Jim ‘The Prophet’ Murphy’s Superbowl Side Play
Jim Murphy - February 1st, 2008 .Are the New England Patriots the greatest team in NFL history? That question is very interesting to me on a personal level since I placed my first sports bet on the last “greatest team in history” aka the 1985 Chicago Bears. I was living in Utah and I got some Mormon kid to bet against me. He was a huge BYU fan who hated Jim McMahon; I hated BYU but was a huge McMahon fan. This guy hated McMahon so much that he had no interest in the fact that the dominant “Monsters of the Midway” were 10 point favorites over the wildcard Patriots. He offered to bet $20 that New England would win straight up, to which I readily agreed. Of course the Bears won easily and I cashed my first “ticket”. Even then I was getting value.
Over two decades later we’re talking about the Tom Brady 2007 Patriots making a case as the greatest NFL team ever. It’s hard to argue with their resume so far as they left the 1972 Dolphins in their wake going 16-0 in the regular season and adding two playoff wins to that total heading in to the Super Bowl. The Patriots also started the season on a pointspread tear, covering their first eight and 9 of their first 10. Following their amazing come-from-behind victory at Indianapolis they headed in the other direction against the number, posting a 2-9 ATS mark to date. There were a few more improbable comeback wins and close calls against teams like Baltimore and Philadelphia that they “should” have handled easily. While the kneejerk reaction of the mainstream sports media was that these Patriots might not have been as dominant as originally thought, that’s absolute nonsense. From an ATS standpoint happened is readily apparent to any student of football handicapping–the adjustments in the pointspread caught up with them and they ended up at 10-8 ATS.
In terms of their straight up performance its also pretty clear what happened: they ran out of challenges. I won’t bore you with the sportscaster-esque blather about how hard it is to go undefeated during an entire NFL season and how on “any given Sunday” one team can beat any other team. They’re cliches for a reason, however, since they’re the absolute truth. New England continued to abide by Coach Belichick’s mantra of “one game at a time” and piled up win after win in very workmanlike fashion. For their opponents, on the other hand, playing the Patriots became their Superbowl. For teams playing out the string in a disappointing year–Baltimore and Philadelphia come immediately to mind–this was their chance to make history as the league’s ultimate “spoiler”.
The Patriots opponent on Sunday, the New York Giants, got the final crack of playing “spoiler” and almost derailed the undefeated season. New England prevailed, but this game set the tone for the media’s “take” on the Superbowl matchup: there’s plenty in the sportscaster chattering class who are suggesting that the Giants “have the Patriots number” or, unlike the rest of the NFL, “aren’t afraid of the mighty Pats”. Not to take anything away from the scrappy Giants, who’ve battled through injuries and a road-heavy late season schedule to make it here, but the notion that they’ve “got the Patriots’ number” is utter nonsense. In their prior meeting the Giants came out motivated and played a great game against a Pats team that just wanted to make it to the postseason without injuries. Again, I’ve got nothing but respect for this New York team from QB Eli Manning to seemingly newly medicated coach Tom Coughlin but they’re meeting a far superior team on Sunday in Tempe.
To book their trip to the Superbowl, the Patriots have been on what appears to be an efficient autopilot during the postseason. That, and all of the talk about “one game at a time”, ends this Sunday. So forget all of the talk about Tom Brady’s ankle, Plaxico Burris‘ 23-17 superbowl prediction of victory and all of the other topics repeatedly parroted by the mainstream sports media. This game is less David vs. Goliath, Rocky vs. Apollo Creed, or the USA vs. Russia in Olympic hockey as it is a 1986 Superbowl redux. Just like the 1986 Bears/Patriots game, this is a chance for one of the greatest teams in NFL history to put an emphatic exclamation point on their impressive year.
There’s a number of similarities between this year’s Superbowl and the 1986 Bears coronation. For one thing, the pointspread is in the same range (Bears were -10 chalk in 1986). More significantly many so-called “expert prognosticators” suggested that the Patriots had a realistic shot against the Bears. After all the Pats “only” lost by 14 and were totally dominated by the Bears defense, but on the plus side totally shut down the great Walter Payton. If the Pats could break through for a few points they could hang with the Bears. Proponents of this theory were heartened by the fact that the Pats scored first, and figured that just as they’d drawn it up the Pats would gain confidence and the Bears would begin to experience self doubt and…and…
And guess again–from that point the Bears hung a tea-bagging on New England going on to win 46-10 in a game that wasn’t even as close as the score indicated. William “Refrigerator” Perry even scored a TD on a play designed for him, much to the delight of prop bet players who’d bet a “Fridge to score TD” prop from 20-1 down to 2-1. While the volatile mix of personalities on this team including Mike Ditka, Buddy Ryan and the tough as nails but oft injured McMahon couldn’t sustain any sort of long term “dynasty”, the 1985 Bears make a very convincing claim that they were the greatest team in HFL history.
The 2007 Patriots are a different type of team, outscoring their opponents rather than shutting them down on defense like the 1985 Bears. This team has risen to every challenge they’ve faced this year, and no matter what Coach Belichick says before the game every player on the field knows what’s as stake. Despite a 16-0 regular season mark, this is where they’ll stake their claim to history. And they’ve got the talent, poise and swagger to do just that. Tom Brady’s ankle? Don’t worry about it. You’d have to amputate it to keep him out of this game. Eli Manning, Plaxico Burris and a Giants offense that dropped 35 points–a season high–on the Pats defense? Again, its an entirely different situation–a defense playing the final regular season game trying not to get hurt versus a proud defense playing for their spot in history. Don’t forget the defensive mastery of Belichick with two weeks to prepare a scheme with immortality on the line. Manning has been a warrior down the stretch, but he’s not exactly Steve Young when it comes to mobility and you know the Pats will blitz him all day.
I’ll be back tomorrow with my play on the total, plus some observations about Superbowl wagering and maybe some props. For now, however, we’ll call it:
NEW ENGLAND BY 21….
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2 comments | Add One
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1 Godfrey Hoopington-Charles - 02/1/2008 at 8:43 pm
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Hi Jim,
I think you are an outstanding handicapper, but you could not have been more wrong about this one.
John
Hi chap
I have a link to your website on my blog. Are you going to put my link up? Cheers chap, hope your winning…