homegame

The Forecasters' Hall of Fame Has No Members

 Way back in the summer of 2002, Bill Belichick was more willing to answer reporters' questions than he is today, even questions from yours truly, whom Belichick, when feeling mellow, would treat as a dim but earnest pupil. 

On the opening day of training camp, I asked the coach if it was different starting a new season with the defending Super Bowl champions.

You could see the thought balloon over the coach's head. "Aha," it read. "This uninformed question will allow me to make an important point with my answer."

"No," Belichick actually said. "You start every season from the same place, the beginning, because every team is different and every season is different."

As often happens, Belichick was right. The 2002 Pats were indeed very different from the 2001 edition, and not in a happy way. Their historic distinction will be to go down as the only team in which a healthy Tom Brady did not qualify for the playoffs.

Every NFL team starts every season at zero, except for the ones that start at a negative number. It cannot be otherwise. The sport is too random, the roster churn generated by free agency and the salary cap too large, the impact of unforeseeable yet inevitable injuries too vast. We can all say we expect the Chiefs and Eagles to make the playoffs next season. We're more likely to be right than wrong. But not by enough to put real money on that proposition this morning.  

The two number one seeds of the 2021 season, the Titans and Packers, had losing records in 2022. Seven of the 14 playoff teams from 2021 were done after the regular season in 2022, including New England. The fact that the oddsmakers set lines on next year's Super Bowl winner last night is a tribute to their devout and correct belief in human folly.

I have no idea what the 2023 Patriots will be. Neither does Bob Kraft or Belichick for that matter. We're all at ground zero. All we know for certain is that either the 2022 Eagles or the 2022 Chiefs would've vaporized last season's Pats outfit 98 times out of 100. 

By the way, both the Chiefs and Eagles will be the visiting team at Gillette Stadium during the 2023 season. By the time either one gets there, New England could be a double-digit favorite in the game. Or a double-digit underdog or anything in between.

The knowledge of the awful uncertainty of the NFL is not exclusive to Belichick. Everybody in the league knows it (well, maybe not those associated with the Texans). In all the blather about the astonishing-to-morons fact that Belichick and Brady seem to think well of each other, one simple factor in their relationship was ignored.

The two men couldn't savor, or even acknowledge, their mutual triumphs until one of them was out of the sport altogether. Those active in the National Football League have no time for the dangerous leisure of memories. Especially the good ones.

posted by Michael Gee @ 11:00 AM