The NFL’s greatest show in recent memory, and maybe in the history of the game, is back after a one-week hiatus. And as the New England Patriots begin postseason play this weekend, the big question is whether a loss — Saturday, next weekend or in Super Bowl XLII — will tarnish the perfect regular season.
The answer to that question comes not in a word, but in a number.
One hundred and sixteen.
Sound familiar, Seattle sports fans? I thought so. The number 116 will forever live in Seattle sports history despite its epilogue.
When the Seattle Mariners tied a major-league record by winning 116 regular season games in 2001, history was already made. Nothing else mattered. A loss to the New York Yankees in the American League Championship Series brought temporary heartbreak, but it did not tarnish the greatest season the franchise ever had.
And so comes the Patriots’ efforts to follow up on 16-0. Media types have built up this postseason as having the possibility of the most colossal fall in league history. New England quarterback Tom Brady has said that the perfect record is meaningless now, that everyone came into the playoffs with identical 0-0 records.
A loss, the common thinking would say, means the perfect season was for naught.
But, quite simply, that’s not true.
At the risk of shamelessly plugging a colleague’s work, I use Kirby Arnold’s recent book, “Tales From the Seattle Mariners Dugout,” as evidence. I read the book in one sitting during a season-ending road trip to Atlanta and was quickly reminded of the M’s historic 2001 season.
Bret Boone talked about that year in vivid detail, with no trace of anger about the way things ended in the ALCS. Lou Piniella, one of the most competitive men in baseball, gushed about how proud he was of that team.
And yet the Mariners’ season, like that of every other team but one, ended on a sour note.
It’s not the destination, folks, it’s the journey.
And so the Patriots enter this NFL postseason with the weight of the world on their shoulders. The Boston area that has come to expect championships is prepared to settle for nothing less. The alumni from the 1972 Miami Dolphins — the NFL’s lone unbeaten team — are frantically hoping that history does not repeat itself.
Understand this: history has already been made. It won’t take 19-0 for the Patriots’ season to be memorable.
Chances are, New England has nothing to worry about. The Patriots have been rolling over opponents for most of the season, although the month of December was — comparatively speaking — a bit of a nail-biter. Saturday’s opponent, Jacksonville, isn’t even in the Pats’ proverbial league. New England already beat the defending champion Indianapolis Colts once this year. And the NFC stacks up to the AFC’s best kind of like Tiny Tim stacks up to Enrique Iglesias.
But on the outside chance that New England does trip up on its road to perfection, it shouldn’t be looked at as a failure of historical proportions.
No matter what happens over the next month, the Patriots’ perfect 16-0 season won’t soon be forgotten. Just as the number 116 needs no explanation in Seattle, 16 should be a historic number in New England for generations to come.
Scott M. Johnson is The Herald’s pro football writer
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