That was then: Celebrating what was

Super Nomario

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The Falcons are 23-24 since Super Bowl LI. The Patriots just sent the organization into a tailspin.
I'm not sure if you're joking or not (23-24 is average, not a tailspin), but the Falcons were 25-23 in the three seasons leading into SB LI (including the 2016 regular season), and they were 4-12 the year before that. Like a lot of teams, they are up-and-down, and their SB appearance represents a high point.
 

Seels

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Jul 20, 2005
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Just think how many non-Patriots had the misfortune of playing during this era and never even sniffed a Super Bowl due to the Pats' dominance. Sad!
I've said for years I think they are the reason that Philip Rivers doesn't make the Hall of Fame. Maybe Matt Ryan and a few others as well.
 

Preacher

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I've said for years I think they are the reason that Philip Rivers doesn't make the Hall of Fame. Maybe Matt Ryan and a few others as well.
And at the same time, the reason folks talk about Eli making the hall. I honestly think if his 2 SBs were against other teams, that discussion wouldn’t be occurring.
 

bigq

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And at the same time, the reason folks talk about Eli making the hall. I honestly think if his 2 SBs were against other teams, that discussion wouldn’t be occurring.
I like the sentiment but I can’t agree. Regardless of the opponent the family name and legacy combined with two SB victories and the revolving door that is Canton is probably enough.
 

Preacher

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I like the sentiment but I can’t agree. Regardless of the opponent the family name and legacy combined with two SB victories and the revolving door that is Canton is probably enough.
You don’t think any of the discussion touches on stopping New England on the road to 19? I’m sure it’s a large part of any Eli highlight package. But, maybe you’re right, name and 2 victories may have been enough on its own.
 

bigq

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You don’t think any of the discussion touches on stopping New England on the road to 19? I’m sure it’s a large part of any Eli highlight package. But, maybe you’re right, name and 2 victories may have been enough on its own.
Certainly putting an end to the Patriots’ undefeated season is a big part of Eli’s legacy. Dammit that one still stings - why couldn’t Harrison break up the pass to Tyree! :mad: However even if it was San Diego that the Giants beat in the Super Bowl that year and if they prevailed over the Ravens in Super Bowl XLVI two Super Bowl titles was going to be enough to get Eli the golf HOF jacket.
 

Preacher

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Certainly putting an end to the Patriots’ undefeated season is a big part of Eli’s legacy. Dammit that one still stings - why couldn’t Harrison break up the pass to Tyree! :mad: However even if it was San Diego that the Giants beat in the Super Bowl that year and if they prevailed over the Ravens in Super Bowl XLVI two Super Bowl titles was going to be enough to get Eli the golf HOF jacket.
You’re probably right. I just experience a significant amount of Patriots hate that I get the sense that a lot of NFL fans were pretty happy to see the Giants beat the Patriots which contributes to the over-inflation of Eli’s abilities in the minds of those fans as well as HOF voters at large.
 

Reverend

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You’re probably right. I just experience a significant amount of Patriots hate that I get the sense that a lot of NFL fans were pretty happy to see the Giants beat the Patriots which contributes to the over-inflation of Eli’s abilities in the minds of those fans as well as HOF voters at large.
I wish I could hate Eli more. But my middle name is “Eliot,” so I have a soft spot for him.

That and my brother liked him. Like, it annoyed him that Peyton was more famous when Eli was batter. And he’s not wrong, yeah?
 

Reverend

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Eli was better or batter? Because I’m not sure he was either.
I’m just glad my autocorrect didn’t come up with “Battier” since I was just in Celtics forum.

But yes, point well taken. :)
 

CantKeepmedown

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Jul 15, 2005
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I thought this was a pretty amazing tidbit


Tom Brady, Julian Edelman, Matthew Slater, Devin McCourty, and Patrick Chung are the only 5 active Patriots who haven’t reached the AFC Championship every year of their Patriots career.
It was edited later to add Ben Watson.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

Found no thrill on Blueberry Hill
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Sep 9, 2008
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Welker, you mean? Anyone who thinks his time here was defined by one play is an idiot, he was a linchpin for 6 years. That'd be like saying Shaq Mason's career here was defined by getting beat for the strip-sack that decided SB 52. You can go out of your way to look at things through a contrived negative light if you like, but (A) that's no way to enjoy being a fan, and (B) is pretty much a willful misrepresentation of what a player meant to the Patriots.
Yeah, Welker of course. Apple corrects it.

Not sure if your post is riffing on what I said or responding but if the latter I guess I didn’t really make myself clear. Perhaps I should have used Malcolm Butler instead of Wes Welker.
 

BaseballJones

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Before 2004, the Patriots had never won more than 11 games in any regular season. They'd won 11 games in 1976, 1978, 1985, 1986, 1996, and 2001. Never more than that.

Before 2003, the Patriots had never had a #1 ranked scoring defense.

They've never had a #1 ranked yardage defense in the NFL.

This year they finished 12-4, with the #1 ranked scoring defense and the #1 ranked yardage defense, with the 4th best point differential in franchise history (2007, 2012, and 2010 were better).

For those of us old enough to remember, this season would have been considered unfathomable for this franchise for decades. Now, it's considered a bad season.
 

tims4wins

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Before 2004, the Patriots had never won more than 11 games in any regular season. They'd won 11 games in 1976, 1978, 1985, 1986, 1996, and 2001. Never more than that.

Before 2003, the Patriots had never had a #1 ranked scoring defense.

They've never had a #1 ranked yardage defense in the NFL.

This year they finished 12-4, with the #1 ranked scoring defense and the #1 ranked yardage defense, with the 4th best point differential in franchise history (2007, 2012, and 2010 were better).

For those of us old enough to remember, this season would have been considered unfathomable for this franchise for decades. Now, it's considered a bad season.
This may be a nitpick but I don’t think anyone thinks it was a bad season; more that finishing 12-4 after the 8-0 start is a bit of a failure, especially given that they lost at home to a lousy team with a bye on the line. By most counts they had a better season than in 2018 but they had more luck in terms of the AFC playoff field. If they had won 24-20 yesterday as ugly as that was then I don’t thing a single person would be saying down season.
 

BaseballJones

ivanvamp
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Since 2000, these are the years Boston’s main four pro teams have won championships (the year in which the title was actually won)...

2001 - Pats
2002
2003
2004 - Pats, Sox
2005 - Pats
2006
2007 - Sox
2008 - Celtics
2009
2010
2011 - Bruins
2012
2013 - Sox
2014
2015 - Pats
2016
2017 - Pats
2018 - Sox
2019 - Pats

Pretty damned good. Plus five other finals appearances (Pats 2008, 2012, 2018), Bruins (2013, 2019), Celtics (2010).

Corrected the Sox winning in 07 not 08. Major error there.
 
Last edited:

BigSoxFan

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May 31, 2007
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Since 2000, these are the years Boston’s main four pro teams have won championships (the year in which the title was actually won)...

2001 - Pats
2002
2003
2004 - Pats, Sox
2005 - Pats
2006
2007 - Sox
2008 - Celtics
2009
2010
2011 - Bruins
2012
2013 - Sox
2014
2015 - Pats
2016
2017 - Pats
2018 - Sox
2019 - Pats

Pretty damned good. Plus five other finals appearances (Pats 2008, 2012, 2018), Bruins (2013, 2019), Celtics (2010).

Corrected the Sox winning in 07 not 08. Major error there.
And if you did this with Conference Championship appearances, that whole chart would basically be filled every year. The city has basically had a team in Final 2 or 4 in a major sport every year for 2 decades. Remarkable.
 

ifmanis5

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Sep 29, 2007
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Since 2000, these are the years Boston’s main four pro teams have won championships (the year in which the title was actually won)...

2001 - Pats
2002
2003
2004 - Pats, Sox
2005 - Pats
2006
2007 - Sox
2008 - Celtics
2009
2010
2011 - Bruins
2012
2013 - Sox
2014
2015 - Pats
2016
2017 - Pats
2018 - Sox
2019 - Pats

Pretty damned good. Plus five other finals appearances (Pats 2008, 2012, 2018), Bruins (2013, 2019), Celtics (2010).

Corrected the Sox winning in 07 not 08. Major error there.
Amazing. The Bruins were a Game 7 win away from 3 of the 4 teams holding the trophy at the same time.
 

8slim

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And if you did this with Conference Championship appearances, that whole chart would basically be filled every year. The city has basically had a team in Final 2 or 4 in a major sport every year for 2 decades. Remarkable.
Maybe only I have this criteria, but I consider a season to be a relative success if a team makes their sport's final four.

So to your point, going back to 2001, the four Boston major pro sports teams have played in TWENTY EIGHT final fours (meaning, AFC Championship, NBA EC Finals, ALCS, and NHL EC Finals). The Pats alone accounted for 13 of those (Red Sox 6, Celtics 6, Bruins 3).

That seems... good.
 

staz

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The cradle of the game.
If anything, this record-shattering run has been picking up steam, not losing it: 2017-19 is the only 3 year Championship run, and it would shock nobody if all 4 teams made the final 4 in their respective 2020 tournaments.
 

InstaFace

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nobody's gonna quibble about counting the year 2000 as part of this century? Well let me be the first. :)

10 points of winning percentage clear of 2nd place, in a league whose rules are designed for parity. The mind boggles.
 

JMDurron

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Jul 15, 2005
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In such a QB-centric league, that graphic gives me new appreciation for the coaching staffs in Philly and Baltimore over this time period.

Conveniently sampling the Top 9 teams on the list, those two stand out for the relative lack of elite QB play compared to the other 7. I think it's impressive to look back and see those two teams ahead of Brees, Wilson, and (briefly) Peyton Manning-led franchises.
 

tims4wins

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In such a QB-centric league, that graphic gives me new appreciation for the coaching staffs in Philly and Baltimore over this time period.

Conveniently sampling the Top 9 teams on the list, those two stand out for the relative lack of elite QB play compared to the other 7. I think it's impressive to look back and see those two teams ahead of Brees, Wilson, and (briefly) Peyton Manning-led franchises.
Philly had peak McNabb for most of that run, and then Wentz for the last four years. It hasn't been that bad. I grant you Baltimore, Flacco at best was maybe 10th best in the league.
 

JMDurron

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Philly had peak McNabb for most of that run, and then Wentz for the last four years. It hasn't been that bad. I grant you Baltimore, Flacco at best was maybe 10th best in the league.
I don't consider peak McNabb at all equivalent to Brady, Ben, Favre/Rodgers, Manning/Luck, Brees, Wilson, or Old Manning. Wentz has had 4 years, as you say, but two are partial ones due to injury. Given what Andy Reid has done since his time in Philly (Alex Smith!), I think McNabb is more of a case in favor of Philly's coaching/roster building acumen during his time there than he is a point for elite QB play being behind their overall level success since 2000.

I don't mean to come across as a McNabb hater, I just consider him much closer to Flacco in terms of relative performance/talent level than to the rest of the QBs generating those W-L records in that visualization. My point isn't that Philly and Baltimore have had "bad" QB play during this time, only that those two franchises are the only ones to have sustained such a high level of success without "elite" QB play/talent over this period.
 

Lose Remerswaal

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In such a QB-centric league, that graphic gives me new appreciation for the coaching staffs in Philly and Baltimore over this time period.

Conveniently sampling the Top 9 teams on the list, those two stand out for the relative lack of elite QB play compared to the other 7. I think it's impressive to look back and see those two teams ahead of Brees, Wilson, and (briefly) Peyton Manning-led franchises.
Pretty sure Joe Flacco considered himself to be "elite"
 

BaseballJones

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No idea what the right thread is for this...mods feel free to move as appropriate. But in light of the MLB cheating scandal, ESPN published this article looking back on Deflategate:

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/28502507/what-really-happened-deflategate-five-years-later-nfl-scandal-aged-poorly
Some snippets:

"Hey, baseball world: We here on the NFL side are sorry to see your game engulfed in a cheating scandal. It's truly awful to know that the Houston Astros swindled their way to the 2017 World Series title. But I've got to laugh and remind you that five years ago today, the NFL produced a scandal that was chess to your checkers.

Deflategate was a Jedi mind trick to your multiplication tables. It was HD digital to your analog. In its zeal to preserve the perception of credible outcomes, the NFL scandalized itself with an investigation that produced far more suspicion, ill will and accusations of impropriety than the original allegations themselves."

"At best, it was a relatively minor rules violation that no rational person would link to the Patriots' victory two weeks later in Super Bowl XLIX. At worst, Deflategate was a retroactive framing of the league's most successful franchise and a future Hall of Fame quarterback, a clumsy and forgettable endeavor and an unfortunate reminder that the NFL's standard for discipline demands only that an event was "more probable than not" to have occurred. Brady ultimately served a four-game suspension because the NFL believed he was "generally aware" of the scheme."

"The Patriots? They paid dearly for a far less consequential allegation, in part because the NFL considered them repeat cheaters after the 2007 Spygate affair.

In this case, however, the Patriots denied nearly every aspect of the NFL's allegations, including Brady's involvement, and took extraordinary steps to defend themselves. That effort included a website to dispute the NFL's Wells Report on the scandal, one that included multiple scientists pointing out that footballs can deflate naturally based on weather conditions.

The Patriots even submitted an amicus brief on behalf of Brady, who filed a federal lawsuit against the league to overturn his suspension, straddling the line between NFL stakeholder and whistleblower. (Brady got his suspension overturned in 2015 but ultimately lost on appeal and served the punishment in 2016.)

Yet when it was all over, no one could say for sure if Deflategate actually happened. A reasonable person could be left thinking that the investigation itself was the true scandal."

"The Wells Report was based largely on a series of text messages from an equipment assistant who referred to himself as "The Deflator," and the unexplained pregame detour of a locker room attendant who brought the game balls into a bathroom with him before the game. There was no direct evidence that the equipment assistant removed air from the footballs, or that Brady asked him to do it. And the halftime inflation measurement was a rushed and haphazard effort, one that would never pass scientific scrutiny to confirm accuracy."

"In the end, it is nothing more than an opinion to suggest that it was "more probable than not" that Deflategate happened. In the terms of advanced statistics, the NFL was saying there was a 51% probability that Deflategate occurred but a 100% necessity to issue discipline. It's not outlandish to think that someone connected with the Patriots might have tried to help Brady, or that Brady had tacitly accepted that help, but there's no direct evidence of it.

And when an MIT professor explained that weather conditions could do the same thing, based on the ideal gas law, who could argue? The NFL wouldn't have known either way, because it did not regularly record pounds-per-square-inch readings to that point. For all we know, football deflation occurred naturally every week."


It goes on and talks about how DFG - despite having no real evidence at all that it happened - has been part of the reason the Pats were viewed with suspicion for the Bengals sideline taping.

Super interesting read, IMO. I wish they'd have gone into more detail (it was briefly mentioned) about how the NFL supposedly took great pains to test footballs the following season, but never released any of the data. I wonder why? Hmmmmmm... Maybe because the laws of physics worked in 2015 and 2016, just like they did in 2014, and a cold game in Green Bay in 2015 would show......a loss of air pressure?

Anyway, kind of surprising to see this ESPN article kind of exonerate the Patriots at least a little.
 

BaseballJones

ivanvamp
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Fuck Mortensen.
I know, right? The part (well there's a lot to be honest) that really gets me is that the NFL is so quick to correct errors (how many times this year did they announce that a ref got a call wrong? ... well, except when the Pats got hosed in the KC game), but when Mortensen made that "11 of 12" comment the NFL *KNEW* it was wrong, and let it hang out there. Just let that be the narrative even though they knew it was incorrect.

It is so so so abundantly clear that DFG was a total railroad job by the NFL....it's really almost hard to fathom that it all went down like that, because what organization deliberately chooses to fabricate things and railroad its premier organization and premier player?
 

snowmanny

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Dec 8, 2005
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I mean it was “chess to checkers” because it turned out most of the country was really stupid. So for the rest of us it was like chess in the way that trying to explain checkers to squirrels is very complicated and frustrating. Not that I’m bitter.