"Tedy “the brain” Bruschi should think about who is winning the close games in the NLF."
I can't say if Bruschi is a brain or not. I can say that he has shown a lot of class concerning our military (Tillman pen pal) and certain other things (negotiated his own contract). He plays well, and he has got to have the single most cool last name in all of the NFL!
The Patriots have been winning close games for three years now. This is one of the reasons that they are regularly underestimated. They play to win and not to dominate.
Exactly. All they do is win. They don't make a habit of scoring 40+ points a game. They just win. The thing that makes the Pats so unique and special of a team is that they don't have an identity that they are glued to. They are adaptable to whoever they play and can morph into whatever type team they need to be. The other teams in the league simply don't have the ability to do that. The other teams have a formual for success and hope they can execute it better than you stop it or execute what you do best. The Patriots, on the other hand take away your basic strength and force you to try to beat them another way. And whatever you take away from them, they will simply adapt and beat you another way.
Yes, the Pats are very under-rated. All year long, hearing the chirping heads on ESPN and other sports media, when they would talk Super Bowl, they would rarely even mention New England. Hello!? This team is a dynasty in the making, having won 2 of 3 Super Bowls in the age of parity, and went 14-2 this year! And now they aren't even favored by a FG at home in a playoff game? With a QB that is undefeated in playoff games? And, oh, the Pats haven't lost a home playoff game since 1978 and are 6-0 since. I also did a little checking to see when a defending SB Champ has gotten so little respect in a home playoff game. I went 20 years and could find only one time that a defending SB champ was anything less than a TD favorite at home in a playoff game. That was in the NFC Champ game back in the 90s with Dallas at home against the 49ers. Cowboys were only favored by 3.
Oh, yeah. Dallas won 38-21. :-)