Sports: January 2008 Archives
Yesterday Brett Favre beat Tom Brady out for Fedex Air Player of the Year, an award voted on by the fans for the best quarterback of the year.
Now, I love Brett Favre. He is perhaps my favorite non-Patriots football player of all time.
So this isn't about him, specifically.
And frankly, I don't even care about these awards, no matter who votes for them. They are meaningless to me, specifically because they obviously don't mean anything.
Because no matter how you slice it, Tom Brady was the best quarterback of the year. And not even just of the year: he arguably had the best season any quarterback has ever had. More wins, more touchdowns, least interceptions versus touchdowns, in history (his TDs-over-INTs is even greater than the total TDs any other QB has ever had in a season, except for Peyton Manning and Dan Marino). Second best passer rating in history. Third most yards in history.
And oh yeah: HE NEVER LOST.
It's a similar situation for the Motorola coach of the year, which the Packers coach won. Again, fan voting. And again, I have nothing against the coach (mostly because I don't even know his name). He did a fine job.
But Bill Belichick had not only the best season this year, but arguably the best ever, for any coach. Again: HE NEVER LOST.
I am a big Pats fan, and have been all my life. But I am no fanboy. Until this season, I thought Brady was a great QB, but not necessarily The Best QB. But this year, without a doubt, he was The Best QB.
I can really see only two rational explanations for the voting.
The first is the obvious: the voters are stupid. We can beat around the bush, but I prefer to call a spade, a spade. Again, it's not personal, but the facts could not be more clear.
The second makes more sense, but is probably less likely: the fans recognized the Patriots were great, loved them for it, and wanted to give them even more motivation for Sunday's game, as if any were needed.
Yeah, it's a stretch, but at least it makes some sense, unlike Favre and Packers Coach beating out Brady and Belichick.
The last time a New York team beat a Boston team was was November 24, 2007, two months ago today. The NY Islanders beat the Boston Bruins 2-1. The Bruins are 6-1 against NY teams this season, including four in a row, and three in the last week.
The last time a NY team beat the Boston Celtics was also November 24, but in 2006. The Knicks won 101-77. That sounds like a lot, until you realize that just over a year later, the Celtics beat the Knicks 104-59. Ouch. The Knicks lost again to the Celtics a few days ago.
In baseball, the Yankees beat the Red Sox in their last meeting of 2007, on September 16th, 4-3. The Yankees even won the season series 8-10. However, the Red Sox won the division and, of course, the World Series, and the last time they faced in the playoffs, the Red Sox won 4-3, in the greatest comeback/choke in American sports history.
The Patriots last lost to a NY team last season, also in November 2006, when the Jets won in Foxboro, 17-14, though the Patriots later that year beat them in the first round of the playoffs, 37-16. It was the first NY win against the Patriots since December 2002. That win put the Jets into the playoffs instead of the Patriots. It was the only time the Patriots didn't go to the playoffs since winning the Super Bowl in 2001.
All told, since the last year a NY team won a title (the Yankees in 2000), Boston teams are a combined 113-103-10 against NY teams in the regular season, and are 8-7 against them in playoff games (2-1 in playoff series), with five titles, and they have not lost to any New York team in two months, with a combined 19-11 record over NY teams in the most recent and current seasons.
Now, don't you feel better informed?
But I really want this toy.
"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."
