I'll try and check in there, this one will slide to page 25 in a couple days.
I don't think Pats go undefeated, 14-2 seems reasonable though at this point. Host 2 Playoff Games, go to the SB, they don't typically win B2B, Brady at 42 accomplishes that en route to #7, it's incredible no matter how you view it and I openly talk about the Pats cheating, what drives most nutss is it seems like they don't need to bend the rules to win. That's another topic.
Here is my assessment of NE across the years. Across the board, across many areas, NE finds the acceptable limit or threshold for what is considered ok and what is not. For argument's sake, say there are 100 areas that that applies to. Now imagine a circle that a person can stand in. Say that circle is 4 feet across.
NE finds those boundaries and straddles them. They keep one foot on the legal side and then sticks the other foot on the questionable / illegal side. Using the circle analogy, that now means the distance from one foot outside the circle to having one foot extended outside the other side of the circle is now extended to 8 feet. You can do more and operate much better in 8 feet of space vs. 4 feet of space.
Some other teams have tried to push the limits in some areas before, but maybe those were in 3 or 4 areas. NE does that in 100 of them. That's why they consistently have been so good. This year is THE PERFECT example, and I saw it coming a mile away. Most people never gave any thought to the ramifications of the new pass interference rule. What people failed to realize is it gave BB a blueprint on how to better defend receivers and get away with assault and battery.
I guarantee that NE has been watching film of all other games, all other calls, and all other PI challenges. They know which refs call fouls and for what. They already know that the review process isn't going to overturn a call on the field. I've actually heard BB discuss this very topic on air before. He's figured out that defenders can impede receivers by getting them off their intended routes. He's learned just how handsy his guys can get. That they can get a hand in from certain angles but not from others. That it's ok to grab a jersey with an inside hand but not an outside hand. That you can grab a receivers arm on one side but not the other. That you can push a guy as long as your arm isn't fully extended. That as long as your defender appears to turn toward the ball that that can make all the difference in drawing a flag or not.
Should all these types of plays be flagged for defensive holding or PI? Probably. But they coach their guys on how to do it and not get caught. So on rare occasion when a NE player gets called for pass interference, in reality it's more like the refs missed 99 other plays that should have been flagged. Watch any NE game. Their secondary has hands all over receivers on almost every play. When it's clear they aren't getting flagged for it, they will try to get away with even more.
It's like Tom Glavine pitching back in the day. He would start by throwing a pitch on the black of home plate. Then 3 inches outside. Then 6 inches outside. Suddenly the strike zone for him would be twice the size. But since he had such good command, it got to the point where he didn't need to throw strikes to get calls and batters had to start swinging at pitches that weren't strikes. Same thing here. BB is coaching to what the refs are going to let them get away with.
So the question becomes . . . is this a form of cheating? Poor sportsmanship? To me, the bigger question is, why aren't other teams emulating what works for NE? Instead of teams complaining that NE guys get away with defensive holding or PI on every play (and it's just as bad with what they get away with for offensive holding), why aren't 31 other teams training their players to do the same thing and not get called for it? Essentially, if you can't beat them join them.
That's one of the reasons the NE defense is magically so much better than in prior seasons. They have a handful of different players on defense, but it's mostly the same group of players from last year. Sure, they haven't faced great competition, but they went from a decent defense to an out of this world defense almost overnight. To me, it's not a coincidence that the league made it easier for BB with the new review of PI rule. We are already discussing multiple reviews where NYC didn't call a flag retroactively. BB knows this, so he is having his guys be hyper aggressive knowing that the refs won't flag them on review.
