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robbiestoupe
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Postby robbiestoupe » Fri Mar 26, 2021 2:05 pm

If the pats didn’t start every season with a guaranteed playoff birth, and if the best QB in their division during Brady’s tenure wasnt Chad Pennington, the legend of Brady and the Pats would be diminished.

They started every season knowing they didn’t have to try. The residual advantages of that luxury are immense.
Eh, they had to play the top team from all the other divisions every year, and did well against them too.

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Postby Ad@m » Fri Mar 26, 2021 3:18 pm


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Postby shmenguin » Fri Mar 26, 2021 3:42 pm

If the pats didn’t start every season with a guaranteed playoff birth, and if the best QB in their division during Brady’s tenure wasnt Chad Pennington, the legend of Brady and the Pats would be diminished.

They started every season knowing they didn’t have to try. The residual advantages of that luxury are immense.
Eh, they had to play the top team from all the other divisions every year, and did well against them too.
It's a subtle thing. At work, in stray moments when I don't have to worry about time sheets, CPE credits, budgets, managerial duties, etc I'm a hell of an employee. I get to focus on all the fun stuff and I make a ton of progress.

This has been the Patriots. There's 6 games a year that they didn't have to worry about (though for some reason, playing in Miami was their kryptonite). And not only that, they knew none of those 3 teams were going to challenge them for the division. It was a sure thing every year. You absolutely benefit from being on auto pilot for chunks of the season while preparing for the games that matter. I don't think anyone has ever had such a soft division to play in for so long. It's a historic advantage that took place for almost 20 years.

robbiestoupe
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Postby robbiestoupe » Fri Mar 26, 2021 3:56 pm

If the pats didn’t start every season with a guaranteed playoff birth, and if the best QB in their division during Brady’s tenure wasnt Chad Pennington, the legend of Brady and the Pats would be diminished.

They started every season knowing they didn’t have to try. The residual advantages of that luxury are immense.
Eh, they had to play the top team from all the other divisions every year, and did well against them too.
It's a subtle thing. At work, in stray moments when I don't have to worry about time sheets, CPE credits, budgets, managerial duties, etc I'm a hell of an employee. I get to focus on all the fun stuff and I make a ton of progress.

This has been the Patriots. There's 6 games a year that they didn't have to worry about (though for some reason, playing in Miami was their kryptonite). And not only that, they knew none of those 3 teams were going to challenge them for the division. It was a sure thing every year. You absolutely benefit from being on auto pilot for chunks of the season while preparing for the games that matter. I don't think anyone has ever had such a soft division to play in for so long. It's a historic advantage that took place for almost 20 years.
I don't disagree that their division was soff, but Any Given Sunday, right? And I'm sure the Bills, Dolphins and Jets had those two dates circled on their calendars every year.

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Postby mikey » Fri Mar 26, 2021 4:02 pm

Yup. As automatic losses basically. Only Miami ever even took a bite out of them, and it was because of things like Gronk playing safety...which is like putting a kicker at QB in Madden...

You can only play who is on your schedule. But for 15-20 years there were a lot of non-competitive teams. All three of which went through "complete disaster" phases...

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Postby shmenguin » Fri Mar 26, 2021 4:12 pm

Yup. As automatic losses basically. Only Miami ever even took a bite out of them, and it was because of things like Gronk playing safety...which is like putting a kicker at QB in Madden...

You can only play who is on your schedule. But for 15-20 years there were a lot of non-competitive teams. All three of which went through "complete disaster" phases...
it's also an easy way to stay healthy. when games aren't competitive AND they don't matter.

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Postby tifosi77 » Fri Mar 26, 2021 5:39 pm

If the pats didn’t start every season with a guaranteed playoff birth, and if the best QB in their division during Brady’s tenure wasnt Chad Pennington, the legend of Brady and the Pats would be diminished.

They started every season knowing they didn’t have to try. The residual advantages of that luxury are immense.
Eh, they had to play the top team from all the other divisions every year, and did well against them too.
It's a subtle thing. At work, in stray moments when I don't have to worry about time sheets, CPE credits, budgets, managerial duties, etc I'm a hell of an employee. I get to focus on all the fun stuff and I make a ton of progress.

This has been the Patriots. There's 6 games a year that they didn't have to worry about (though for some reason, playing in Miami was their kryptonite). And not only that, they knew none of those 3 teams were going to challenge them for the division. It was a sure thing every year. You absolutely benefit from being on auto pilot for chunks of the season while preparing for the games that matter. I don't think anyone has ever had such a soft division to play in for so long. It's a historic advantage that took place for almost 20 years.
Just being 1 or 2 games over .500 vs their non-AFC East schedule got them to 11 or 12 wins, year in year out. And also factor in the truth that teams usually close out the season with back-to-back divisional games, the notion that they're like a 1 or 2 seed, and they often had 3 weeks of effectively cruising into the playoffs.

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Postby robbiestoupe » Fri Mar 26, 2021 10:00 pm

Still don’t buy it. Even assuming the cake division gave them an average of 5-6 wins per year, they still averaged another 6-7 more outside the division.

Granted they were given home field because of this, but they still went on to do very well in the playoffs. The Steelers, in contrast, seem to blow home playoff games like it is their birthright.

The only team that seems to have them figured out is the Ravens.

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Postby willeyeam » Fri Mar 26, 2021 10:03 pm

We played the Browns and Bengals four times a year. The only part of this I'll buy is that they never had to go on the road as a wild card team like us and Baltimore did

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Postby robbiestoupe » Fri Mar 26, 2021 10:10 pm

Also, if the Steelers were in the Pats division, chalk it up as 2 losses/year

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Postby MR25 » Fri Mar 26, 2021 10:43 pm

I'm also not sure how the Patriots are to blame for their division's inability to build teams.

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Postby MalkinIsMyHomeboy » Fri Mar 26, 2021 11:38 pm

There was an analysis done of each division and how they fare against non-division opponents and the AFC East was rated better than people expected. The Pats just knew how to beat up on them

This isn’t exactly what I was looking for but this is effectively it:

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Postby MalkinIsMyHomeboy » Fri Mar 26, 2021 11:44 pm

Ultimately the Patriots of the last 20 years were the greatest team ever. Belichick is the greatest coach ever and Brady so the greatest QB ever

and the only team to have a winning record against them were the Broncos therefore the Broncos are the GOAT

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Postby mikey » Sat Mar 27, 2021 3:51 am

So, yes...the Patriots benefitted from being in the AFC east for so long, hard....wild stuff.

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Postby shafnutz05 » Sat Mar 27, 2021 11:44 am

Dolphins are going to have a ton of picks to build around Tua.
What's crazy is this whole saga started with the Laremy Tunsil infamous gas mask bong video.

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Postby shafnutz05 » Sat Mar 27, 2021 11:45 am


tifosi77
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Postby tifosi77 » Sat Mar 27, 2021 1:00 pm

I'm also not sure how the Patriots are to blame for their division's inability to build teams.
It's really just acknowledging that the Pats have had a relative divisional cakewalk for 20 years, and that should factor in how you evaluate them regardless of the reason why. I'm not arguing against Belichick-Brady as the greatest, just contextualizing their tenure. They still won a s**t-ton of playoff games.

Look at how many years the AFC North sent 2 teams to the playoffs (they sent 3 in last year's expanded format). And compare that to the the number of years the AFC East had 2 playoff caliber teams. There was a good 15-year run where two of either the Steelers-Ravens-Bengals made the post-season, whereas I think there were only 2 or 3 seasons where one of the Bills-Dolphins-Jets made the show along with the Pats. I mean, since Brady joined the League, 2 different AFC North teams have played in a combined 5 Superb Owls and won 4 of them. The Jets made the AFC 'Chip twice in a row, and that's really it in terms of the East's playoff cred over the last 2 decades.

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Postby mikey » Sat Mar 27, 2021 1:22 pm

"To blame..." very...just...on brand haha

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Postby shmenguin » Sat Mar 27, 2021 3:41 pm

We played the Browns and Bengals four times a year. The only part of this I'll buy is that they never had to go on the road as a wild card team like us and Baltimore did
There’s no comparison between the north and the east. Over 20 years, the Bengals have been plenty frisky. And Bmore...

But this is missing the point a little. The easy wins were nice, but it was more that the regular season simply never mattered for the Pats. Guaranteed home playoff game every year. If that’s your worst case scenario, then August thru December looks very very different from everyone else’s experience. And hoo boy does that add up over the years.

If you swapped Baltimore with Buffalo, the pats have some fewer amount of Super Bowls. Might be a significant number.

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Postby willeyeam » Sat Mar 27, 2021 3:43 pm

Did you read the second sentence of my post?

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Postby shmenguin » Sat Mar 27, 2021 4:35 pm

Yes, but it’s not just the playoff game itself. It’s the ability to control the gas pedal for the 4 months leading up to the playoffs.

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Postby willeyeam » Sat Mar 27, 2021 4:55 pm

Their extra two weeks of easy games pales in comparison to getting the automatic home game imo

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Postby Kaiser » Sat Mar 27, 2021 5:31 pm

Or they were great for a long time and kept their foot on their division's neck for 20 years because they had the G.o.a.t. and were run by SSgt. Barnes who fragged any dissenters.

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Postby NTP66 » Tue Mar 30, 2021 7:49 am


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Postby Freddy Rumsen » Tue Mar 30, 2021 7:59 am

Good news.

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