The 5-0 New England Patriots against the 5-0 New York Jets doesn’t sound like that big a deal. Surprisingly, it is only the fourth time in the 85-year history of the NFL that two undefeated teams with five or more victories have faced each other.
The last time was 1973, when the 6-0 Vikings and Rams met. The Vikings won 10-9. The 5-0 Canton Bulldogs and Chicago Cardinals met in 1923. Canton won 7-3 at Comiskey Park. The 6-0 Buffalo All-Americans met the 7-0 Akron Pros in Buffalo in 1921 and tied 0-0.
Patriots-Jets also will be the last game of the season between undefeated teams, unless one of them remains unbeaten and meets the undefeated Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl.
Here’s how difficult it is to win five games in a row: The Bears won six in a row in 2001, five in a row in 1991, six in a row in 1990 and five in a row in 1988. They had a six-game streak and a seven-game streak in 1986 and a 12-game streak in 1985. But only the 1985 and ’86 teams started 6-0.
If the Patriots win, it will be their 18th straight regular-season victory, which will put them in the “official” NFL record book, beating the 1933-34 Bears. The Patriots’ 20-game streak includes playoffs, so it is unofficial.
Said Patriots coach Bill Belichick of the Jets: “I hope we can keep it close.”
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Belichick also said this: “I think we have improved. I think we have a ways to go.”
His players believe in the Belichick brainwash.
“We don’t have a bunch of clowns,” safety Rodney Harrison said. “We don’t have a bunch of guys doing push-ups and sit-ups. . . . We’re not trying to have guys draw attention to themselves and get singled out, flexing their muscles and stuff. Just play football and win some games.”
Why does it sound so simple?
The Marino pace
Dan Marino went to Minnesota to interview Daunte Culpepper, who is on pace to break Marino’s 1984 record of 48 touchdown passes in a season.
“I remember when I was on kind of the same pace that Daunte is now,” Marino said. “When you have so many weapons, it’s just a lot of fun. When you understand the offense the way Daunte does and you have guys who can make plays, and you can flat-out sling it 60 yards on a rope like Daunte, you feel like you’re kind of unstoppable.”
Culpepper grew up in Florida but has no memories of Marino’s season with the Dolphins.
“I was 7,” Culpepper said. “But obviously I heard a lot about Marino growing up. But [the records] don’t really matter. Whatever it takes to win. Throwing touchdowns. Running them. Whatever.”
Desperate measures
Former Bears coach Jim Dooley once moved into the apartment of quarterback Bobby Douglass for a week to school him on the game plan.
Baltimore Ravens “senior consultant” Jim Fassel, former New York Giants coach, took quarterback Kyle Boller to dinner last week to help Boller improve his 61.3 passer rating.
“The biggest thing he’s going to have to fight through is to not press right now,” Fassel said. “It’s going to make him mentally tougher as we move through this, because I think he’s going to be an outstanding quarterback.”
Owens and Garcia
Philadelphia wide receiver Terrell Owens has bad-mouthed Cleveland quarterback Jeff Garcia so much he must have forgotten he caught 50 touchdown passes in 67 games with Garcia. That’s 0.746 touchdowns per game. That was the second best touchdowns-to-games ratio in the league. The Colts’ Peyton Manning and Marvin Harrison are first at 0.747. They combined for 68 touchdowns in 91 games together heading into this season. The Vikings’ Randy Moss and Culpepper are third at 0.666. They have combined for 40 touchdowns in 60 games.
Said Garcia: “I don’t know why there’s such a tendency or a want to beat me down the way he has, but I know what I’m made of, I know what my character is, what I’m all about, and I know I’m bigger and stronger than that.”
Not good
This is not exactly a vote of confidence from Miami owner H. Wayne Huizenga, asked whether a decision on keeping coach Dave Wannstedt would be made after the season: “We haven’t made that decision yet, but I would lean toward saying yes, we’ll wait. . . . Not to say we won’t change our mind, but that’s probably where we are.”
Huizenga said he had higher hopes for the 2004 Dolphins even after the unexpected retirement of tailback Ricky Williams in late July and the season-ending knee injury suffered by receiver David Boston during a preseason practice.
“I was thinking more than 8-8,” Huizenga said. “I would never have been happy with 8-8. I would today.”
Hard labor
From San Diego Chargers long snapper David Binn: “I was in Australia, and I tried to describe my job to people there. They thought it was the funniest thing in the world that I was making a half-million a year just for throwing the ball between my legs.”
Say it’s not so
It is unnerving to look at this week’s standings and see the Packers, Cowboys, 49ers and Raiders all with losing records.
This cannot last. If it does, the Earth is liable to start spinning around the moon. Never in NFL history have the Packers, Cowboys, 49ers and Raiders all finished a season with losing records. Each has endured its share of lows, but never all four at once.
The worst year they ever had as a group was 1999, when the Packers, Cowboys and Raiders finished 8-8 and the 49ers lagged at 4-12.
This long history of group success began even before the 1970 NFL-AFL merger. It goes back to 1960, when the Cowboys and Raiders were born. Since then, the four teams have dominated entire decades and won 19 championships including 16 of the first 31 Super Bowls.
When the Cowboys and Packers play Sunday at Lambeau Field, it will be only the second time in 26 meetings that both teams enter with a losing record. The only other time was in 1993, when they faced off with 1-2 records and recovered nicely. The Cowboys won the Super Bowl, beating the Packers in the divisional playoff.
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No witch hunt
They named the high school football field in Salem, Ill., “Jim Finks Stadium” this year to honor the Salem native and Hall of Fame general manager.
Former Bears administrator Bill McGrane recalled when Finks was on Terry Brennan’s Notre Dame staff with Hank Stram. The three were driving to a clinic and stopped for gas near Salem, whereupon Stram asked the proprietor to help him recollect a famous athlete from the town.
“I remember a guy from around here who played football and baseball and I believe his name was something like Jim Finks, wasn’t it?” Stram said.
The response: “Mister, I’ve lived here all my life and I never heard of the guy.”
Finks and Stram didn’t know at the time they were on their way to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Good books
Two good books for the pro football fan:
“Favre” (Rugged Land, NFL Publishing) is written by Brett Favre and his mother, Bonita Favre, with Green Bay Press-Gazette columnist Chris Havel and contributions from Terry Bradshaw and Peter King.
It is dedicated to Favre’s late father, Irv, and includes an interesting chapter on Favre’s Foundation written by his wife, Deanna. Bears fans are allowed to buy it for insight on their all-time great nemesis.
“America’s Game” (Random House) by Michael MacCambridge is a comprehensive, well-written narrative on “how pro football captured a nation.”
Big start
The Eagles are only the second team in the last 35 years to open the season with five straight double-digit victories. The other team to do it was the 1999 St. Louis Rams, who went on to win the Super Bowl.