is referring to this as an upset.

Spencer, you might wish to recall that the game where the Pats beat the Giants by three points meant NOTHING to the Giants. The Giants already had their playoff spot set. The Pats were playing to be unbeaten. And yet, the Pats only managed to win by a field goal.

Yes, the Giants were the better team this year. Going 16-0 is no more meaningful than having the best record in baseball and losing the World Series. Or do you believe that the 2004 NY Yankees were better than the 2004 Red Sox?

sorry friends, but it’s going to take me at least a week to get all of the “BWAH HA HA” out of my system. please bear with me.

No, the Giants are a lesser team who outplayed a much better team on the single most important night of any NFL season.

Spencer, you mean how they outplayed the better Dallas Cowboys and the better Green Bay Packers? Seems like a lot of “better” teams lost to the Giants when it actually counted, doesn’t it?

Hey, while you guys are sulking and sniping about football, the wingers are making all sorts of strained football and Tom Petty analogies you should be mocking. (Apparently Mitt is the New York Giants, and McCain is “Free Fallin'”).

As for greatest teams ever, I’m going to go with the ’98 Broncos. One of the greatest offenses of all time and a punishing defense. After years and years of managing to win with a talented quarterback, a decent defense and not much else, the Broncos suddenly had every tool you could possibly want and they used them every way their mad scientist coach could think of. Quite a bit like this years Patriots… except they sealed the deal.

Eli Manning didn’t win the Super Bowl, and Tom Brady didn’t lose it. The Giants defense won it, fair and square. What does every high school football coach yell till they’re red in the face? Defense wins championships. It did again, yesterday.

Going 16-0 is no more meaningful than having the best record in baseball and losing the World Series.

Ah, but I wasn’t arguing about *meaningful,* I was arguing about *better.* And to say that a team that loses once over the course of a 19-game schedule is somehow worse than a team that loses six times over that same span is simply not credible. They played the same number of games (well, actually, the Giants played one more, precisely because they couldn’t even win their division) against more or less the same talent pool.

There are simply way too many variables that come into play over the course of a single, high-profile game to be able to use the results to make a definitive declaration of superiority for one team over another. You need a bigger sample size. Fortunately, we have exactly that – it’s called the regular season.

Unless you believe that the entire regular season is meaningless. Which is an interesting question, but ultimately a different argument entirely.

Or do you believe that the 2004 NY Yankees were better than the 2004 Red Sox?

Couldn’t tell you – I haven’t followed baseball in any meaningful way for years, and even when I did, I hated both of those teams.

Spencer, you mean how they outplayed the better Dallas Cowboys and the better Green Bay Packers? Seems like a lot of “better” teams lost to the Giants when it actually counted, doesn’t it?

Yes. It happens. Lesser teams get hot and beat better teams, especially when those better teams get cocky and underestimate their opponents.

Personally, I think the fact that the Giants are the lesser of the two teams is what makes their championship all the more significant. They were a wild-card team that won three straight playoff games on the road and followed that up by beating a team that nearly everyone thought was one of the Great Teams of the Ages. Lesser teams win championships. That fact is part of what makes sports great. And the fact remains that the Giants are Super Bowl Champs – and they sure as shit earned it. But they were only the better team for one single night.

And Tom, before you start taking this personally (and it sounds like I may be too late for that), bear in mind that I hate the Pats, and have hated them since I lived in Massachusetts over a decade ago. Also bear in mind that the Giants are the only New York-area team I have even the slightest amount of favorable sentiment towards. In other words, I don’t have a dog in this fight.

I really want to work in a “Elections have Consequences” reference to this discussion.

“Championships Have Consequences”?

Same talent pool? The Giants didn’t get to play against the Jets and Miami twice. In fact, all three teams in the Patriots division were below .500, while the Giants division didn’t have a single team below .500.

Teams that do well during the regular season and then lose when it really counts just aren’t that good. Just like the Red Sox were better than the Yankees in 2004 even though the Yanks won more games, the Giants are better than the Pats.

And sadly no, lesser teams don’t get “hot”. Under-rated teams do.

Hello… ’72 dolphins never lost ANY game. Clearly the best.

89 niners? Yeah somebody got it right… ballet. Because it sure wasn’t football the way it was meant.

Ah yes, the old worn out “finesse” argument. Please don’t believe every cliche you hear from sports announcers. You still have to block and tackle all those big dudes on the other team, you know.

1998 Broncos!

Only thing better than the Patriots fans hereabouts stammering, “yeah, but we won more games that don’t count, so we’re technically better than the Giants… just like Piccard is better than Kirk!” is a mawkish Bill Simmons on ESPN blubbering like a man who got raped by trained dogs, only to discover that he liked it.

Hey New England, “Billy Buckner”‘s too easy to weasel out of? How about:

Bucky Dent.

Eighteen and One. The ONLY team to win eighteen games in a season and NOT win a championship.

Kindly suck it.

Thank you.

I would put those total playoff scores in the same category as the total runs scored in the 1960 World Series in which the Yankees outscored the Pirates 55-27 but lost the series.

I still believe that 1998-1999 Duke is the best college basketball team of my time on this planet, but because they lost in the championship game, that can be no more than a pet theory. It was frustrating at first that no one realized that squad would have pounded national champions from other seasons, or that they would have beaten that year’s champ (UCONN) 97 times out of 100. But over time, I realized that yeah, the ring counts more than hours and hours of number-crunching, comparing scores, comparing players, etc. It’s all about the ring.

Now I smile whenever, say, someone says that 2006-2007 Florida is the best team of the past 25 years, or whatever. I know it’s patently wrong, but I also know there’s ultimately no way to prove anything…beyond the ring.

So welcome to the purgatory of greatness, Pats fans. You know you were great. You’re sure you were great. It’s oh-so-obvious. And yet, it never will be. Because of the ring.

In 1966, not only were the teams not comprised of hyperthyroidal monsters, but pretty boys like eli Manning and Tom Brady wouldn’t have been tolerated in the stands in Green Bay, let alone on the field.

AND the title game was played in snow and ice, as ANY football after the 1st of the year was intended by God and Vince Lombardi.

Oh, and Gisele Bundchen is the Eva Braun of Liberal Fascism.

Yea, but BP…the Pats lasted longer than Yoko Romo’s team did…

Dammit, watching that Brady video was a big mistake.

AND the title game was played in snow and ice, as ANY football after the 1st of the year was intended by God and Vince Lombardi.

The players in yesterday’s game looked like they were suffering in the heat. They could have at least left the roof open.

because there is not yet a youtube video compilation of teh brady sacks, the internet has not yet achieved its potential.

because there is not yet a youtube video compilation of teh brady sacks, the internet has not yet achieved its potential.

Heh, that was FUN to watch. I said it last night, and I’ll say it again: I didn’t particularly care about the game and I can’t claim to be a fan of either team, but I did want to see Brady get pasted a few times.

So I desired, and so it was.

Thanks, football gods.

You left out the Broncos who won back to back super bowls including a huge (though not as big as yesterday’s) upset of Green Bay. Cmon, I’m not even a serious Broncos fan, but I think they qualify.

Kevin in Denver.

Back in MY day, before they only let prancing ballerinas take the field, football was played by naked whalers carrying harpoons, in the freezer-hold of a pitching ship on the Bering Sea in an ice storm.

The goal of the game was to carry a 75-lb. block of frozen cod with your testicles from one end of the ship to the other, through a live tank of hammerhead sharks, pausing only to have a finger chopped off with a rusty knife every 10 yards.

Not like this pussy sport of today. Grrr.

Back in MY day, before they only let prancing ballerinas take the field blah blah hump like a snowhill…

A ballerina could crack one of those scurvy whalers like a glass peanut between her mighty thighs, then kick his bones to dust with the granite boxes she calls shoes.

Pffft to frozen cod. I rememberr the days when they cod was still ALIVE! Bwarharhar. Arrrrgh matey.

Yarrhhh. You had cod? You don’t know how lucky you were. We made do with a shoebox full of wet gravel. Uphill. In the snow. Both directions.

Oh, gbearrrr, here’s the final version. I had to up the colors after adding the black letters anyway, which I hadn’t noticed before uploading the tongue in cheek version. Drat.

I still say it was a hell of a game. Judging by the sheer OMFG smile and/or wince factor of folks at the fine establishment where I watched, and the enjoyment factor of all of said folks, that was a truly great Superbowl. Apparently, I’m not the only one to think so. It looks like it was the second most watched TV event ever, behind only the MASH finale.

Also, having lived in Mass through the ’85 playoff game with Miami, I can say with some authority that Pats fans can be among the most annoying out there. Oh, the poor solitary sonofabitch wearing a Dolphins cap got no quarter that day. Happily, the Bears stuck the Pats in the sausage grinder right after that, so they couldn’t get too cocky.

18-and-D’oh!

From my personal football-watching experience (early 1980s and up), the best team I’ve ever seen is the 1985 Bears, with the 1989 49ers right up there as well.

justme, that’s Grrrrrreat! (…so Tony the Tiger can sue me).

I’m going to have to find a way to get it blown up to Ranger tailgate size before the convention.

Anonymous Prime posted the first version a couple days ago. Here’s the link to that:

http://www.zirconia3.com/misc/SN–vote-repub-lg.png

Arrrrhhhh,

Now that I look at the other one, the color scheme and spacing on mine kinda suck. It looks Ruskie, or something. Note to self, red goes on the top. Red, white, blue.

Then trying to get it to save at quality, and make it so the heffalumps aren’t pooing on your head and SN!.

Better

I found at least one place that prints vinyl banners from online art, grommets and all, but they were kinda pricey for a one-off. Bumper stickers can be done for pretty cheap, though.

You forgot the 1983 Reskins, who scored more points than anyone ever had before and had the biggest offensive line in the history of football (the “Hogs”) and were the unstoppable favorites to win their second consecutive Superbowl.

Then they faced the Raiders, who scored on offense, defense and special teams on the way to demolishing the defending champs. The Raiders scored on the ground, through the air, and kicked a field goal in addition to blocking a punt (recovered for a touch down) and intercepting a pass (run back for a touch down.)

Final score 38-9

Heh. I should do this as a post on my own blog, and probably will. But as long as I’m here, and it’s late/early, and I’m not getting any sleep tonight —

This season seems to have polarized football fandom into two very distinct groups.

One group understands that winning means everything, that the only true way to measure a football team’s greatness is by the number of Ws that comes after that team’s name, that when a team has a completely undefeated season it means that team is THE. BEST. EVER. Victory is all; worth any sacrifice, justification for any act. Sportsmanship means nothing, petty rules and regulations are the exclusive concern of losers. LEWWWWW-zerz!!!!! ::thhppptttt::

And then there is the other group, which knows that victory is meaningless, that the results of one trivial, unimportant athletic event have no real significance, that it’s really character that matters, that just because a team loses doesn’t diminish that team’s gravitas. That it’s how you play the game that is really important, that it’s how you carry yourself that is a true reflection of your organization’s worth. That even a loser is still a winner, if that loser learns something from the loss, and walks away stronger for the experience.

It is an astonishing thing, how quickly every Patriots fan in the world has moved from one group to the other since last night.

Those of you who don’t think the ’98 Broncos — you know, the one that started 13-0 — are near the top. Um, why? I’d seriously like to know. If Bill Belichek coached that team, they would have kept in the starters 4 quarters (instead of 2) and Terrell Davis would have finished the year with, oh, 2,700 yards.