Monday, January 7, 2008

Perfection in Sports (Part One)

My Partner and I don't always see eye to eye. I asked him write up his thought son the recent 16-0 Patriots season. My rebuttal will come later this week.....

Perfection in sports, what is it exactly and how hard is it to achieve?

Is it breaking a long standing record (personal perfection)? Is it winning all your games during a season (team perfection)? Is it a perfect game in baseball (luck)?
I don't know exactly what it is, however I do know it is a very difficult thing to achieve.
2007 saw perfection in the New England Patriots (16-0 and counting).
But how hard was it for them to finish the season undefeated? I think the achievement was extremely difficult, not just because they played a tough schedule, but because the pressure surrounding each game was enormous. Once they ran their record to 10-0, each game was like the Super Bowl for their opponent. The opponent wanted to knock them off so badly that even terrible teams (Baltimore, Philadelphia, the NY Jets) played the games of their lives.
The question now is whether they exerted too much effort trying to reach 16-0. Do they have the physical and mental edge that will allow them to win three more games and the Super Bowl.
Unlike the regular season if they fail at this stage, they go home empty handed and 16-0 regular season will mean nothing.

And of course the related Football Trivia question- How many NFL teams have been 1 loss shy of a perfect record?

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I'm going to guess two, I think I remember seeing that question on this sports trivia site.