The Only Possibility of Perfection is 19-0?

In just eight days, the New England Patriots may well complete the first perfect record in the post-1977 National Football League, thus (finally, mercifully) displacing the 1972 Miami Dolphins as the most famous single-season team in the football annals. Currently rated as two-touchdown favorites, an almost eerie reversal of Super Bowl XXXVI, a Patriots loss would rank as one of the most stunning upsets in sports history, perhaps the biggest. I do not think that will happen, irrespective of the New York Giants taking to the road like 2005 champion Pittsburgh Steelers, so the point here is to place 19-0 in perspective.

1. Assuming a victory, are they without question the greatest NFL team ever?

Your answer will tell others quite a bit about how much importance you place on playoff margin of victory. When I did my Super Bowl calculations last year, this variable (plus the Super Bowl itself) shoved two of the three Patriots title teams far down the list all time, with only the 2004 version, owing to decisive wins over Indianapolis and Pittsburgh, even sniffing the 1985 Bears and 1996 Packers at the top of the list. These current AFC champions, taking a page from prior runs, have amassed "only" nine and eleven point victories--higher than some years but much lower than a few special teams--and need a large triumph in Glendale to make a strong case.

Of course, Bill Belichick's team has won all three Super Bowls by a field goal. We should note that +10, +4, +4, and +12 have not seemed to affect the 1970s Super Steelers teams in the memories of fans and experts alike. And none of those Pittsburgh teams ever finished a season with fewer than two losses. A twenty-point or more victory over the Giants would lend greater credibility to New England's argument. Unlike, say the '85 Bears or the 1989 San Francisco 49ers, the Pats peaked in their first twelve games, not their last six. Chicago closed with two shutouts and a then-record thirty-six point demolition of their SB opponent; San Francisco merely set a postseason record for MOV (+100!) capped off by a coronation (+45 in the Super Bowl) in the Bayou.

Yet neither the Bears nor the Niners went undefeated and both had some fairly shaky performances not counting their combined three losses. New England has beaten the AFC #2, AFC #3 (twice), AFC #4, AFC #5, plus the NFC #1, NFC #5, and NFC #6. They won by three touchdowns or more in four of those games, plus we could throw in a win over 10-6 non-playoff Cleveland. Their regular season is thus unmatched since at least the two pre-WWII Bears teams that only lost the championship game. If we weigh it 75% regular season, 25% playoffs, they are the best. If we weigh it 50-50, they have more work to do. If we weigh it 65-35 in favor of the Second Season, a new record for SB MOV is requisite, anything more lopsided in that direction and we have to say no. As for me: break the '89 49ers record and there is no credible debate, win by double figures and it could go either way, winning by one score (especially another FG) won't cut it.

2. Outside of the NFL, where would 19-0 rank as an accomplishment?

Better than the NBA's 1995-96 Chicago Bulls, whose legacy remains a bit tarnished by the 3-0 lead they let slip to 3-2 (albeit against a powerful 64-win #1-seed Sonics team in Seattle) before finishing 87-13 overall. The tenacity in which Coach Belichick approached 2007 after SpyGate is rivaled only by Michael Jordan's display of vengeance after faltering in the 1995 playoffs. Da Bulls went 11-1 in the Eastern playoffs, losing only a solitary game at Madison Square Garden, and swept the #2-seed Orlando Magic. In Chicago, 49-2.

Better than MLB's 1998 New York Yankees, whose legacy remains a bit tarnished by the 1-2 ALCS hole they fell into against the Cleveland Indians, before rallying to finish the season with a tidy 125-50 mark. Two big marks against this team include the fresh entry of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays into the American League East (easy wins), and the aforementioned playoff deficit. Yes, it is to their credit that they won their last seven playoff games, but trailing in a playoff series is a black mark for any supposedly legendary team. Also, unlike Chicago, the best regular season team from the other side of the bracket failed to show up, as the Atlanta Braves, in a familiar story to one of UA's bloggers, wasted yet another 100-win season and succumbed to the San Diego Padres in the NLCS. This point, of course, is mitigated by the brooms utilized by New York to virtually the same Braves team the following October.

Both Chicago and New York launched runs of three straight titles, even as both ran on fumes to get the last one. The Patriots already have three, is it possible they would do the same, and accumulate a record-six NFL titles in one decade? With Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, do not put it past them, particularly if they continue to snooker other teams in trades and easily replace every departing/retiring starter.

Both the Bulls' and Yankees' accomplishments, coincidentally or otherwise, occurred in expansion seasons. The NHL's 1995-96 Detroit Red Wings failed to reach the Finals, much less hoist the Cup, and so no post-Edmonton dynasty club plausibly compares. Dating from 1993 onward, the NFL has never had a team like 2007 New England, even if many teams (most recently 2004 Pittsburgh in midseason) had a similar run at some point during the year. I don't see any reason to attempt to rank 19-0 with individual accomplishments.

3. Despite consecutive ignominious exits in the Elite Eight, both Memphis and Kansas remain undefeated in NCAA Men's Basketball, what is the value of 39-0 versus 19-0?

I would expect, if NE prevails and one or both of these teams enter the tourney unblemished a lot of discussion on this issue. In recent years, Illinois, St. Joseph's, and Stanford all made deep regular season runs, but no team has ran the board pre-bracket since 1990-91 UNLV Runnin' Rebels and no team has finished perfect since the legendary 32-0 1975-76 Indiana Hoosiers. Both of these teams, likely Memphis with an easier conference schedule (though a tough OOC one), have the talent to reach the Final Four. Better still, neither North Carolina, UCLA, or other Top 10 teams are clearly above the Tigers and the Jayhawks. Irrespective of going undefeated, long winning streaks have a tendency to snap in the heat of March, just ask 1998-99 Duke, the best college basketball team I've ever seen, or 2002-03 Kentucky (among others), due to complacency, fatigue, pressure or some combination thereof. Even 2006-07 Florida, the most feared team since 1991-92 Duke, still lacked the maturity to avoid SEC road blowouts en route to their second straight title. Both coaches, though, have to get their team mentally ready to play in the regional final-round, where they've floundered two years running.

An undefeated NCAA team would have roughly twenty more chances for ill-fortune and injury to rear their ugly heads (or just a horrid shooting night) and thus would get the nod over the Patriots, but only if the team played at least twelve Top 25 opponents and preferably two bona fide Top 5 teams in the Final Four.

4. Going undefeated is the most difficult in...

Obviously the incredibly-long baseball season jumps out at you: a team would have to win an ungodly 173 games in a row! Considering that no team has registered 120 regular season wins or 130 total victories since the modern playoff format, this one looks pretty safe. Besides, the pressure would build from 15-0, and each and every player would feel the weight of Joe DiMaggio during his memorable 1941 56-game hitting streak. The small difference is that "Dago" was one man and his national spotlight lasted mostly from the time he broke George Sisler's AL record till the hard luck in Game 57; the entire team would feel the pressure for months. By 30-0 it would become a national news story every day, and that's 143 more victories to go. Note: a team would have to lose FIFTY fewer times than the vaunted '98 Bombers to pull this off. Further note: no team has yet finished the playoffs 11-0 and none have been perfect since the 1976 Cincinnati Reds.

So baseball takes this one, yet the NBA is not far behind. What it lacks in quantity, it challenges in quality. Several times during the year, every NBA team plays back-to-back road games, as in two straight nights. This is vicious on the body and those four-games-in-five-nights stretches make the demanding playoff sked seem as soft as a pillow. Unlike baseball, pro basketball requires its teams to do something in the regular season that it doesn't have to do in the playoffs, e.g. play three games at three different locations in only four days. Note: no NBA team since the modern playoff format in 1984-85 has compiled a perfect spring mark: the 2000-01 Los Angeles Lakers posted a 15-1 masterpiece yet did not even have the best record in their conference during the regular season. Further note: no team has even finished undefeated at home in the league's history, though the 1985-86 Boston Celtics finished 50-1, let alone on the road where the 1995-96 Bulls mark of 38-11 might surpass their home mark mentioned in an earlier paragraph.

My own assessment concludes that a MLB team could reach June without an "L" as the 1984 Detroit Tigers (35-5 in first forty) nearly did before an NBA team could get past the New Year undefeated. If, however, the basketball club reached the All-Star break at around 50-0, their odds would stand a lot higher than a 92-0 baseball team at a similar point, unless their last big road trip awaited them on the other side. Both sports operate at something of a quasi-salary cap, on paper, owners have no limit on money spent, if they can stomach the luxury tax, which most cannot.

The New England Patriots, therefore, benefit from only having the pressure (to themselves) for ten weeks, plus they never had to play a road playoff game, nor did they have to refocus after an All-Star break. Furthermore, they did not have to play every team (at home and on the road) and some more than two times. I think the odds of the Patriots reaching 62-0 (against all thirty-one other teams, home and away) are exceedingly far-fetched, probably 59-3 to 61-1 is their range which, while astounding enough, would disqualify an NBA or MLB team long before their Second Season.

Perfection is a near-unattainable status in professional sports, which often requires a bit of luck, and if the New England Patriots romp over the New York Giants next Sunday, then they will pass the 1985 Chicago Bears, an 18-1 team that broke NFL records of its own, yet had the misfortune to draw the Miami Dolphins, not only at the rowdy Orange Bowl but late in the season with the '72 Dolphins taking more than a keen interest, and gave up the ghost of 19-0 with a 24-38 defeat on Monday Night Football. Bad luck? Sure, but, absent Craig James and a powerful NE ground attack that pushed the Fins out of the AFC Super Bowl slot, Chicago might have had to play Miami a second time, for all of the marbles. Perhaps Green Bay could have matched up with the Patriots better than anyone else, yet the teams never played, in Lambeau or at the Razor, and a much-anticipated Brady/Favre hypefest in the desert failed to materialize, buried forever in the wake of an errant pass and a clutch, dare we say, Bahrian, field goal. No Matt Bahr or Lawrence Taylor will take the field for the G-Men next week, though, and Bill Belichick will run out the tunnel for the other team, uh oh.

New England 45 New York 13