11-5.
That’s a pretty impressive set of numbers in pro football circles. It means you won more than twice as many as you lost.
It’s a set of numbers that was good enough for two of the last seven Super Bowl champions – the 2005 Pittsburgh Steelers and 2001 Patriots.
If eight minutes into the first quarter of the first game this season, with Tom Brady’s left knee officially a mess, and I told you the Patriots would finish 11-5 with Matt Cassel at quarterback you would sign the dotted line.
Well, it might not be good enough. Better yet (or worse yet), it could be only the second time since the NFL went to a 16-game regular season in 1978, that a team with that record didn’t make the playoffs. Denver was 11-5 in 1985 and missed the playoffs, losing a Wild Card tiebreaker to the N.Y. Jets and the Patriots, which also finished at 11-5.
This has been a crazy year in the NFL, which makes this possibility seem like a certainty sometimes.
Miami was called the worst team in NFL history a year ago, at 1-15, and now they are one victory away from ending the Patriots five-year reign as AFC East division champs.
There’s a chance that two teams – San Diego and Arizona – will finish 8-8 and both win their division and both host playoff games with teams that have 10 or even 11 games.
Which brings us to today, which might be the craziest of the 17 crazy weeks.
The Patriots must beat the Buffalo Bills at 1 p.m. That we know. In fact, that’s the simplest fact of the day.
Then at 4:15 p.m. it gets real serious. The Patriots will be doing something they haven’t done, well, maybe ever. They’ll be rooting for the Jets, which will be the nationally televised game.
If the Jets beat the Dolphins, the Patriots are in as division champ for the sixth straight season. They will host either the Baltimore Ravens (if they beat the Jaguars) or the Jets (if the Ravens lose to the Jaguars).
If that happens, there may be a parade in Boston tonight.
The other “good” option is less likely. If the Dolphins beat the Jets and win the division, then the Patriots need the Jaguars to beat the Ravens.
The Jaguars have not only lost five of six games, but they’ve lost their identity, which was as a Super Bowl contender back in August. They will no doubt make it a game for three quarters and then fold. So don’t hang your hopes on this one.
The irony is the Patriots will be in the air, flying from Buffalo back to Providence, when their fate is being sealed.
Of course, there will probably be updates from the pilots. Or maybe somebody will have an illegal internet TV hookup on their laptop with the Jets-Dolphins game live.
I wouldn’t be surprised by anything that happens today. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Patriots lost, the Jets won and the Ravens tied.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Patriots not only had things fall their way this afternoon, but then ran the table on the Ravens, Steelers, Titans and Giants.
Enjoy the day. It may be historic by the time it’s over.
