18-1

Here’s the weird thing about yesterday’s game and its outcome: At no point did you get the sense that the Giants were the inferior team fighting bravely out of its weight class. The conventional wisdom was that for the Giants to have a chance, something very odd would have to happen. Yet the Giants met the 18-0 Patriots on a level playing field and matched them play for play. For most of the game, the Patriots’ defense controlled the Giants’ offense, but the Giant’s defense did an even more thorough job of controlling the Patriots’ record-breaking offense. Hell, the Giants looked like they might put Tom Brady in the hospital on any given play.

The media and the public lost sight of some key facts regarding the Patriots in the lead-up to Super Bowl XLII. In the first half of the season, the Patriots dominated the league like nothing anyone had ever seen. But the second-half-of-the-season version of the Patriots differed from the team that showed up the first eight weeks. Randy Moss became less of a factor when the weather changed. The crisp and effortless scoring that distinguished the Patriots during the first half of the season, the stuff that had analysts calling them the best team ever since the fourth week of the season, vanished without a trace. Because the offense stopped scoring forty-two points a game, the defense became more important. The Patriots’ defense was a strong unit, but unlike their offense, no one ever proclaimed them the best ever.

And, it’s worth noting, they had an erratic kicker, something that matters a lot if you’re going to be involved in close games. Bill Belichick justifiably had no faith in his kicker. If Belichick had faith in his kicker to hit a 47-yarder in a dome and that faith wasn’t misplaced, last night’s game would have gone to overtime. Instead, Belichick eschewed a 47 yard field goal attempt to go for it on 4th and 13. And his kicker’s unreliability fully justified the decision.

IN THE SECOND HALF of the season, the Patriots stopped winning blow-outs and started winning close games. A few of those, like the memorable Monday nighter in Baltimore and the road comebacks against the Colts and Giants, were real Perils-of-Pauline stuff. As was the case last night, you didn’t get the sense that the Patriots necessarily underperformed in those games. They just somehow found a way to win.

Some of the Patriots, most notably Tedy Bruschi., observed in their post-game interviews during the season’s second half that winning those close games was the true Patriot way. The 55-10 stuff of the season’s first half had been an aberration.

In the Patriots’ second Super Bowl season in 2003, they went 14-2 in the regular season after starting out 2-2. Just about every week, regardless of the strength of the competition, they would win a cliffhanger. They needed overtime to register a comeback overtime win over a weak Houston team. Same thing with Miami. When they faced stronger opponents, it was the same story. Against Indianapolis, they had to stop the Colts from scoring a game-winning touchdown from the one yard-line as time expired. The incredible win in Denver was my personal favorite. (As Rosie O’Donnell would say, “Google it.”)

When the Patriots went on to the Super Bowl that year to play the Carolina Panthers, the consensus opinion inside and outside of Boston was that the Patriots would easily have their way with the outclassed Panthers. But the Patriots never won easily. Their success was built on being the masters of the moments when games got decided.

As the Super Bowl against the Panthers wound down and it looked like the Patriots might lose, I remember saying to my wife, “We’ve won all these close games. We just can’t keep winning them all.” We did win that game thanks to a last second Adam Vinatieri field goal, and we did keep winning them all. For the most part, anyway.

The Patriots of this decade have won an inordinate amount of close games for a great team. In this way, they’ve been much like the Celtics’ dynasty of the 1950s and ’60s, which won eleven titles in thirteen years. You’d figure only a seriously dominant team could win that many championships, and yet the Celtics kept winning nail-biters. They always seemed to need final-minute Game 7 heroics like Sam Jones hitting a buzzer beater or John Havliceck stealing the ball or Don Nelson sinking a miracle shot that went in only after bouncing five feet in the air off the back of the rim or rugged reserve Jim Loscutoff hitting two free throws at the end of a second overtime.

Great teams are usually great because they’re much better than their opposition; therefore, they dominate. Being vastly superior to their opposition, they win by large amounts. Great teams by definition don’t have a lot of close games. See the ’85 Bears for details on this matter. Being a dynasty by relying on last minute heroics is almost antithetical to the underlying necessities of what it takes to be a dynasty.

And yet with the exception of the aberrant first half of the 2007 season, the Patriots’ dynasty has always rested on winning not just most of the close games but all of them. This was playing with fire. It couldn’t last forever. Relying on this formula meant someone someday would either outplay them down the stretch or get lucky when it mattered.

Last year in the conference championship, the Colts outplayed the Patriots down the stretch. Peyton Manning redefined his career in the process. And yesterday, because the Giants’ defense had significantly outplayed the Patriots’ offense for most of the day, the Giants were able to put together a miracle drive that made them champions. On the one hand, the Giants had a lot go right in that drive (all-star cornerback Asante Samuel dropping an easy interception, Eli Manning doing an amazing job eluding a sack just to put the ball up for grabs in the middle of the field where an unheralded David Tyree made a catch for the ages), but the Giants put themselves in position to have a lot go right when it mattered most. The nerve of the G-Men! They copied the Patriots’ formula for success, and executed it better than we did.

SO WHAT WILL BECOME of our 18-1 Patriots? Yesterday’s game will go down as one of the sport’s greatest upsets, along with the 17 point underdog Jets beating the Colts in Super Bowl III and the 14 point underdog Patriots surprising the Rams in XXXVI. But it shouldn’t. As was the case with the earlier shockers, the better team won. In all three games, most of the media and most of the fans underrated the challenger and overrated the favorite. (Not everyone though–Bill Kristol forecast a 23-21 Giant victory. He may have been doing that just to bug me, but as it is my duty to be magnanimous in defeat, I must pay tribute to this eerily accurate prediction.)

The Patriots’ undefeated regular season will ultimately be recognized for what it was–an amazing feat, but a feat that doesn’t truly reflect greatness. It’s one of those sports anomalies like pitching a no-hitter. To pitch a no-hitter, you need to pitch great, but you also need a lot of luck for the times when the other team hits the ball.

The 15-1 ’85 Bears weren’t a lesser team because they lost once; in a long season, you can have an off-day or run into an inspired opponent. The 2007 Patriots had both these things happen to them, but, being the Patriots and habitually a little bit lucky (again much like the Celtics of old), they still found a way to win them all.

Until the game that mattered most. I’m wary of analyzing specifically what happened to the Patriots offense yesterday or criticizing what sometimes seemed like odd play calling. I realize that a rookie back-up strong safety knows more about how professional football is played than a thirty-year beat writer for a major daily. (Professional football players snicker with delight whenever a writer tries to use a sophisticated NFL term like “Cover Two.”) Rather than assume that the Patriots’ coaching staff was struck dumb by the bright lights of suburban Phoenix, I’ll conclude that the Giants did something spectacular, something so effective that it took the Patriots three and a half quarters to successfully adjust to it.

As for the future, the Patriots will continue to be the Patriots–the best franchise in the NFL by more than a little. They have a great defensive line, a fine offensive line, one of the best quarterbacks ever, and one of the best coaches ever. Belichick will address the team’s weaknesses in the off-season. The kicking game will improve, the aging linebacker corps will be replenished, and the right side of the offensive line will play better (likely using the same personnel). We haven’t seen the last of these Patriots. We also haven’t seen their best.

As a sports fan, you’re lucky if your team is playing in these big games. I suspect the people in Detroit would happily trade the Lions’ past for that of the Patriots. The Patriots will continue to play in the big games. And they’ll win their share, as they’ve already done.

But they won’t win them all.

Dean Barnett is a staff writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.