And While We're At It..

Quick memo to Jim Caldwell: Super Bowls don't have any inherent meaning other than what we assign to them. We consider them to be the ultimate goal because, under normal circumstances, there's no better way to demonstrate your team is the best, and no better way to become a part of NFL history. But this season, there was--your team had the chance to do something no other team had done. The benefits would have been far greater than those that come from winning a Super Bowl, but you chose not to pursue them. You're clearly an excellent coach, but you just made the most important decision of your career and you made the wrong one.

Why No One Will Ever Go 19-0

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE CITIZENS OF NEW ORLEANS AND INDIANAPOLIS:

Hey guys,

I know this is a difficult time for you, and this may only make it worse, so I'm just going to get it out there: your teams never actually had a chance of going undefeated. It was never going to happen, and it never will. In fact, no team actually enters the season with that possibility, even though we think they all do.

Indy fans, I don't want to hear about how you could have pulled this one out had Peyton played the whole thing. Sure, your coach made a decision that I will never understand, and robbed you of a chance at immortality and us of a chance to watch a fascinating season-long story reach its natural conclusion. But that's a subject for another post and ultimately, it doesn't really matter, since either way, your team was destined to lose.

Allow me to explain. You see, I've been there. My Bostonian brethren and I have Ph.D's in this kind of stuff--we wish we didn't, but we do. Our 2007 Patriots team was among the best there ever was, with one of the best coaches there ever was, and they still couldn't get it done.

In fact, that 2007 season was among the most interesting sports phenomena I've ever seen. Sure, the Patriots had some holes on defense--and you could argue that their failure to go 19-0 was the result of those holes--but their offense was just about invincible on paper. However, as the season progressed, even their offense began to struggle more and more to eke out wins. And that is because of one fact: the pressure of an undefeated season drove Bill Belichick and the Patriots crazy.

It's true. Normally, I think mental factors in sports tend to be overrated, but in this case they're the only explanation for an inexplicable breakdown. For no apparent reason, during the middle of the season, Belichick completely abandoned the run (one of the best offenses in history wasn't doing well enough, apparently), and the margin of victory got thinner and thinner from week to week. With other teams already starting to gun for the undefeated Pats with some smart coaching choices (The Eagles almost ended New England's run prematurely via surprise onside kick), and the Pats' D beginning to show its weaknesses, the addition of a coaching meltdown was enough to trigger that one fateful loss. Remember Belichick's decision to go for it on 4th and long in the Super Bowl against the Giants? That's the only way to explain it.

It makes a certain kind of sense--a team can only survive so long a stretch in which every game has the intensity of a playoff game. Then, once you get near the playoffs, every game has the intensity of a Super Bowl. It is simply nonsurvivable. A team that goes 18-1 can beat any of the teams that it plays that season, but it simply cannot beat all those teams.

That brings us back to you, Colts and Saints. Sorry it didn't work out, but it turns out that you can only survive so many Super Bowls in one season. With any luck, your regular-season losses may actually prove beneficial when it comes time for the real one.