What would you rather? The obvious answer is both, but if you had to pick, what would your choice be?
It would take me about .25 seconds to say SUPER BOWL CHAMPIONS, so for me, it seems like a no-brainer. However, in listening to sports talk radio, water cooler chatter, etc, that is not the case around New England. A lot of people I hear think that going undefeated during the regular season would be as great of an accomplishment as winning the Super Bowl. So if the Patriots win on Saturday, yet lose in the playoffs, it will still be a great season. In the words of Mike Tyson, I think that is "ludacrisp"!
WARNING, I am now about to open the High School Yearbook!
In 1991-92, I was a member of a very successful high school basketball team. So successful, that we managed to go 20-0 in the regular season. We were on top of the world. We got a lot of press in my very small hometown, and the town was buzzing in the months of January and February. Those months of my life provide me with great memories, however as Randall "Pink" Floyd said in Dazed and Confused "if I look back at these years as the best in my life, remind me to shoot myself" (or something like that). But it was cool back then, and we were good, damn good. We won games by a large margin and were only tested 2-3 times during the regular season. A friend we grew up with that had chosen the Catholic HS instead of our public school said to a few of us at one point that he thought it would be good for us to lose during the regular season to get it out of our systems before the district playoffs. We thought he was crazy, we wanted to "make history". Anyway, long story short. We lost in our first playoff game, which was the quarter finals since we had two byes in the weird tournament structure that year. We lost to a team, that to this day, 16 years later I am convinced we would have beaten 99 times out of 100. I think we still go down as one of the top teams in school history, however we did not win the Districts, which other teams did, so we are certainly not the best ever.
So what's my point? Well, I really just wanted to re-live my glory days and wax poetic about how nasty my high school hoop team was. Shit, if there were an Applebee's in my hometown, you know for sure there would be plenty of pictures of us. Just kidding (a little). My point is, in my opinion the Patriots need to win the Super Bowl to make this year a success for them. It is how they are measured. It'll be the 4th in 7 years right? Pretty damn good. Fortunately for the fans, I know damn well the coaches and players feel this way, and 16-0 is just a step towards the ultimate prize. I am just amazed that so many fans feel that 16-0 but no Lombardi Trophy will be just as cool. Probably the same fans that thought in 04 after the Sox came back vs. the Yankees the year would have been a success even if they didn't go on to win the World Series. But if I could go back in a DeLorean to 1992, I would gladly trade 20-0 for a District Championship. I know it's not the same, and I am not comparing high school accomplishments to professional football, but I think it is a worthy comparison...I'm just sayin.
Go Pats!
(I think they run the table and finish 19-0, but it won't be easy)
Yeah that's right, see that yellow thing to the left? That was under my Christmas tree this year. That my friends is the FLOWBEE! In case you hadn't heard:
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