Give the “cheating” bit a rest. I have posted enough times that I’m not going to repeat myself here. The statistics are unmistakeable. When the league forced the Patriots to stop monitoring opposing defensive signals, Brady’s numbers didn’t go down; they went up. Statistically, his two best seasons coming into this year are 2007 and 2009. All those numbers were put together without the taping of signals.

The most direct comparison is 2006 to 2007. The Patriots in 2006, with the tapes, were 12-4. In 2007, without them, they were 16-0. In 2008, the same Pats offense, without Brady and without taping signals, was still top-drawer.

The running game? From 2007 through 2009, the Pats’ rushing attack was better, without the tapes, than in any year except 2004 with the tapes. You cannot make a single showing that the Pats’ wins were based on “cheating”. Indeed, there’s an official NFL finding that the outcome of no game was affected by the taping.

Basically your argument comes down to: “I hate the Patriots and will try to run down whatever they accomplish.” It’s just the chant of Pats-haters, mostly Steeler and Colts fans who would, if you can discount the Pats, have a claim on being the best team of the decade. Unfortunately for you and all other Pats-haters, your argument doesnt hold up to any kind of objective standard, and the Patriots were the outstanding team of the decade.

colts have played a two super bowls does not make them better than a team that has won 3-1

wake up people Payton Manning is 9-9 in the playoffs that does not make him the best QB of all time or the colts an elite team of the 2000′s

This is football not a beauty pageant just because you like Payton does not make him the best.

go by the numbers 9-9 is a good start and then you take his inflated numbers for being in a dome.

Then you say he calling his own plays he doesn’t the setup his first 20 plays of the game and 15 at halftime. so if he is calling the game. he changes at the line just like every other QB.

just look at his Qb rating for Payton manning outdoors its 89. his indoor is 100.5 this would be better than brady’s 95 outdoors and 98.3.

in the end i bet Payton Manning would trade all his numbers for the two more rings brady has.

Does it mean anything though, since they’re cheating?

There is one more thing I’d like to add about your statement that the Patriots had no competitive rival. The Colts, who did start the decade in the same division as the Patriots and went on to play the Pats atleast once every year except for 2002, were the 2nd most dominating team of the decade and actually have the all time record for wins in a decade(2 or 3 ahead of the Patriots, not counting playoffs). Plus, the 2 teams had to go through each other in the playoffs, many times.

decade

noun

1: a period of 10 years [syn: decennary, decennium]
2: the cardinal number that is the sum of nine and one; the base of the decimal system [syn: ten, 10, X, tenner]

Source: WordNet

But, in terms of my statement about 11 wins, I stated wrong what I meant. No, I’m not backtracking, I thought you would just figure out that I meant “winning 11 games out of 16 games this decade, is harder than a doing the same comparable winning pct in any other decade.” My statement worked for the 90′s and 80′s, but your right in that my wording doesn’t accurately describe what I was talking about when referenced to the 60′s or 70′s. The math I was talking about was all used as a winning pct and not total wins, anyway. I thought I tried to clear that up in my last post, but I understand if it’s not too coherent, seeing how I’m always typing these comments between 1am and 5am.

As for the decade thing, I was not back tracking. I’m just saying whats the point of arguing about the definition of when a decade starts and finishes. All that matters is that you compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges when trying to compare teams from different decades and like I said, when people talk about a decade as related to an era, they are referring to 0-9 years of that decade. Plain and simple. I brought up the decimal system because that is how we count and the definition of a decade just means 10 years. So when somebody refers to the 1980′s, they are talking about 1980 to 1989. You’re acting like a decade is only a succession of multiple decades that started at year 1 AD.

And about your argument about the AFC East being weak is still wrong. Here’s a simple way to clarify this argument. Add up the win/loss records of all NFL teams in a division over this past decade, and see which division has the best cumulative record. If what you’re saying is that the Patriots didn’t have an opposing team within the division that was on the same competitive level as the Pats, you’re right. But when it comes to grading a division, you have to consider all teams in the division.

Finally, and I know many people do this, but I have a problem with people labeling a whole fan base and thinking that if one fan said “this”, all fans of that team are the same. So to tell me that “all Patriots fans say/think this” is kind of foolish. First of all, that statement is wrong, and 2nd of all, unless I made those comments, what’s the point?
Thats all for today.

1947-1956 is a decade.

1724-1733 is a decade.

2000-2009 is a decade.

It may not be the first decade of the millennium, but it is a decade.

On another note, in that 10 year period, the patriots have won more games(regular and post season)than any other team.
Lets not forget that the goal(as so many have stated) is to win the “big one”. In order to do that, you have to win post season games, so they should be included in wins per season argument.

unfortunately pats fans can’t seem to accept the fact that they’re not the greatest of all time. or at the very least the equal to those other 4 franchises. this is the internet, and you can find anyone at any mcnewspaper to support any notion you want. especially when all you consider is on field statistics. and not factors like getting caught cheating. this is no different than the Cardinals fans who cheered heavily upon Mark McGwire’s return, ignoring all the cheating he did, and calling him the greatest home run hitter of all time because of 2 or 3 seasons of cheating.

as for the AFC east. from 2001-2009, ONLY the patriots have a winning record. period. the only reason the East isn’t among the worst divisions is because the 2 Wests were just horrible. but there was n perennial 2nd contender in the East that tested the pats year after year the way the Ravens tested the Steelers, or the way the Titans and Jags tested the Colts, or even the way the Giants, Cowboys and Eagles all tested each other.

as for 11 wins…

you stated(this is a direct copy/pasted quote): “averaging 11 wins a season this decade is much more difficult than it was in the 1970’s” that is blatantly false. it is HARDER to win 11 of 14 than 11 of 16. period. even IF more teams accomplished it in the 70′s, it would simply mean they were that much better. You focused on a hard number of 11 wins. belying your claim that you know the NFL used to play 14 games almost the entire decade of the 70′s.

and lastly, i’ve been accused of being a blind patriots hater and subjective steelers fan. even though i have praised the patriots as being in the top 5 of all time, praised the cowboys, and raiders. all things that no un-objective steelers fan would do.

meanwhile, my accusers have given zero credit to any of the other great franchises that came before the patriots. now i ask, who is being objective?

as for the calendar, nice attempt at backtracking from your argument about claiming the decimal system is somehow relevant. but i live on earth, where decades, centuries and millenium run from 1-0.