Which is the greatest team in the history of American sport? Some would pick the New York Yankees baseball team of the late 1930s and early 1940s, when the prodigious ability of the ageing Babe Ruth and the tragic Lou Gehrig was giving way to the exuberant grace of Joe DiMaggio. Others would pick the Pittsburgh Steelers of the 1970s, with Terry Bradshaw at quarterback and the “steel curtain” defence, who won four Super Bowls from 1975-1980. Still others might say Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls in the 1990s, who won six NBA Championships in eight years.
But tomorrow, if the bookies are right, there will be a new team in that company, a team who will have a plausible claim to placing themselves at the top of the pile. If the New England Patriots beat the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLII here they will be crowned champions for the fourth time in seven seasons. Much more important, they will have completed a 19-game season (16 in the regular season, three in the play-offs) without a defeat.
No team in the history of American sport have gone undefeated in such a long season. The Miami Dolphins did it over 17 games in 1972 but against weaker opposition. In the ferocity of a contemporary league that is noted for its parity between teams, this would be an astonishing achievement.
What makes the Patriots so intriguing is that their success is rooted in a team ethic. In a sport noted for massive egos and the apparently uncontrollable passions of challenging young men, the Patriots’ hallmarks are a ruthless discipline and a team spirit that suppresses individuality.
Not everybody loves the Patriots. Bill Belichick, the coach, is a famously saturnine figure, often likened to Darth Vader. But you would be hard pressed to argue that he is anything other than a coaching genius. New England can boast some of the finest sportsmen to have played the sport - Tom Brady, the quarterback, Randy Moss, the wide receiver, Mike Vrabel, the linebacker - but under the quiet, almost sullen Belichick regime, the Patriots eschew the idea of individual greatness. It can make them seem tedious at times.
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While the Giants, their opponents tomorrow, made headlines with off-the-cuff predictions and colourful observations, the Patriots stayed ruthlessly on message. Through the media circus of Super Bowl week, every Patriots player has repeated the same formula: “Nobody’s focused on making history,” Brady said. “We are focused on the team.” This may sound like an empty sporting clich?, but for the Patriots it is exhaustive reality.
There is no better example than in what the Patriots have done to Moss. The wide receiver joined New England only last year, having built a reputation at the Minnesota Vikings and the Oakland Raiders, his previous two teams, as a team-wrecker - as selfish and temperamental as he was brilliant. At New England he appears to be a changed man. “I’m very, very blessed to be where I’m at,” he said. “Anything that will contribute to a victory, I’m willing.”
New York were the last team to get a chance to stop New England from going undefeated in the regular season. In the last game in December they had qualified for the play-offs and many thought that key players should have been rested. But New York scored more points against the Patriots than any team had all season and were only narrowly defeated, 38-35.
The decision to play as though their lives depended on it seemed to have propelled the Giants through the play-offs and for the second time in five weeks they get the chance to ruin the Patriots’ run at perfection. If they do not, they will simply be a short footnote in a storied era of sporting history written by New England.
NFL’s Wembley return
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The NFL has confirmed that a second regular-season game will be staged at Wembley Stadium in October. Roger Goodell, the commissioner, announced in Phoenix yesterday that the New Orleans Saints will take on the San Diego Chargers on October 26. The NFL has chosen to return to the capital a year after the New York Giants and the Miami Dolphins played at Wembley in front of an 81,176 sell-out crowd. Goodell has endorsed a recommendation to play at least one game in the UK in each of the next three years.