Fluke or GOAT? 2007 New England Patriots

16-0. The perfect season, but was it really perfect? A great team on a great streak, or the real GOAT? My take on the 2007 Patriots.

Oh boy. Here's the big one. What to say about the 2007 New England Patriots that hasn't been said already? Everybody knows this story, and everybody has their own opinions on it.

Everybody knows that this juggernaut that'd won three of the four championships from 2001-4 turned into a fringe playoff team (8.81 expected wins) come 2005, easily being knocked out by the Denver Broncos that year. It honestly looked as if the tide had turned, and the conference was ready to move on without them for a few years.

Don't get me wrong. We all knew they'd be back. With a QB as good as Tom Brady who's just 28 years old, a team doesn't go away forever, but it's certainly possible they miss the playoffs for a few seasons getting it back on track. Think of the Vikings from 2001-2003 with Daunte Culpepper. Think of the New Orleans Saints from 2012-2016 with Drew Brees.

Teams with great QBs do miss the playoffs. It happens mostly to teams who (aside from the QB) grow old around the edges. With the Patriots, this was happening in the Linebacker corps. Each and every one of their starting linebackers was on the wrong side of 30, and that showed in their 17th ranked scoring defence. Without word of a doubt, this team was just getting old.

We know what's coming in 2007, so how did they fix this?

Well, they didn't really fix it. They just got younger everywhere else. Of all linebackers that started for these 2007 Patriots, not one was younger than 30. The older core from 2005 were still here in 2007, only now two years older, and there were also two additions. One was Junior Seau (RIP), who at this point was 38, and Adalius Thomas, 30. At every other position (aside from Rodney Harrison) everybody was younger than 30.

The CB tandem of Asante Samuel and Ellis Hobbs were now 26 and 24 respectively, and ready to give passers nightmares. 26 years old Vince Wilfork is here to eat up space on a defensive line mostly geared towards stopping the run (no need for pass rush when that's your corner tandem). This was a defence that, barring injuries (spoiler alert, none will come), is loaded for bear.

As usual with this Patriots squad, the questions are on offence.

Aside from Tom Brady, this is an offence of castoffs and question marks. Beginning with running backs, the bulk of the carries will go to 2006 first round pick Lawrence Maroney, who had a good season last year. However, he has no abilities as a receiver whatsoever, so the Patriots will have to rely on 31 year old Kevin Faulk for a not insignificant amount of touches on the season. That's not preferable, but he's good at it, so that should be okay.

The offensive line is watertight, having been together for years now, but the biggest question mark is the receivers. The Patriots have four people that are of consequence. The first is Donte' Stallworth. He's done some good things in the NFL, but that was a few years ago now. He's on his second consecutive one year deal, which for an NFL player is never a good sign of how things are going. He's been a number one before, but who knows what he can do.

The second man to pay attention to is Jabar Gaffney. He's now a long time removed from being a highly touted second round draft pick out of Florida, and the Patriots are his second team. We all know Gaffney has talent, but it's five years in for him, and he hasn't been able to showcase it in any meaningful way. It's getting to the end of the line for him if he can't keep it together.

A more sure thing is Wes Welker. Newly acquired from the Miami Dolphins for the cost of second and seventh round draft picks, we know Bill Belichick has belief in him. It must've felt like his first born child to give up two late round draft picks. We all know Bill loves those. We know what Wes will go on to do in his NFL career, but as of the beginning of the 2007 season he's started three career games and averages about 35 yards receiving per game. This is anything but a sure thing.

The biggest castoff of all is coming into his last chance in the NFL. Randy Moss had been an elite option for the Vikings until 2004, when he threw a temper tantrum and lollygagged around to his worst ever season because (for the only time in his career to that point) he wasn't his team's leader in targets. As Daunte Culpepper had the best season of his career (which you can read about here if you're interested) despite Moss going at half speed, everybody knew it was over in Minnesota.

A trade to Oakland and two more bad seasons followed, including being possibly the worst receiver in all of football in 2006 (Randy was never known for his hands, but 42 catches on 96 targets is unworkable). It was so bad that Oakland, a team in desperate need of receiving help, gave him away for a pittance (a fourth round draft pick) in the 2007 offseason.

This seems like the steal of the century looking back on it in hindsight, but keep in mind that Randy had been going at half speed for three consecutive years. He'd done it with elite (Daunte Culpepper), adequate (Kerry Collins), and bad (Andrew Walter) QB play. He'd done it with great (123), and bad (86) numbers of targets. Nothing seems to be able to kick Randy back into gear. It seems ludicrous to say this in hindsight, but these Patriots really were Randy's dying gasp in the NFL. If it didn't work here it was going to be over for him.

He, and all the other castoffs on offence, have the honour of catching passes from Tom Brady. He's never been the best QB in the league up to this point, largely because of his mediocre accuracy numbers, but he's certainly been up there in the conversation for a top five spot since 2004 (the first two SBs had almost nothing to do with him). Think of Tom like a 2007 version of Josh Allen. Never quite able to get over that Peyton Manning (modern allegory: Patrick Mahomes) shaped hump in the QB hierarchy, but certainly able to rub shoulders with Drew Brees and Carson Palmer and Donovan McNabb (modern allegory: Joe Burrow) and every other QB one rung below the top tier.

There we have it then. The Patriots over the last two years have revamped their RB room, and their their receiver room. They've seen immense improvement from their young defensive line, and defensive backs (aside from Rodney Harrison). Their offensive line has been together for years, and has been the only constant through this retool process. Their linebackers are oldies, but still goldies. Their QB seems ready to take that next step into true superstardom.

Provided the chances taken on offence work out, this team has the potential to be something special. I can't see any holes anywhere.

Rarely in the salary cap era can you find a team without any holes. The cap restrictions just don't allow it. Even the 2019 Baltimore Ravens (the best team in recent memory), don't have a WR worth noting. Perhaps the only team to ever do it would be the 1999 St Louis Rams, one of the most underrated teams ever. The only team in the play tracking era to lead the league in both offensive and defensive EPA/Play. That's what these Patriots have the potential for.

When your comparison is a Rams team what won thirteen games despite losing every one possession game they played (15.44 expected wins), you know you're in for a good season. I personally think, if everybody knew then what we now know about how these receivers will do in the 2007 season, that perfection wouldn't have been out of the question at the beginning of the season.

The hype would've been similar to that around the 2017 edition of the Patriots, where analysts were legitimately predicting them to go undefeated all the way up until they lost their first game of the season to the KC Chiefs.

These Patriots don't quite have that level of hype, but they will not be losing their first game of the season. In fact, they'll be wiping the floor with a Jets team that was pretty darn good in 2006, beating them by 24 points on their home field, bolstered by a casual 0.96 EPA/Play from Tom Brady, one of the best games of his career. They'll be doing the same to the San Diego Chargers, who we all know how good they were throughout the 2000s. It's been the best era in San Diego franchise history, capped off by a 14-2 record just last year. None of this matters to the Patriots, who crush them by the same 24 point margin.

Considering what they've just done to two good teams from 2006, what do you think they're going to to in the next three weeks to poor Buffalo, Cincinnati, and Cleveland? Whatever you just thought of is probably approximately correct. The Patriots go into week three as 17 point favourites and still easily cover, winning by 31. They walk into Cincinnati as just eight point favourites (people still believed in Carson Palmer back then), and walked out as 21 point winners.

Week five at home against Cleveland gives the Patriots their biggest challenge so far, as it's so far been the only opponent that Tom Brady hasn't been able to pick apart to his heart's content. Nevertheless, they still win by 17 points in a game that was over by halftime.

Let's pause to take a breath for a second. We're already a third of the way through the season. The Patriots have faced two playoff teams from 2006, and have beaten them by a combined 48 points. The very good 2007 Browns, who are going to go on to win ten games this year despite missing the playoffs, add 17 more points to this total. Buffalo and Cincinnati aren't slouches either. Both are going to go on to finish 7-9 in this season.

Throughout these first five games, the Patriots have faced three great QBs in Chad Pennington, Philip Rivers, and Carson Palmer, in addition to a QB having his career year in Derek Anderson. The only one able to generate anything at all was Pennington, who generated a great 0.37 EPA/Play before being lifted for injury in the fourth quarter. All the rest have been held in the negatives.

Both the offence and defence have been mightily impressive. All of these games barring the Jets and Bengals have been over by the half. At no point has a team been able to touch the ball within two scores in the fourth quarter. These are not as much blowouts as total routs. At no point have the Patriots stood half a chance of losing, and they haven't even gotten to the easy part of their schedule yet.

I know it's hard not to slip up and lose one time, but looking down the road at the Patriots' schedule, there are not many opponents remaining tougher than San Diego, and we saw what they did to San Diego. If New England can get past week six, perfection becomes a real possibility. The NFL is down to one of its last hopes, and it's placed in an unusual location.

New England's week six matchup is on the road in Dallas against the Cowboys. This is a Dallas team that is going to lead the NFC in wins (both expected and actual) in 2007. This is also going to be the fourth great QB out of six games, as Tony Romo's career year is happening right in front of us. As a result, New England goes into Dallas as just five point road favourites.

This is not small. Five points as the road team will translate to being about an eight or nine point favourite had you been the home team, but compared to what we've seen so far, it seems small. Recall this is against a Dallas team that will go on to win thirteen games. This is about the toughest opponent they could've run into, and the Patriots are still prohibitive favourites.

The Cowboys are able to take a second half 24-21 lead, which seems like a miracle given what we've seen so far. They're also able to possess the ball in the fourth quarter facing a 31-24 deficit. The first time anybody has been able to possess the ball within as much as two scores all season.

I'm deliberately leaving out that it was 17 seconds. 17 seconds worth of possession in the fourth quarter while down by just one score. It was one play, a fourth down punt, from a possession that took place mostly in the third quarter, so while it did technically happen it's still quite disingenuous to imply that the Cowboys were even close. Following this punt the Patriots score almost immediately and Dallas never gets close again.

The final score ends up 48-27. I'll choose to ignore the Patriots' garbage time touchdown and treat this like the 14 point win it was in order to say that the Cowboys gave the Patriots the best run of anybody so far, but Tom still generated 0.45 EPA/Play. Tony Romo still couldn't accomplish much, generating -0.14 on the day. The Cowboys' rush game was very good, but they couldn't use it much in the second half, on account of being behind almost the whole time (a common theme for these 2007 Patriots is not being great on rush defence but not having to worry since they're so far ahead).

How are you supposed to beat these guys?

Week seven is a 21 point win featuring probably the best game of Tom Brady's career on the road over a Miami team that's well on its way to a 1-15 season. Funnily enough, in this game Cleo Lemon of all people becomes the second QB to generate positive EPA/Play on these Patriots as the Dolphins of all teams manage to put up 28 points, the most of anybody so far. Nevertheless, despite putting up the worst all around defensive performance of their season, the Patriots had this game sealed up by half time.

Week eight at home against Washington is not a repeat. Against yet another team that'll go on to make the playoffs in 2007, the Patriots show no mercy. The defence at one point forces five Skins turnovers in a row en route to an unfair 52-7 victory.

I can only believe that this performance was revenge for the relative underperformance against a brutal Dolphins team. Of course, it wasn't actually an underperformance. The Patriots reached 100 percent Win Probability (according to NFLFastR's Win Probability model) before halftime in Miami. They did it again this week. In reality, there was no difference between that 21 point win and this 45 point win, but boy did it feel cruel on the poor old Washington Redskins' players.

We are now halfway through the season. The Patriots' record is of course 8-0. Over the course, they've faced three teams that will go on to make the playoffs in 2007 (San Diego, Dallas, Washington), one team that will miss the playoffs despite a 10-6 record (Cleveland), and one additional team that made the playoffs in 2006 (New York). They also faced the 2007 Bengals before they were decimated by Palmer's injuries, a much tougher opponent than when other teams got to face the same 2007 Bengals.

Through this all, the only things that've managed to work for anybody have been Cleveland's defence for one half, one half of Chad Pennington, one half of Tony Romo, the rush game in general (if you're not already too far behind to use it), and future Toronto Argonauts legend Cleo Lemon.

I'm of course kidding about that last part. Cleo was bad in the CFL too.

It seems like the NFL has tried everything. It's tried division rivals. It's tried out of conference games. It's tried the eventual NFC number one seed. It's tried the worst team in recent memory. It's tried the second ranked defence in the NFL. It's tried two out of the bottom three. It's tried the Patriot killer Chad Pennington. It's tried future CFL dropout Cleo Lemon.

There's only one thing the NFL hasn't yet tried. Just one man standing in the Patriots' way. Fans in 2007 are conditioned to have nightmares whenever they think of this man, but for one week, the NFL's biggest villain has turned into its last bastion of hope against Patriot hegemony.

On the Sunday afternoon of November 4th, 2007, the NFL community bands together as one to see if perfection is really possible.

If Peyton Manning can't climb this mountain, nobody can.

The Patriots are going on the road to Indianapolis, again as five point road favourites. You'll recall this is the exact spread they took on the road to Dallas, but this is not Dallas. This is a different animal altogether. These are the defending Super Bowl champion Indianapolis Colts, also sporting an undefeated record (albeit in nowhere near as impressive a fashion as New England's).

That the spread would be the same against this team (again, eight or nine point favourites had this game been scheduled for Foxborough) as it was against an upstart Dallas Cowboys shows how far the belief in this Patriots team has come in just a few weeks since that game, but I'll repeat. This is not Dallas. There will be no 21 point victory today.

Forget Dallas being grateful to still be in the game at halftime. The Colts score every time they touch the ball in the first half (barring one blocked field goal), and go into the half with a six point 13-7 lead. The Patriots better thank their lucky stars for that blocked field goal, as two possession deficits to Peyton Manning are essentially death. By 2007, everybody knows that.

I heap all the praise onto the offence, but the Colts' defence has managed to hold the Patriots to just seven points in a half, tying their lowest in a half all year (with the second half in Miami, a game that was over before halftime). These Colts are a real opponent.

Whereas Dallas was the first team to possess the ball with as little as a seven point deficit, the Colts possess the ball in the fourth quarter with a lead, and they use their possession to expand that lead to ten points, the second largest lead any team will possess on the Patriots at any point all season.

To New England's credit, in their first game all season where their opponent does not wilt in front of them, they show how great their offence is by responding to this ten point deficit with two very quick touchdowns against a Colts defence that is not to be taken lightly (they will rank 6th in 2007). The defence finally tightens up, as the Colts' last two drives both end with strip sacks, as the Patriots swoop in to save their undefeated season with a 24-20 win on the road in Indianapolis.

It shows how great Tom Brady was in 2007 that a game where he generated 0.17 EPA/Play against the league's sixth best pass defence is seen as a disappointment. It shows how amazing this defence is that giving up just 0.13 EPA/Play to Peyton Manning is not in their top three performances of the year so far. These Patriots have finally played a real football game, and they've lived to tell the tale.

We finally reach the bye week in week ten to calm down from all the excitement. From here it's becoming clear that an undefeated record is on the table. Their remaining opponents (in order) are the Bills again, the Eagles with no Donovan McNabb, the Ravens with no Steve McNair, the Steelers, the Jets again, the Dolphins again, and the New York Giants.

With all due respect to each of those teams, none of them are as good as either Dallas or Indianapolis, and only Pittsburgh is even as good as San Diego, who are merely the Patriots' third best win currently.

It really feels as if the NFL's last hope died with Peyton Manning and the Colts in the fourth quarter of week nine. A 56-10 week 11 blowout of the Buffalo Bills does nothing to help this opinion, but something that happens in week 12 is going to shake the moorings of this season, and make us believe that they can be beaten after all..

The 2007 Philadelphia Eagles are a good team, but not a great one. They'll eventually rank eighth in offensive EPA/Play, and 18th in defensive EPA/Play. They'll finish with an 8-8 record, but could have made the playoffs with a bit more luck.

Here's the thing. All of that applies with Donovan McNabb at QB. This week, there is no Donovan McNabb. The prior week against Miami, Donovan was taken out of the game with a sprained ankle. He was seen after the game walking without a limp, and discussing how he was going to be back quickly, but he's not playing today. The Patriots have to contend with AJ Feeley, a QB who hasn't started a meaningful game since 2004, and hasn't done anything of note in a backup role since.

It seems awfully interesting to me how Donovan was standing at the podium talking about how quickly he was going to be back, walking without limping, and asking to be put back into the Miami game, and yet here we are, a whole week later, with no Donovan. Isn't that interesting to you?

To me, this reeks of a franchise not wanting to throw their golden boy to these wolves. Of course, we know how hungry these wolves are. They're the top pass defence in the NFL. They'll tear healthy QBs apart, and save no sympathy for injured ones or backups. When faced with a choice between an injured one and a backup, the Eagles decided to throw AJ Feeley to the wolves instead.

That's what these Patriots do to people.

At home, against the Eagles' backup QB and their just okay defence, New England comes in as 24 point favourites. This is gargantuan. It's the biggest spread the NFL has seen since 1976, when the two time defending Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers faced the winless Tampa Bay Buccaneers at home. There's only been one spread wider than this since (Denver vs Jacksonville in 2013). The widest spread in the 2022 season belongs to the Dallas Cowboys, who hosted the Houston Texans as 17 point favourites for a game that turned out to be a total barn burner (go back and watch it if you can. One of the best games of the 2022 season. Back to the Patriots).

It's a testament to how great these Patriots are that this wide of a spread isn't seen as absurd. These Eagles are not a bad team, but the Patriots have beaten better teams than this by as many as 24 points (San Diego, Washington both come to mind).

Never before had the Sunday night primetime game featured such a prohibitive favourite, but be honest with yourself. Which side would you have bet on? Philadelphia plus 24 points, or these New England Patriots? It's not an easy question, especially considering one of those 2004 games that Feeley started was the infamous 'night that courage wore orange' where the brutal 2004 Dolphins upset the powerhouse 12-1 (at the time) Patriots on Monday Night Football.

Miraculously, in what's sure to be a future installment in the His Day series, AJ Feeley is going to do it again.

He spends the whole first half trading with Tom Brady and the Patriots touchdown for touchdown as the Eagles go into the half down just 24-21, and take a 28-24 third quarter lead, as the Eagles' defence finds the formula in the second half. It's the same formula that every team would copy for the whole rest of this season against these Patriots, and it's most of the reason why the Patriots' offence (spoiler alert) would never be the same for the rest of this season.

Although the 2007 Patriots have one of the NFL's best rushing attacks, it's not quite good enough to consistently punish teams running persistent double A gap pressures. It's largely the same formula teams copied against Tom Brady (and other non-mobile QBs) for the next few seasons, and it's discovered right here. The Eagles use it to hold the Patriots to just seven points in the second half.

Unfortunately, AJ's glass slipper eventually has to break, and the next great hope of stopping the Patriots dies as Feeley throws the ball right to Asante Samuel in the end zone to quash a potential game tying field goal drive. Patriots win 31-28, but because of this game, teams in the future now have to formula to try to slow this electric Patriots' offence down.

Perhaps the NFL has some hope yet.

That was a scare, and it's also perhaps a sign that the Patriots are slowing down. Allowing AJ Feeley to generate 0.29 EPA/Play is not a good look for any defence, but especially for one that's staked itself on being so suffocating against the pass. It's the best any QB has done since Chad Pennington in week one, and the second best anybody has done all season.

The offence generated 0.18 EPA/Play this game, which is still in the 82nd percentile of all games played in the play tracking era (which starts in 1999), but considering this offence is well on its way to being the best in NFL history, that's also somewhat concerning against a defence this pedestrian.

It seemed as if the league's last hope had passed with Peyton and the Colts, but all of a sudden this New England squad is showing signs of fatigue. Let's be honest, coming in as 24 point favourites and leaving as three point winners is a disappointment. Their opponent next week is the rather bad 2007 Baltimore Ravens, so there's some time to get back into gear, but they best be back on track before they have to play Pittsburgh.

Going into Baltimore to face their 26th ranked offence and 19th ranked defence, the Patriots are prohibitive 19 point road favourites, but these Ravens are about to expose the one true flaw these 2007 Patriots have.

I've been alluding to and skirting around this fact for the whole piece so far, but I've not yet gone so far as to come out and say it. New England's rush defence is bad. In fact, it's not just bad. It's horrendous. 29th in the NFL on a per play basis. The Patriots have skirted around this by spending almost the whole season ahead by at least two possessions, which had nullified opposing rush offences all season without ever having to actually stop them. Today, they will not be so fortunate.

Throughout this game, it will remain close enough for Willis McGahee to get 30 rush attempts. On these attempts, he will average 4.6 yards per carry, and 0.13 EPA/Play. As a result of a first quarter goal line stand, and back to back scoring drives, the Ravens actually pull a 10-3 first half lead.

After not trailing in the first half at any point during their first eight games, the Patriots have now fallen behind in three of their last four games. Something has changed in New England. Another bit of evidence is that in the second half, the Ravens get a possession up 24-17. The first time anybody has possessed the ball with a touchdown lead against these Patriots all season comes courtesy of the 4-7 Baltimore Ravens.

At the 3:30 mark of the fourth quarter, the Patriots are still down 24-20. For just the second time all season, Tom Brady is going to have to go win them this game, and he's getting there, but then it happens.

The fourth and one that will live in infamy. I assume everybody remembers this, but I'll explain it anyway.

Tom Brady runs QB sneak, and goes nowhere. The crowd erupts. The 4-7 Ravens have just ended the perfect season.

But wait.

As it happens, a pre-snap timeout from the Baltimore sideline means that the Patriots get to take the play back, and run fourth and one again. All throughout this season, the Patriots have not required even a single second chance in order to win. They've been that good. The one time all year that they need a bailout, Rex Ryan (an interesting figure in Patriots history), Baltimore's defensive co-ordinator, is there to call the timeout that saves the perfect season.

Even when you're as good as these New England Patriots, this is how frail perfection can be. Had Rex Ryan had enough faith in his alignment to hold off calling the timeout for just a few seconds longer, the fourth and one stop stands, and perhaps 18-1 would have an entirely different meaning today, but he didn't.

From here, the Patriots (with some more help from the referees), complete the touchdown drive to take the 27-24 lead, but this game is not yet over. Baltimore still gets the ball back for 45 seconds, and it's an ugly drive. Envision a two minute drill led by Kyle Boller, and that's about what it looked like. However, he is able to get the Ravens to their own 45 in order to try a hail mary on the final play of the game.

Unbelievably, the ball is caught, but Boller just didn't have the arm strength to get the ball all the way to the goal line. The league's newest last hope to defeat the Patriots falls with Mark Clayton at the Patriots' three yard line. New England has, for the second week in a row, walked into a game as three touchdown favourites, and walked out of a dogfight where they had to give everything they had.

The rush defence was exposed. Never should a defence ever give up 0.09 EPA/Play to an offence running the ball 36 times, but that's what happened today. Never should a team give up 24 points to the 2007 Baltimore Ravens, but that's exactly what happened.

I've not at all needed to use the L word so far this season, but it's finally appropriate. This was a lucky escape for New England. Never forget of all people Rex Ryan saving the perfect season.

After all of this, the game we've been building up to, against the Pittsburgh Steelers, is a total flop. It's not a flop from New England's perspective, as it's a 21 point win where they reach 100 percent WP before the fourth quarter even starts. It's very much a throwback to the first half of the season, but how can a team play this well against Pittsburgh's sixth ranked offence and so badly against Baltimore's 26th ranked one?

I don't want to hazard any guesses, but could it have been that the Patriots were taking the Ravens lightly? They had been a really bad team for a really long time, but I wouldn't think this to be the case for a Bill Belichick coached team. It couldn't be boiled down to a matchup issue, as the Steelers are better than the Ravens at almost every position.

Sometimes, there are no explanations. There are things in the NFL that just happen. This is emphasized all the time by outcomes happening that make no sense. Think of a week that goes by in the NFL. Any one. During that week, if you dig deep enough, I guarantee that you will find an outcome that makes no sense.

No game explains this phenomenon better than week 15 against the New York Jets.

Recall that I presented the Jets as a strong opponent in analysing the Patriots' victory over them in week one. This has turned out not to be the case. In 2007, this Jets team that was a strong playoff team in 2006 has fallen into having the league's 22nd ranked offence, and its 30th ranked defence. Keep that number in mind, 30th.

There have been years where Chad Pennington has been able to carry bad defences (2002 comes to mind), but this isn't one of them. Hampered all season by the ankle injury the Patriots gave him in week one, Chad has by this point in the season been benched for Kellen Clemens, so for this week 15 matchup, the Patriots won't be seeing the QB that's given them the most trouble out of anybody in 2007. They'll be seeing Kellen Clemens.

As a result of all this, the Patriots again come into this game as prohibitive 21 point favourites. Again, this is a bigger favourite than any team has managed to be since the 2020 season (when the Chiefs played the Jets). We all know how well it's gone the last two times the Patriots have been such heavy favourites, but this is different. The Jets are substantially worse than either the Eagles or the Ravens, and there is yet another advantage the Patriots have that I've yet to discuss, but Jets fans are sure to remember.

Spygate.

We all remember spygate. It's the cloud that will perpetually hang over the heads of the dynasty Patriots. Although not caught until 2007, it's since been proven that the Patriots have been filming and stealing other teams' defensive signals as far back as the 2001 AFC Championship game in Pittsburgh.

The Patriots were finally caught during the first week of the season, in preparations to face these New York Jets. I didn't bring it up there because I wanted to bring it up here. Remember how it went for them. If not for some Pennington heroics, that game would've been over by half. It was one of the best games of Tom Brady's career. That's the benefit you get from spying on a defence that turns out to be bad enough to begin with.

This time around, against that same awful Jets' defence, it's not going to be quite the same.

These New England Patriots played some pretty great defences this season. They've played two out of the top five (San Diego and Pittsburgh), and ripped them to bits. They've played three additional games against top half defences (Dallas, Indianapolis, Washington), and had no trouble there either.

They've played the remainder of their games against defences not in the top half of the league, and in those games they've scored an average of 38.4 points and been held beneath 30 just once (in the Baltimore game). In this game, against the New York Jets, who recall rank 30th in EPA/Play Allowed, how many points do you think they're going to score? What's the over under?

I'll tell you the answer. It's 13.

In one of the most improbable outcomes in NFL history, the Patriots will host the brutal 30th ranked Jet defence, and put up just 13 offensive points on it.

On the first Jets play of the game, the Patriots snuff out their own lifeline. They do get Kellen Clemens to throw a pick six to take a 7-0 lead, but they take him out of the game with injury. In response, the Jets throw in WR Brad Smith to do some wildcat things at QB, but after one possession that includes a botched snap and some generally brutal offensive play, they realize this is silly. It's time to turn to the Patriot killer.

In comes Chad Pennington.

At the time Chad comes in, it's already 10-0 Patriots in the second quarter. A stop and a blocked punt get things going for the Jets, who are now staring down just a 10-7 deficit, but a blocked punt resulting in a TD the other direction sees the teams enter the half with the score 17-7.

This is already not really the way the Patriots do things. They generally don't need to rely on a pick six and a three yard field to score 17 points against a brutal Jets defence, but in the second half, it gets even worse.

Tom Brady begins the half with an interception (not very common this season folks) and the Jets go back to the wildcat gimmick on the 34 yard field they get. Why they do this I have no idea, but when they're forced to bring Chad back in on third and 12, Chris Baker fumbles the completed pass and takes a short field goal away from the Jets. Keep these three points in mind.

Into the fourth quarter, still neither team has been able to score in the half (the first scoreless quarter the Patriots have participated in all season), but after the Jets bring the wildcat crew in to take a holding penalty (astute coaching Mr Mangini), Chad finally gets something going. Operating well under 100 percent, and under siege on every play from the league's best pass defence, he leads the Jets all the way down the field to the 15, but can get no further, and the Jets have to settle for three. The Patriots respond with three of their own, to move the score to 20-10.

This looks bad, but the Jets still have a chance. At 2:38, Chad throws an excellent TD pass to Justin McCareins, who just can't haul it in. One holding penalty later, and this drive ends in a missed field goal. This takes the Patriots' WP to 100 percent.

So, the Patriots have won 20-10 over the 3-10 New York Jets, but boy did they make it look difficult. If not for the Chris Baker fumble. If not for the Justin McCareins drop. Who knows what could have happened. Give all due credit to the Patriots' defence, because I watched this whole game back, and there were no open Jets receivers, something the commentators consistently kept mentioning all game. Give all due credit to Chad Pennington for having a 67.6 true completion percentage anyway, and generating -0.03 EPA/Play (better than Rivers, Palmer, Romo, I can go on) against this brutal New England pass defence.

What deserves no credit for today is the New England offence. For (spoiler alert) the only time all season, they were held to negative EPA/Play today. Ditto for Tom Brady personally. If not for the pick six and the blocked punt touchdown from the three yard field, the greatest offence I've ever seen could very well have been mired in a 13-10 style grindfest against a team much more prepared for that type of game than they are.

In all honesty, if Pennington had two healthy legs and could generate the 0.37 EPA/Play like he did in September against these Patriots, holding all else equal, the biggest upset in NFL history would've happened today. We all know he didn't. He had a bad ankle and was running for his life all day in order to throw to blanketed receivers, so instead of being the architect of one of the biggest upsets ever in a game that he didn't start, and wasn't even the first QB off the bench either, this is just the final herculean performance that in a Jets career full of forgotten feats like this one for Chad.

The Patriots have again underperformed as massive favourites, but they've again cleared the hurdle and got the W in the column to move to 14-0. A second easy win over Miami in week 16 makes it 15-0, and we are down to our final hurdle. The only thing that stands between the Patriots and an undefeated season is a game on the road against the New York Giants.

NFL coaches always say that their regular season record matters none. They only want to win the Super Bowl. I'll tell you in response that I believe those head coaches (except Jim Caldwell in 2009) are liars. Everybody wants to win as many games as possible. In most instances, that's all conjecture on my part, but in this one it isn't.

In week 17 of the 2007 NFL season, two coaches out themselves as being total liars.

There is no reason for either team not to rest their starters in this game. The Patriots have had the AFC's number one seed locked up for three weeks now. The Giants cannot move from the NFC's fifth spot. Empirically, there's no reason to see Tom Brady or Randy Moss or Junior Seau or Eli Manning or Michael Strahan or Justin Tuck or any starter of note on the field for this game. In terms of the supposed end goal, there's nothing for either team to gain by playing this game, but quite frankly, this game is more important than that end goal.

It's taboo for any coach to come out and verbally say that any achievement is more important than the Super Bowl, but as of this point in the NFL's history, there's only ever been three undefeated regular seasons. A team wins the Super Bowl every year. Going undefeated is more difficult. It's more impressive, and in my opinion it does mean more than winning the Super Bowl.

Don't take it from me. Take it from Bill Belichick. Take it from Tom Coughlin. These two coaches both believe the achievement is worth more than preparing for the playoffs, because you do see Tom Brady in this game. You do see Eli Manning. You do see Michael Strahan. Everybody is here, and the message is crystal clear.

Belichick does want this undefeated season, and Tom Coughlin (on behalf of the rest of the NFL) wants to take it away from them. In the immortal words of Michael Strahan: "The Giants are in the playoffs. They should rest their guys so they don't get hurt, but those [redacted] are in the playoffs too. Why don't they have to sit on the bench?"

This is a big game atmosphere for a game between two teams that, in literal terms, are playing for nothing, but humans don't live life in literal terms. If anybody thought anybody was going to be resting starters, why do you think the NFL moved this game to the Saturday primetime slot? Everybody knows how big of a deal this is.

The Giants come out playing like it, scoring an opening drive touchdown (the only one the Patriots give up all season), and entering the half with a lead over the Patriots, the first time since Indianapolis that anybody has been able to do that. They also begin the second half by scoring another touchdown to take a 28-16 lead, but the Patriots respond with an immediate touchdown, ensuring that at no point all season will a team possess the ball with a two possession lead on them.

During the fourth quarter, the Giants' WP peeks over that 50% mark, becoming just the third time all season (along with Indianapolis and Baltimore) that a team gets over the 50 percent mark against these Patriots, but I must give them their credit. They respond to this adversity like the great team they are.

Imagine the pressure this offence must've been under as they ran out onto the field at 11:29 of the fourth quarter staring at a five point deficit. What must they have been thinking? A whole season of work is on the line in these 11 minutes, and any mistake will be crippling, because Eli Manning is tearing you apart on the other side.

This isn't comparable to a playoff situation. That would be selling it short. You get multiple chances to win Super Bowls if you're a good team. You don't get another chance to go undefeated. It's just too hard. Take these Patriots for instance. They were so good this season that an undefeated record became feasible, and they never came close to going undefeated ever again.

If the offence can score a touchdown right now, all they need to do is stop Eli Manning one time in order to call themselves the GOAT, but if they don't this has all been for nothing. I was an athlete myself. I've played in some pretty important championship games (we were the first team from my town ever to reach the provincial championships. Everybody from a small town knows how much pressure that puts on a kid), but I cannot imagine how much pressure that must be on all of these Patriots' offensive players.

It had to have been immense, but regardless. It all evaporates with a 65 yard touchdown pass from Brady to Moss to put the Patriots back into the lead. An Eli Manning interception and another TD from the Patriots' offence takes the score to 38-28 and for all intents and purposes ends the game. A garbage time touchdown takes the score to 38-35, but the Patriots have done it. They've completed the impossible quest.

16-0.

What is there to say? The Patriots have just done what only the 1934 Bears, 1942 Bears, and 1972 Dolphins have ever done. They've gone the whole regular season without a single loss. New England is the first team ever to run the 16 game gauntlet, and there's really been nobody else ever that's so much as gotten close.

As of this point, there have been four teams to go the whole season with just one loss, but they never got near going undefeated. The 15-1 1984 49ers lost in week seven. The 1985 Bears took all the way until week 13 to lose, but that's still just the fifth to last game. That's not very close. The 1998 Vikings lost in week nine, and the 2004 Steelers lost in week two.

The closest anybody had ever come had been the 1985 Bears, probably the only non-2007 Patriots argument for greatest team of all time. Even as great as they were, they didn't make it anywhere near the final hurdle, with their loss being a brutal 14 point blowout in Miami.

In the years since, there have been three more teams that have legitimately gotten close.

The 2009 Indianapolis Colts did not see their first loss until week 16, when Jim Caldwell proved himself to be the only coach in NFL history who actually tells the truth when he says he only cares about the Super Bowl by pulling his starters and willingly giving up the pursuit of perfection.

The 2011 Green Bay Packers made it all the way to week 15 before taking their only loss of the season to Kyle Orton and the 5-8 Kansas City Chiefs. The 2015 Carolina Panthers made it all the way to week 16 (despite playing in seven one possession games) before losing to Matt Ryan and his Atlanta Falcons, a team they'd beaten 38-0 earlier in the season.

All of the above serve to prove that regardless of how good you are, you need a little bit of luck to go undefeated. It is impossibly hard to run the whole regular season without having even one screwup. The only difference between our Patriots and all of those above teams that came within one game of immortality is that when our Patriots had their hiccup in Baltimore, they got to run fourth and one over again.

That's how frail perfection can be.

Don't get me wrong. Luck is not all that separates these Patriots from all of those other pretenders. These Patriots were also simply better than any team there's ever been.

The 49ers, Bears, and Vikings played before the play tracking era, and as such I cannot produce expected win totals for them, but for the four other teams I've mentioned, all of them were playing well above their heads in order to reach the heights they did.

2004 Pittsburgh turned 12.71 expected wins into 15 real ones by winning each of their six one possession games. 2009 Indianapolis was already over their head by reaching 14-0 with a team that will finish with just 11.73 expected wins. 2011 Green Bay is the best of this bunch, winning 15 games with 14.03 expected wins (for reference, anything within 1.5 wins is an acceptable amount of luck. I refuse to call any team a fluke that finishes within 1.5 of their expected win total). Last but not least come the 2015 Carolina Panthers, who became the closest team out of all non-Patriots to achieving perfection, but their mere 12.83 expected wins indicates that this was always going to stand a big chance of falling apart.

So now we have the precedent. Generally, you have to be playing well above your head (with a healthy dose of luck also present) in order to get even close to this level. Keeping this in mind, place your bets on how many expected wins you think these Patriots ended up with.

You pretty much know these Patriots were better than any of those teams, so it's going to be higher than 14.03, but how much higher? This is already close to getting the Patriots within the 1.5 win buffer zone that takes them out of fluke territory, but do they make it all the way there?

Now that you've got your idea in your head, I'll tell you the answer.

The 2007 Patriots finished the season with 16.68 expected wins. In a 16 game season.

Wow.

This is obviously an artifact of a formula that is designed to accommodate modern (17 game) schedules, but if you translate that 0.981 expected win percentage to a 16 game schedule, you get 15.70 expected wins, meaning any result other than 15 or 16 wins would've been uncommonly bad luck.

The only other team that can say this is the aforementioned 1999 St Louis Rams, the only team in the play tracking era to lead the league in both offence and defence. They finished 1999 with 15.44 expected wins, but unlike these Patriots, they did run into that uncommonly bad luck, and won just 13 games.

No other team since 1999 has been expected to win as many as 15 games. Not even with the one additional chance teams get these days.

Perhaps you're not a fan of my expected wins approach. This is perfectly rational. Of course my expected wins formula is private. It's not publicly reproducible, and it's not even publicly available for anybody to see, so doubting my approach is very reasonable. If this is the case for you, I have a much simpler approach that provides generally similar results that anybody can do from their own couch.

Taking a team's record and substituting ties in place of all the one possession games generally gives a much better indicator of a team's level of play than their actual record (spoiler alert: all the projection systems do it). Below, I will apply this approach to all teams mentioned so far:

1984 49ers: 10-0-6

1985 Bears: 12-1-3

1998 Vikings: 12-0-4

1999 Rams: 13-0-3

2004 Steelers: 9-1-6

2007 Patriots: 12-0-4

2009 Colts: 6-2-8

2011 Packers: 9-0-7

2015 Panthers: 8-0-8

This analysis provides three clear frontrunners. Three teams with a real chance at perfection. The 1998 Vikings, 1999 Rams, and 2007 Patriots. In my eyes, those are the three best teams in the 16 game era. Look into their numbers and pick between them on your time, but I think I know my opinion.

I won't be talking about the 2007 playoffs today, because there's nothing more to prove by going into them. I can already answer the question posed at the top. Fluke or GOAT?

In my opinion, these Patriots are the best team the NFL has seen in the 16 (and 17) game era. Going back further than that, it becomes hard to compare, as each team as fewer chances to get knocked off, and also fewer chances to prove their own greatness. I will offer a few more arguments before my final statement.

If the above comparisons are not enough for you to consider the Patriots the best team there's ever been, why not?

They did not manage to lead the NFL in both offence and defence like the Rams did, on account of that very bad rush offence, but they make up for it by managing to lead the NFL in both offence and pass defence. Their offence was so elite that teams never ended up being able to use that porous rush defence against them (not even in the playoffs. People remember that SB all wrong).

Just how elite was this offence? Try one of the best in the play tracking era. I wish I could say with confidence it's the best offence there's been since 1999, but those pesky 2004 Colts (them again!) seem to get in the way of everything. What I can tell you is that the Patriots' 0.256 EPA/Play in 2007 is the best in the play tracking era, along with their 0.422 EPA/Pass. Those damn Colts are still better than them in terms of success rate, which keeps these Patriots from sweeping every important stat.

The caveat to all of this is that Matt Cassel (the Patriots' backup QB) threw seven passes in 2007, meanwhile Peyton Manning sat out entire fourth quarters in his 2004 season, which obviously causes the Colts' offensive production to slightly be artificially lower than it should be. As such, I cannot confidently say which of the two was the best offence of the play tracking era, but I can say with confidence that it's one of the two. Top two of the new millennium isn't bad.

As a result of this great offence, this Patriots squad with the third worst rush defence in all of the NFL saw as many as 20 rushing attempts against just six times, and 30 attempts against just three times. Perhaps not coincidentally, the three games with 30 attempts against were the embarrassment of giving up 28 points to Cleo Lemon and the Miami Dolphins, and the two closest games of the season, against Indianapolis and Baltimore.

In short, these Patriots were beatable if you could keep the score close enough to abuse their only weakness, but one of the greatest offences of all time ensured that it only happened twice all season. The ability to have such a glaring weakness and to make up for it so much in other areas to make it so that it doesn't matter at all is extremely impressive. It's the main reason these Patriots are my GOAT candidate.

To address the final talking point, no these Patriots didn't finish the season in the absence of any losses. Yes, their offence went cold in the playoffs again (something the Patriots have a habit of doing until around 2012). Go watch the infamous interview clip where Tom Brady literally laughs at the notion the Giants will hold them to 17 points in the SB if you really want to rub it in. I understand that they lost.

Even though they failed to reach that championship, they completely superseded it by accomplishing something much bigger, much harder, and much more meaningful. If you don't believe me, pose yourself this question: When was the last time you heard somebody talk about the Giants' 2007 championship without bringing up the Patriots in the same sentence?

I'll wait while you think of your answer.

If you can think of that answer, then pose yourself this question: Can you even remember the team Patrick Mahomes defeated to win his first Super Bowl?

There's only one championship in football where the opponent is such an important part of the narrative. There's a reason for that. It's because these Patriots are iconic. They didn't need to Super Bowl to reach icon status. They're perhaps the only non-champion in NFL history to reach icon status, meanwhile the actual champions of the 2007 season are not at all icons. They're more or less remembered as the okay team they were. To me, that says something about the comparative importance of their achievements.

While they didn't win the Super Bowl, you can't tell the story of the NFL's history without bringing up these Patriots. To do so would be disingenuous. You can tell the NFL's story without bringing up the 2007 Giants at all, barring their relations with these Patriots.

There are stories with such iconic villains that the heroes get lost in the background. If you don't believe me, tell me the names of some of the heroes Jason Voorhees went up against. If Hannibal Lecter didn't say the word Clarice so much, would you remember what her name was? Explain to me in detail who Lila Crane is. How about Ed Tom Bell?

These Patriots were the NFL's version of Anton Chigurh. They were cold. They were calculated, and they always won. We were all relegated to the sidelines trying to make sense of it all. In the end, the Patriots did lose, but just like Anton, they could never truly be killed. That's why I'm sitting here writing about them 15 years after they last played.

Only the Patriots could manage to be the GOAT while still remaining the villains. It never really ended for them, as they would go on being great for a while longer, all the while still remaining the villains. As a result of their villainhood, they will never receive their flowers from the public for 2007, but they will receive them from me.

When you think of these Patriots, think of the greatest NFL team of all time.