Huge game coming up: the Patriots, the only regular season 15-0 team in NFL history, is going for a perfect record, 16-0. There's other season records on the line too -- most TD passes by a QB, most TD receptions by a receiver, most points scored by a team, biggest cumulative point differential, longest consecutive winning streak, and so on.
This unprecedented game was scheduled to be seen only by about 40 percent of the normal NFL audience, because it is going to be on the NFL Network, which is only available via some satellite and cable providers. But tonight the NFL announced it would be simulcast on NBC and CBS, getting 100 percent nationwide coverage, and marking the first time since Super Bowl I that a game would be shown simultaneously on more than one U.S. network, and the first time ever to be shown on three.
Tom Brady jokingly said he wants the Giants starters to take the game off, since the game is meaningless for the playoffs. But as a longtime Patriots fan, I say no: sports is about rising to a challenge. That's why no one cared about The Dream Team after it won its first Olympics. The tougher the challenge, the greater the glory. There will be 11 other teams in the playoffs, and the Patriots will have played at least five of them (Cowboys, Colts, Steelers, Chargers, Giants; and maybe seven, if the Redskins win, and the Browns win/Titans lose).
Going 16-0 while beating a lot of top teams would be a great accomplishment, but if one of those top teams intentionally didn't play its best game, that would diminish it a bit, for many fans. Granted, it's already slightly diminished in that the combined wins by the rest of the Patriots' division is only 11, four less than the Patriots have won by themselves, and that accounts for six of the Pats' games. So the competitor in me really wants to see the Patriots play all the best teams en route to a perfect season, and, eventually, to another Super Bowl championship.
Bring it on, Coach Tom Coughlin. If the Patriots can't go 16-0 against the best you have to offer, then they don't deserve to get a perfect season.
Re:pats vs giants
pudge on 2007-12-27T20:56:09
I think you misunderstand. I never implied otherwise. I said I, myself prefer the Giants give it their best shot, not that they have an obligation to the Patriots or the league or whatever. They have only an obligation to themselves, the rules of the league, and the people who pay them money (fans, sponsors, and owners).
However, I do believe the Giants have a different obligation, to their fans and sponsors and owners, to put the best product possible on the field for every game. That is completely separate from this particular game, in its historical context. I just have NEVER liked it when teams take the last game or more off: there's only 16 games, and it costs us a ton of money to put these games on, and you're going to phone it in? Pfui to that.
I understand about the health issue. But I don't care. I do not consider any game unimportant. Give it 100 percent all the time. That said, I understand there's different schools of thought, and I don't think poorly of Dungy for phoning it in year after year at the end of the season. I simply disagree with it. Granted, some of this may stem from the fact that the Pats have won three Super Bowls recently; while the Super Bowl is still the Most Important Thing, I have also come to see that there's a difference between ways in which you win the Super Bowl, and -- similarly to what I wrote in the original post -- going out and playing your best every single game, against the toughest competition possible, is the best way to win the Super Bowl.
It's part of why winning the Stanley Cup is so glorious: the playoffs are so damned intense. Months of virtually nonstop action. By the end, you know you are the best around, just because you were able to outlast everyone else. The glory comes not just in winning, but in how you win. And taking a game off is not as good as not. Granted, you may decrease your chances of winning it all: but that's the point. The more obstacles in your way, the greater the risk, the worse your chances, the greater the glory.
But again, this is completely separate from what I was saying, which was merely what I preferred for the Patriots, not whether there was an obligation for the Giants.
