Football fans outside of Boston have been going through the five stages of grief with regard to the success of the Patriots this year: Anger (they cheat!), Denial (yeah, but they haven't won the Super Bowl yet), Bargaining (please let the Colts win the AFC, please, please), Depression (why even bother having the playoffs if the Pats are just going to win anyway?), etc., etc.
It is now time for Acceptance. As King Kaufman writes:
The Patriots haven't won the Super Bowl, but as far as the regular season goes, they haven't matched the '72 Dolphins, they've blown them out of the water.
The '72 Dolphins played a ridiculously easy schedule. They played two games against teams that had winning records, and both of those teams, the Giants and the Kansas City Chiefs, went 8-6. There were six teams in the league, excluding the Dolphins, that had a better record than anybody Miami played. Eight of the 26 teams in the NFL went to the playoffs in those days. The Dolphins didn't play any of the other seven.
Nowadays 12 of 32 teams go to the playoffs, and this year's Patriots played six of the 11 others, plus a game against the Cleveland Browns, who went 10-6 and missed the postseason on a tiebreaker. The Pats played two of the top three teams in the league by won-loss record -- excluding themselves. They played three of the top five and five of the top 10.
The Patriots regular season run against the Colts, Steelers, Cowboys, Giants, etc. was pretty dang impressive.
Now, let's all hope they choke in the playoffs and we get some good games.
