REDSOX REDUX. They must be the greatest, like, ever. Undefeated. Champions of the AFC East. A division which, if you looked it up, actually had a win-loss record of sorts:


Well, maybe not a great win-loss record. As a division, I mean. But that doesn't matter. It's not as if the teams in a typical NFL division kill each other off or anything like that.


The Patriots are obviously a good team. I'm not trying to detract from their accomplishment per se. It's just that I actually remember the 1972 Dolphins. Throughout that season, there was continual chatter about the fact that they had drawn a relatively easy schedule. Look it up. They had.


Did they knock off all the sitting ducks? Yes. Were they really really good? Yes. But were they the greatest NFL team ever to take the field before the the 2007 New Hampshire Rhode Island Vermont Connecticut Maine Massachusetts New England Patriots? No.

The Green Bay Packers of 1962 were 13-1, well before the watered down era of the double-league Super Bowl. The 1978 Pittsburgh Steelers were 14-2 in a divison that makes the 2007 AFC East look like college ball. And there are lots of people my age who would give anything to see Bill Bellichic's pampered crew play a game for all the marbles against Stabler's Raiders, Montana's Forty-Niners, or Staubach's (or Aikman's) Cowboys.

The 2007 Patriots are a statistical anomaly, a strong team in an incredibly weak division. Are they more than that? Probably not. Probably, no team will ever be again. Not in an age when  80 to 90 percent of professional football players are multi-millionaire mama's boys who would rather do their stagger-dance after a good play than save their energy for a game-winning nod after the last second on the clock ticks away. There are no more Chuck Bednariks and Jimmy Browns. Pity.

Speaking frankly? The Patriots annoy me. Their coach is an arrogant creep. Their quarterback is a talented prettyboy who wouldn't make it out of the locker-room onto the field past Bobby Layne. The rest of the team has talent but also way too many cheap-shot artists for any organization that doesn't call itself the Oakland Raiders. The best? No f***ing way.

And if you think I'm being arbitrary, look again at the divisional records. Do you really think the Patriots would have gone 16-0 if they'd had to play Dallas, Philadelphia, and the Giants in their own division twice? Or all the contenders in all the other non-AFC-East divisions twice?

It remains to be seen if they win the Super Bowl. If they do, they're a contender for all-time honors. But still not a shoo-in. You really don't get to be a god just because you're from Boston.

Trust me on that. Even if you don't. Gods are one thing Boston is remarkably short of. Just look at the way the Red Sox dress.


Anybody else who is pretty much sick of the 2007 Boston sports miracle is free to post here. Their teams are overrated louts. If you disagree, you're also free to post here. But you're louts. We know that a priori.