OCdockskipper

9/11 stands for September 11, 2001. The Patriots won the Super Bowl for the 2001 season, even though it was played in February of 2002. That was the patriotism/Patriots winning connection. The Diamondbacks ruined the baseball version of that, beating the Yankees in October 2001 World Series.

Sam, the whining is getting annoying. If your wife ran off with a married man, would you blame the other spouse? Of course not, but that is exactly what you are doing. If you want to be mad at the refs, fine, go for it. They missed a ton of calls, including the one that you are obsessed with. If you want to be mad at the Saints, do it. They had chances to win the game and failed and their coach made some bad decisions late that hurt them. But blaming the Rams? C'mon man!! All they did was win the game on the field. You don't seem like the kind of guy who kicks the dog after a bad day at work, so give it a rest.

Saints owner Gayle Benson sent out a press release where she pledges to "aggressively pursue changes in NFL policies" that will promote more "fairness & integrity". Oh really? How much fairness is there when one teams offense has to try to communicate with crowd noise over 100db while the other teams offense gets to communicate in a church type quiet? That home field advantage is akin to moving the fences in when the home team is up in baseball and then back when the visitors bat. If she is interested in "fairness & integrity", then is she going to address this situation that occurs in most domed stadiums in the NFL? No, she won't, because she isn't interested in fairness, she is interested in going shopping in Atlanta. Tom Benson was a great owner, he loved his team, loved his city and put the money that he earned into his franchise. Unfortunately his wife is nothing more than a gold digger. She is 20 years his junior, burned through 2 other husbands before getting her claws into him and inherited the team & Benson's billions after some odd changes to Benson's wills late in his life (the team was originally willed to his kids). This woman knows nothing about what it takes to make a billion dollars, nothing about what it means to be an owner, yet claims she is for "fairness & integrity" after snaking her way into an old rich mans life. What a hypocrite! Rams fans had to put up with a gold digger wife who took possession of the team in 1979 and held them in her clutches until her death in 2008, Georgia Frontiere. When she got control, she nearly instantly fired her step son Steve Rosenbloom, who was expected to run the organization (& who ironically went to the Saints for a year) and then proceeded to drive the franchise into the ground in the 90's. She used that as an excuse to move them to St. Louis, where she caught lightning in a bottle for a few years with Dick Vermeil & Mike Martz, but that was short lived. Under Georgia, the Rams were a dumpster fire. Thankfully, the team was purchased by Stan Kroenke in 2010, who moved them back to LA. Saints fans, I have seen this movie before, this woman will wreck your franchise. Do what you can to get her to sell the team.

There is an attorney in New Orleans who is is trying to sue the NFL to have the commissioner declare the Saints winner of the NFC title game https://herosports.com/nfl/new-orleans-attorney-nfl-goodell-saints-rams-ahah If he pulls this off, I guarantee that 95% of the fans rooting against the Patriots in 2 weeks will switch their allegiance (at least for one game). Even though I am a Ram fan, part of me wants something like this to happen just to watch the public's reaction. The Saints, who have been a pretty loved franchise despite bountygate, would end up being the most despised team since, well since the Patriots ?. I didn't write that properly, I wasn't trying to argue or make a point different than yours (sorry about that). Your sentence about pushing someone into the stands just gave me flashbacks to how rough those finals used to be. A poor attempt at humor...

That was known as Lakers/Celtics in the 80's. Heck, they were clothes-lining each other (McHale to Rambis) and shoving guys 3 rows deep (Worthy to Maxwell) without a technical to be called. The Celtics won that series in 1984 because they didn't worry about what fouls should have been called and the Lakers came back to win in 1985 because they realized whining about it (like they & I did in 1984) doesn't win titles. They toughened up, played hard and won on the court without looking for help from the refs.

Oh definitely, trying to compare the 60's to the 90's to now in any sport is apples to oranges. I think that is why titles as opposed to stats is a good harbinger in deciding best dynasty's. You have to be better than everyone else available year after year. In the same way that Jordan outclassed any other shooting guard in the league, Russell was indeed the best center despite the gaudy stats that Wilt put up. Maybe call it Russell the best and Wilt the most dominant. The Celtics may have had the best point guard as well (for a few years), but those 60's Lakers had the best & most clutch shooting guard (West) and one of the most dominant forwards ever (Baylor). Yet Russell always found a way to get the title. Trust me, the last thing I want to do is give credit to any Celtic...?

Many folks bring up the smaller size of the league when talking about those Celtics, the counter to that is that the talent pool wasn't diluted with less teams. Nowadays, with 30 plus teams in a league, even the best teams have some weak spot. Russell's Celtics couldn't dodge a team and not have to play them to win a title, they had to beat the very best available at that time every year. Chamberlains career began in 1959, so he had to put up with Russell beating him quite alot. Remember too that 7 of those titles were over the Lakers teams that featured Elgin Baylor and (after 1960) Jerry West. Russell's Celtics weren't beating patsies, they were beating the most talented in the league. If either Birds Celtics or Magics Lakers had dominated the other like Russell's team did to the Lakers, they would have been considered a better dynasty than the Jordan Bulls. And note, this is coming from a Laker fan, who once threw a remote against the wall when Dennis Johnson hit a buzzer beater against them in game 4 of the 1985 Finals...

Of course not Catt, I want every game to be officiated perfectly per the rules. This game was not, from the 1st quarter on. There were numerous plays that violated the rules that went uncalled. Both teams had to play within that structure. What I have an issue with is people who cherry pick one non call from the game, ignoring all of the other non calls. What I have an issue with is people who ignore the fact that the Saints lost the game on the field, due to their coach's poor decisions and their teams failure to either stop a field goal (twice) or score in overtime (like the Patriots did). Sean Payton should have come out and said "I really wish the refs hadn't missed that call, I would have loved to have had first & goal in that situation. However, they did miss it and consequently, we did not do what was needed to win the game. Congratulations to the Rams, we will see you all next year". He could have even thrown in a "Who Dat" for good measure.

Yeah, those are great examples of franchises who had long runs of success, but didn't win a bunch of titles. Doesn't mean they weren't great teams, it just seems that titles are part of dynasties. Personally, I think the Bills run of 4 straight Super Bowls was incredible, but history seems to shine brightest on the title holders. I agree. However, didn't many of the Braves fans get complacent after a while and didn't appreciate all those division titles they won?

That is so full of hysteria, it could have been written by Sean Payton. If the Saints were the best team, why couldn't they win the game on the field?Why did they need a call to win the game? They had plenty of opportunities to win after the non call, but came up short every time. Or did they need a call then too?

In the Super Bowl thread JAnderson stated that he was happy to be a fan of "The greatest athlete and greatest dynasty in sports history", as a compliment to the Tom Brady and the Patriots. Fly Fisher responded "not even close, maybe in the top 10" to which deakNH replied "lets hear the other top 9". Rather than take that thread further off topic, I will answer Deak's request here. One note on Tom Brady. He has performed better than any other quarterback in his era, I believe that is inarguable. However, I believe alot of the Patriots success lies more on the shoulders of Bill Belichick than Brady (and the Patriots ownership who has given Belichick what he needs). If the Patriots had Belichick & not Brady, I believe they still would have been successful. If they had Brady but not Belichick, I'm not so sure. Imagine Brady with Cleveland the last 2 decades, do you really think the Browns would have ever won a Super Bowl? In that scenario, Brady would be nothing more than Vinnie Testaverde or Brian Sipe. With titles comes accolades, and in the same way that Joe Montana is considered a better QB than Jim Kelly because he won the 4 Super Bowls his team went to, Brady is in the Roger Staubach & John Elway echelon of QB history, having won and lost multiple Super Bowls. Now as far as rating the greatest dynasties in sports history, I kept it simple. I kept it in the modern era, since 1950ish. Titles were the prerequisite (see Jim Kelly/Buffalo Bills reference) and they had to be done with the same basic core group of players. I made a slight allowance to college teams since they have limited time available to play in that arena and put more emphasis on the coach. If the star &/or coach were with a team for a long period of time, but won championships with different core groups, those core groups were separated. For example, the Lakers from 1999 - 2010 with Kobe Bryant & Phil Jackson were actually 2 different groups; the 1999-2004 team with Shak and the 2008-2010 team with Gasol. To consider them one dynasty is a stretch. The Spurs were tricky because even though Duncan & Popovich were there for all 5 titles, there were changes from the 1st to the 5th title. However, since those changes occurred while the team was winning titles and the 4th & 5th titles included both Parker & Gianoble, I considered that one of the longer dynasties. So with no further ado, here is my list of the greatest dynasty's that sports has ever seen: 1956-1969 Boston Celtics 11 titles 1963-1975 UCLA Bruins 10 titles 1950-1958 NY Yankees 7 titles 1991-1998 Chicago Bulls 6 titles 2008-2016 Uconn Huskies (W BB) 6 titles 6. 1983-1990 Edmonton Oilers 5 titles 1979-1988 LA Lakers 5 titles 1999-2014 San Antonio Spurs 5 titles 2009-2017 Alabama C Tide (M FB) 5 titles 10. 1974-1979 Pittsburgh Steelers 4 titles 1975-1979 Montreal Canadiens 4 titles 1981-1989 SF 49ers 4 titles 1996-2000 NY Yankees 4 titles So the good news for all you Patriots fans is your team only has to win this year and 1 more Super Bowl title in the next few years to crack the top 10. Until then, take solace that the 2001-2004 Patriots were tied as a top 15 dynasty with about a dozen other teams.

Every call or non-call is a game changer. Look at the Chiefs/Patriots, the call on the defense being in the neutral zone prior to the hike negated a game ending interception. That was a call made on an infraction that had nothing to do with the outcome of the play. Did it cost the Chiefs the game? No, the two touchdowns they gave up after that did. It would have helped the Chiefs if the call hadn't been made, but it didn't cost them the game. Too many things happen in a close game to point out a single instance and claim "we was robbed". What about the other half dozen no calls on what is normally pass interference (on both the Rams & the Saints) throughout the game? Each one of those changed the course of the game. At least the non call at the end was consistent with the way the entire game was called, there is nothing worse than officiating that changes towards the end of a contest. The non call was a bad break for the Saints because of the timing of it. They lost however because their defense had 2 opportunities to stop the Rams from making a field goal and their offense had an opportunity to score to end the game, and they came up short on all three. That said, I understand Saints fans reaction to the non call. I would be ticked off (and have been) if similar things happen to a team I am rooting for or have money on. The reaction that I think that is out of line is Sean Payton's. As a head coach, the last thing you want to model for your players is complaining about the officiating. I think the better reaction would have been to say he wished the call would have been made, but even without it, his team still had an opportunity to win the game but came up short. Taking responsibility for the things you can control makes for a better team in the long run.

The pocket fisherman can't hold a candle to "The Fishing Machine". Back as a preteen armed with one of these, I was ready to turn pro!!

Sam, if your irritation with the non call is going to make you dislike someone, I believe that Sean Payton should be your target rather than the Rams. Following the pass play to Ginn at the 2 minute warning, the Saints had a 1st down inside the 20 and the Rams had only 2 timeouts. Payton calls a pass play that goes incomplete on first down, which guaranteed the Rams getting the ball back with 90 seconds or more with a stop. He then double downed on that bad decision by throwing the ball on 3rd down, the non call allowing the Rams to keep their last timeout. Had Payton run the ball on all 3 downs, they might have picked up a first down to run down the clock before the field goal try. Even if they didn't, they would have gotten the clock under 60 seconds and used up the Rams timeouts. Instead, Payton put himself in a position where he needed a call in order to put his team in a position to salt away the game. Payton is complaining about the non call to take the focus off his errors. For Payton to say the non call cost his team the game shows a complete lack of confidence that his team could have done what the Patriots did in overtime. In essence, Payton is claiming the only way his team could have won is with a call. Horrible leadership.

It is a fallacy to group the early 2000 Patriots with the late 2010's Patriots and call them a dynasty. A dynasty doesn't take a decade off between titles. Just because those two teams had the same coach & QB doesn't make them the same team. They had entirely different core of players and Brady's role with the 2 eras was different. No one calls the 2000 - 2010 Lakers a dynasty even though the had the same coach & star player and won 5 titles. Those Lakers were two different teams, the group that went to 4 finals and won 3 titles in 5 years and the second that went to 3 straight finals winning the last 2. There have very few Dynasty's in sports, maybe less than a half dozen. While the current rendition of the Patriots could become a dynasty, they aren't there yet. It would take 5 or six more titles before 2025. Brady wasn't the Patriots best player or focal point early in their success.

I didn't think you were old enough to be a Bill Russell fan, those 11 titles in 13 years was quite an accomplishment. His team team probably nudges out the 1947 to 1962 Yankees who also won 11 titles (just in a little longer time period) and the John Wooden led UCLA Bruins, who won 10 titles in 12 years. Now if the Patriots can just win the next five or six Super Bowls in a row, the last one with an elderly Tom Brady holding off opposing lineman with his walker, then they too can join the "greatest ever" conversation.

How about another OT game? 39 seconds is a lot of time...

Please know, I am not disagreeing with you. My points were just that the entire game was being called that way, so the non-call was consistent and that a non-call didn't cost the Saints the game. They had opportunities to stop the Rams from marching down the field to tie the game, they had the opportunity to go down and score first and they had the opportunity to stop the Rams from making the winning field goal. They didn't and that contributed to the loss. Is that fair?

I believe Charles Haley could beat up both you and I simultaneously while also eating a ham sandwich and juggling 3 chainsaws. You apparently missed the original post. Mr "I-don't-watch-football-but-I-love-the-Patriots-they-are-the-greatest-ever" had stated that Monsignor Tom Brady had won more Super Bowl rings than anyone. Not more than any offensive player, not more than any other QB, not more than all of the people despised by Drew Bledsoe, but by anyone. Period. I corrected him, and told him about Mr. Haley.

Wow, that is a stretch. It was a tie game when the play happened, if pass interference had been called, it still would have been a tie game. One might think that the Saints would have taken 3 knees to wind the clock down, but the way Payton was calling plays near the end, that isn't a lock. Then the kicker would have had to make the kick, with the Rams doing everything in their power to block it (I believe they had 3 blocks this year). With some of the things that have happened to the Saints in the playoffs over the years, no field goal, no matter how short, is a gimme. So yes, it was a bad break that the ref didn't make that call. However to say it cost the Saints the game or call the Rams a second class team is extremely melodramatic. To ignore the fact that they didn't make any other pass interference calls on about a half dozen plays that could have been called earlier in the game is disingenuous. These are two evenly matched teams and this particular afternoon, the Rams won.

Well, I certainly wouldn't like to be the one to tell Mr. Haley that face to face...

Well you didn't write that. Maybe you could say that Tom Brady has won more rings than any other white dude from the Bay area who is married to a supermodel & prefers deflated footballs. That would be factually correct.

I disagree. If the ref had made that call, a call they had not made the entire game for either side, they would have potentially given the game to the Saints. However, the game was still tied at that point. However, who knows what happens the next 3 plays (turnover?) or if the kicker even makes the kick. The scenario would have been different, if there was less than 5 seconds left, the Rams would have approached blocking the kick differently than they did where a penalty would have been more costly. Heck, the Rams could have even let the Saints score a touchdown on the first play in order to get the ball back & have a chance to tie. The Saints had that game in their grasp, they found a way to not win. To pick out a non-call as costing someone a game in a tie game is just factually incorrect. For Payton to cry about it is really weak.

Actually, Bill Belichick has more (7, he won 2 as an assistant with the Giants) and The Rooneys have six rings from their Steeler wins. As far as players, Charles Haley (49ers & Cowboys) also has 5 rings, but since you don't follow football closely, I figure you wouldn't know what a great player he was and his history in the Super Bowl.

Actually, Bradshaw & Montana were the ones who won Super Bowl after Super Bowl. Brady is more like Roger Staubach, win a couple Super Bowls, lose a couple Super Bowls. In fact, if he loses one more, he ties Jim Kelly!! ? A-Jay, as a Patriots fan, would you say that victory reminded you of the many close Playoff/Super Bowl games that Belichick has won over the years? I'm not saying that McVay is the next Belichick, just that the way the game played out reminded me of the Tuck rule game as well as others.