[highball]

you've based this one entirely on the performance of these two teams in one game. Over the course of the entire season the Giants looked like an average team at best (even some of their victories were awful)

So did the Pats. Their win against the Ravens only came because the Ravens handed it to them on a platter. There were many games the Pats were lucky to walk away from victorious.

Nothing wrong with that - every pitcher who throws a no-hitter is the beneficiary of at least one stunning defensive play to keep it going - but all this talk about them being The Greatest Team Ever (or anywhere near it, which some of their fans are still proclaiming) is highly dubious at best and laughable at worst.

[mainerforglobalwarming]

I watched every pats game this year and it’s amazing how fast teams caught up to them. Within a half-season they went from the best ever, I caertainly thought they were, to a team that barely won games. The chmapionship game against the Chargers might have been the tell-tale sign that the Giants were going to win. Missing LT, gates and Rivers banged they had a shot the Pats. If the games was played in SD, SD probably wins. So the pats are a good team. Next year I wouldn’t be surprised to see them got 10 and 6. They’ve got a lot of house-cleaning to do. Especially on defensive. They’re old and worse slow. If hobbs can’t cover a banged up Burress, maybe he should go the way of Brushchi, Seau, Harrison.

[Alberta's Child]

I'm the first one to point out that today's NFL teams aren't nearly as talented as the top teams in the NFL were back in the days before the salary cap, but the Patriots were hardly a mediocre team this year.

They didn't even play a close game until their victory over the previously-undefeated Colts in the ninth game of the season, and over the course of the entire regular season and playoffs they played only five games (four in the regular season plus the Super Bowl) in which they failed to win by at least a touchdown.

Their AVERAGE victory margin of about 20 points per game wasn't much less than the Giants' TOTAL point differential for the entire season (+22 points).

[Reaganite1984]

I think you've hit upon a great point.

What really galls other fans-and this is the reason almost all of them, including those who supported teams that had lost to The Giants previously, were rooting against The Pats-is the unjustified arrogance.

Even now, after the biggest choke in the history of the NFL, you can still find Pats fans who are making the ludicrous argument that their team is somehow superior to the undefeated 1972 Miami Dolphins.

To compare Tom Brady to Joe Montana, or even more absurdly, Bill Belichick to Chuck Noll or Vince Lombardi, exemplifies the self-absorption of Patriots fans, IMO.