In a way, it makes me sad. I am a Buccaneer fan but enjoy football in general. I understood what was happening in 2007 with the Pats and now with the Colts and Saints but this season in particular has been a bit of a letdown, and not because of my Bucs’ horrific 1-11 record. I root against the Indy and New Orleans every week because I personally do not want to see another team go undefeated, especially two, because then it becomes just another stat. But every time i watch the Colts or Saints play and it seems as if they are going to lose, the pull out some crazy, rediculous victory. What happened to the “any given sunday” days where anyone could upset anyone. It makes me feel like I am losing my faith in the sport. A very small part of me even thinks that situations like that are staged and predetermined. A VERY SMALL PART, which would absolutely crush my love for the game. I hope this is not the case.

Obviously that is besides the point of this article. It’s still special even if it has been done before. This year is special simply because there are two teams and one of them has never had anything like this. They’re breaking their franchise records left and right. They came out of nowhere. The Pats had a history of winning three SBs, the Saints had nothing. It’s special mainly because the Pats didn’t get to 19-0. Until that is achieved, the 16-0 pursuit will always be special.

The Colts won’t go 16-0. The organization will rest players if they win next week and get the number one seed clinched. The Colts have only played one really bad team. All of their other opponents have at least five victories with four having a winning record and two others being .500. As I mentioned above, two more will have a winning record and the Jets are .500 with a chance to finish w/ a winning record. The Colts could end up winning against seven opponents w/ a winning record, the same as the Pats in 07. In addition, the Colts currently are playing the best division in football – 29 total wins with four games left to play while the Pats in 07 were in one of the worst division in football – 28 total wins after 16 games. And the Pats blew out ppl that year, but they had plenty of close shaves including the Indy game, the Ravens game, the Philly game, and the Giants game. The Saints have blown out teams just as much as the Pats and had a few close shaves. It happens.

Today’s NFL rewards consistency in coaching and management and a solid QB above all, IMO. There are four really awful teams this year, there were three last year. The wins are actually more spread out this year among the other teams this year than last year. Look at the standings.

I also don’t understand the talk about schedulers giving them a harder schedule. The teams on the schedule are not handpicked by the NFL, it’s based on a formula. If you mean the dates and locations, if the Colts had had a choice, do you think they would’ve picked back to back cross country night ROAD games six days apart? Show me one team that had a tougher scheduling of two games than what happened there. And with the Saints, the NFL would had no idea they were going to be this good, so I don’t see how anyone could have pre planned them getting all of their difficult games at home.

I think there’s plenty of the same intrigue as there was in 07, this is just different because there are two teams and both teams are mostly rooting for each other to continue. It’s different, but still special.

I don’t want the Colts to go for 16-0 as it’s not worth it, but I would love for the Saints to continue. That organization deserves something like this.

I think you’ll start to see more fanfare/discussion about it. I wrote a post about it last week, comparing both teams to the 2007 Pats. As Zombie said, neither team quite matches up to that Pats team in terms of points scored vs. allowed, but the Saints seem to be pretty close. Through 11 games, the Colts had actually given up one fewer point than the Pats.

I will say this. If one or both teams go 16-0, I really don’t give them a good chance at getting to the SB. The last 3 teams to win 15 or more games (‘98 Vikes, ’04 Steelers, ’07 Pats) in the regular season lost in either the championship game or the SB. I think that it’s almost impossible for these teams to live up to the pressure that today’s media brings. And, although every year, some teams win 13+ games, the league’s parity does seem to show up in the playoffs. Back in the ’80s, if a team won 14 or 15 games, it was almost a given that they would win it all. Not so in recent years.