(no subject)
Ok, I saw this and smiled. Not only does she have good points, it's written by a woman (see, some of us do like sports). Feel free to skip, it's more about the Patriots. :)
On the NFL: As Miami's grumpy old men grouse, Pats' quest for 16-0 arrives at final game
Nancy Gay
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
(12-25) 20:30 PST -- There would be no downshifting in Foxboro last Sunday. Not in Week 16. Not with the record untarnished at 14-0. Not with a legion of Bill Belichick-haters and spoilsports waiting for a pratfall.
The New England Patriots had come this far, so why slow down?
Quarterback Tom Brady and his four-receiver set, including starters Randy Moss and Wes Welker, remained in fifth gear almost the entire way in a 28-7 victory over the lowly Dolphins at Gillette Stadium.
Actually, the momentum - or was it boredom? - kicked everything down a gear or two in an almost pointless second half. Brady already had thrown three touchdown passes in the first two quarters and running back Laurence Maroney scored on a 56-yard touchdown romp against the defenseless 1-14 visitors from Miami.
Then New England's opening two drives of the third quarter ended in Brady interceptions, the franchise passer was getting sacked and hit repeatedly and you wondered, what's the point here?
Why risk injury to all All-Star cast in late December, when the game already is in hand and most division winners are tucking away their showcase players for safekeeping?
Here is why: The Patriots, with that unsightly win last week over the Dolphins, became the first NFL team in history to start a season 15-0.
And somewhere, a tight fraternity of intensely proud, supremely confident, fairly insufferable members of the unbeaten 1972 Dolphins team is watching. They'll be riveted Saturday night when the Patriots' attempt at a 16-0 regular season is challenged by the New York Giants at the Meadowlands.
For 35 years, these graying guys have held the trademark for NFL perfection. They've seen other superb teams, such as the 1998 Broncos and the 2005 Colts (both reached 13-0 before stumbling), approach their mythical plateau of greatness but never quite get there.
Coach Don Shula's '72 Dolphins set the bar, all right: the 14-0 regular season sweep and 3-0 playoff mark that resulted in a Super Bowl VII win over the Washington Redskins.
And boy, do these guys want us to remember that.
Annual get-togethers are almost a cliché now: the Perfect Season Golf Tournament, the Perfect Season news conference replete with gratuitous gloating when another challenger fails to match.
They deny popping champagne corks each year, but yeah, a bunch of the fellas - Bob Griese, Earl Morrall, Larry Csonka, Nick Buoniconti, Larry Little, Jim Langer, Paul Warfield - have been known to raise a brew or two in triumph on a 19th hole somewhere whenever their monolith failed to topple.
On Dec. 16, the '72 Fins had another reunion at Dolphins Stadium, a gathering that helped inspire the current woebegone Miami team to avoid winless ignominy with a 22-16 overtime victory over the Ravens.
Lots of chest-puffing was evident but by then it was clear New England's 14-0 scoring machine had no brakes. So the grandstanding was minimized.
Could it be that the '72 Dolphins - who played in an era before free agency, salary caps, 16-game regular seasons and the balanced scheduling designed to promote parity and challenge the previous division winners with more first-place foes - are a wee bit insecure?
Consider the snarky comments emanating from the '72 Fins at various times this season when it become shockingly clear to them the '07 Pats, with their record-setting quarterback, brooding coach and controversial spy camera scandal, had them in their sights:
-- "The Spygate thing has diminished what they've accomplished," Shula, the NFL's winningest coach, said when New England hit 9-0. "You hate to have that attached to your accomplishments. They've got it. Belichick was fined $500,000, the team was fined $250,000 and they lost a first-round draft choice ... I guess you got the same thing as putting an asterisk by Barry Bonds' home run record."
Shula almost immediately regretted the comments, and was not eager to elaborate on them during the '07 Perfect Season Reunion weeks later.
-- Kicker Garo Yapremian said if the '07 Patriots finish 19-0 and win another Super Bowl, they should "bring their camera with them to the Hall of Fame."
-- Mercury Morris, one of the running backs from the '72 Fins, has been a go-to guy for TV networks looking for anti-Patriots' smack. For most of the season - Morris has been conspicuously silent recently - he maintained the '07 Patriots weren't in the '72 Dolphins' atmosphere.
"Don't call me when you're in my town, when you're on my block," he said in one interview. "When I see you next door moving your furniture in, that's when I know you're going to the championship and you're about to play. And when you win it, I'll be dressed up in a tuxedo waiting on my bride."
Huh?
Truth is, it's difficult, if not unfair, to compare the accomplishments of the two teams, one that reached perfection and one that seems destined for it. They're different clubs from different generations.
The '72 Dolphins had one of the easiest schedules in modern-era football; their opponents were a combined 70-122, a .367 winning percentage. They didn't play a team with a winning record the entire regular season.
They ran the ball like crazy, with franchise rushing leader Csonka, the team's fullback, churning out a team-most 1,117 yards, while Morris scored 12 rushing touchdowns and gaining 1,000. Ball control was the means.
They used two quarterbacks much of the season, with Morrall the backup playing 11 weeks while Griese recovered from a broken leg.
By contrast, you'd be hard-pressed to even name Brady's No. 2 quarterback (psst - it's Matt Cassel, he of the six game appearances, seven pass attempts and four completions).
The '07 Pats attack through the air, not on the ground. Brady has been the arm pumping out those 48 passing touchdowns, one shy of tying Peyton Manning's single season record. Moss has caught 21 of Brady's touchdown throws, and 21 different players have reached the end zone this season.
The '07 Patriots have a first-place schedule that has seen them knock off various division champions such as the Chargers, the Cowboys, the Colts and Steelers.
Forget that a dapper Shula wore a coat and tie on the sideline, or at the very least, a team-issued white collared shirt, while Belichick favors the gray hooded sweatshirt that looks like it spent a New England winter hung out to rot on some clothesline.
The '72 Dolphins fielded six Pro Football Hall of Fame players and a Hall of Fame coach. The '07 Patriots figure to challenge that, too.
Perfection is in the eye of the beholder, and one team's 16-0 could never outshine another's 14-0. Not when there are stories begging to be retold, reunion golf tournaments to be won and glasses of bubbly - be it beer or champagne - to be raised.
Those Grumpy Old Men of '72 know they have a reputation for being an ungracious band of sarcastic wisecracking sore losers, just as Belichick bears his burden for being an emotionless cheat.
To those who criticize, Morris says the '72 Fins will keep on flaunting. "People are so envious of this record for no apparent reason other than the fact we have it," he said. "I don't care what those people think."
E-mail Nancy Gay at ngay@sfchronicle.com.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/25/SP68U4L0U.DTL
On the NFL: As Miami's grumpy old men grouse, Pats' quest for 16-0 arrives at final game
Nancy Gay
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
(12-25) 20:30 PST -- There would be no downshifting in Foxboro last Sunday. Not in Week 16. Not with the record untarnished at 14-0. Not with a legion of Bill Belichick-haters and spoilsports waiting for a pratfall.
The New England Patriots had come this far, so why slow down?
Quarterback Tom Brady and his four-receiver set, including starters Randy Moss and Wes Welker, remained in fifth gear almost the entire way in a 28-7 victory over the lowly Dolphins at Gillette Stadium.
Actually, the momentum - or was it boredom? - kicked everything down a gear or two in an almost pointless second half. Brady already had thrown three touchdown passes in the first two quarters and running back Laurence Maroney scored on a 56-yard touchdown romp against the defenseless 1-14 visitors from Miami.
Then New England's opening two drives of the third quarter ended in Brady interceptions, the franchise passer was getting sacked and hit repeatedly and you wondered, what's the point here?
Why risk injury to all All-Star cast in late December, when the game already is in hand and most division winners are tucking away their showcase players for safekeeping?
Here is why: The Patriots, with that unsightly win last week over the Dolphins, became the first NFL team in history to start a season 15-0.
And somewhere, a tight fraternity of intensely proud, supremely confident, fairly insufferable members of the unbeaten 1972 Dolphins team is watching. They'll be riveted Saturday night when the Patriots' attempt at a 16-0 regular season is challenged by the New York Giants at the Meadowlands.
For 35 years, these graying guys have held the trademark for NFL perfection. They've seen other superb teams, such as the 1998 Broncos and the 2005 Colts (both reached 13-0 before stumbling), approach their mythical plateau of greatness but never quite get there.
Coach Don Shula's '72 Dolphins set the bar, all right: the 14-0 regular season sweep and 3-0 playoff mark that resulted in a Super Bowl VII win over the Washington Redskins.
And boy, do these guys want us to remember that.
Annual get-togethers are almost a cliché now: the Perfect Season Golf Tournament, the Perfect Season news conference replete with gratuitous gloating when another challenger fails to match.
They deny popping champagne corks each year, but yeah, a bunch of the fellas - Bob Griese, Earl Morrall, Larry Csonka, Nick Buoniconti, Larry Little, Jim Langer, Paul Warfield - have been known to raise a brew or two in triumph on a 19th hole somewhere whenever their monolith failed to topple.
On Dec. 16, the '72 Fins had another reunion at Dolphins Stadium, a gathering that helped inspire the current woebegone Miami team to avoid winless ignominy with a 22-16 overtime victory over the Ravens.
Lots of chest-puffing was evident but by then it was clear New England's 14-0 scoring machine had no brakes. So the grandstanding was minimized.
Could it be that the '72 Dolphins - who played in an era before free agency, salary caps, 16-game regular seasons and the balanced scheduling designed to promote parity and challenge the previous division winners with more first-place foes - are a wee bit insecure?
Consider the snarky comments emanating from the '72 Fins at various times this season when it become shockingly clear to them the '07 Pats, with their record-setting quarterback, brooding coach and controversial spy camera scandal, had them in their sights:
-- "The Spygate thing has diminished what they've accomplished," Shula, the NFL's winningest coach, said when New England hit 9-0. "You hate to have that attached to your accomplishments. They've got it. Belichick was fined $500,000, the team was fined $250,000 and they lost a first-round draft choice ... I guess you got the same thing as putting an asterisk by Barry Bonds' home run record."
Shula almost immediately regretted the comments, and was not eager to elaborate on them during the '07 Perfect Season Reunion weeks later.
-- Kicker Garo Yapremian said if the '07 Patriots finish 19-0 and win another Super Bowl, they should "bring their camera with them to the Hall of Fame."
-- Mercury Morris, one of the running backs from the '72 Fins, has been a go-to guy for TV networks looking for anti-Patriots' smack. For most of the season - Morris has been conspicuously silent recently - he maintained the '07 Patriots weren't in the '72 Dolphins' atmosphere.
"Don't call me when you're in my town, when you're on my block," he said in one interview. "When I see you next door moving your furniture in, that's when I know you're going to the championship and you're about to play. And when you win it, I'll be dressed up in a tuxedo waiting on my bride."
Huh?
Truth is, it's difficult, if not unfair, to compare the accomplishments of the two teams, one that reached perfection and one that seems destined for it. They're different clubs from different generations.
The '72 Dolphins had one of the easiest schedules in modern-era football; their opponents were a combined 70-122, a .367 winning percentage. They didn't play a team with a winning record the entire regular season.
They ran the ball like crazy, with franchise rushing leader Csonka, the team's fullback, churning out a team-most 1,117 yards, while Morris scored 12 rushing touchdowns and gaining 1,000. Ball control was the means.
They used two quarterbacks much of the season, with Morrall the backup playing 11 weeks while Griese recovered from a broken leg.
By contrast, you'd be hard-pressed to even name Brady's No. 2 quarterback (psst - it's Matt Cassel, he of the six game appearances, seven pass attempts and four completions).
The '07 Pats attack through the air, not on the ground. Brady has been the arm pumping out those 48 passing touchdowns, one shy of tying Peyton Manning's single season record. Moss has caught 21 of Brady's touchdown throws, and 21 different players have reached the end zone this season.
The '07 Patriots have a first-place schedule that has seen them knock off various division champions such as the Chargers, the Cowboys, the Colts and Steelers.
Forget that a dapper Shula wore a coat and tie on the sideline, or at the very least, a team-issued white collared shirt, while Belichick favors the gray hooded sweatshirt that looks like it spent a New England winter hung out to rot on some clothesline.
The '72 Dolphins fielded six Pro Football Hall of Fame players and a Hall of Fame coach. The '07 Patriots figure to challenge that, too.
Perfection is in the eye of the beholder, and one team's 16-0 could never outshine another's 14-0. Not when there are stories begging to be retold, reunion golf tournaments to be won and glasses of bubbly - be it beer or champagne - to be raised.
Those Grumpy Old Men of '72 know they have a reputation for being an ungracious band of sarcastic wisecracking sore losers, just as Belichick bears his burden for being an emotionless cheat.
To those who criticize, Morris says the '72 Fins will keep on flaunting. "People are so envious of this record for no apparent reason other than the fact we have it," he said. "I don't care what those people think."
E-mail Nancy Gay at ngay@sfchronicle.com.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/25/SP68U4L0U.DTL