Did the 01 Patriots or 07 Giants seem like a more unlikely SB winner headed into the playoffs?

[Bolts223]

Question is in the description.

[Elky]

The 01 Pats. We were 5-11 the year prior and we were starting a still largely unknown Brady. The 07 Giants made the playoffs the previous season, their QB was the #1 overall that has been broken in and they had an elite pass rush.

[Uncle Buck]

Definitely New England.  The Giants had a good showing against the undefeated Patriots late in the regular season.  That increased the value of their stock in my estimation.  I didn't think there was any chance the '01 Patriots could beat the GSOT Rams.  It was an upset almost on the level of Buster Douglas over Iron Mike Tyson to me at the time.

Edited July 8, 2019 by Uncle Buck

[Leoric]

Patriots easy. GSOT was hyped as the greatest team ever and unstoppable. Then Brady happened. 

[Danger]

Unrelated, but I just went back and looked at the box score for Super Bowl XXXVI, Tom Brady got MVP... for real???

[PatriotsWin!]

Pats. NE was not a good team in BBs previous season with Bledsoe (5-11), then Bledsoe gets injured and people start pegging us to land the #1 overall draft pick...  then Brady happened and the rest is history. 

[jvmillion83]

NE.  

The Giants had a good shot at advancing vs 3 seed Philly the previous year and going to Chicago against the Bears.   I'm not sure any die hard Pats fan saw that '01 season coming. 

[Daniel]

Am I the only one that thinks it was the Giants?

[Bolts223]

On 7/7/2019 at 9:54 PM, Boltstrikes said:

Patriots easy. GSOT was hyped as the greatest team ever and unstoppable. Then Brady happened. 

I mean I would say that was more of, "Then Belichick happened."

Obviously Brady deserves massive credit for that final drive, but his overall numbers in that game were nothing remarkable. Belichick is the one who put together the game plan that shut down an historic offense for 3 and a half quarters and then had the balls to go for it with a 2nd year QB backed inside his own 20 with like 1:30 left and no timeouts.

Edited July 9, 2019 by Bolts223

[footbull3196]

On 7/7/2019 at 11:54 PM, Danger said:

Unrelated, but I just went back and looked at the box score for Super Bowl XXXVI, Tom Brady got MVP... for real???

Seriously, if anyone deserved SB mvp that game it was Ty Law

[SBLIII]

22 minutes ago, footbull3196 said:

Seriously, if anyone deserved SB mvp that game it was Ty Law

Troy Brown

[RandyMossIsBoss]

I wasn't following NFL in 2001 so I can't say for sure how it seemed, but people keep bringing up Pats 5-11 finish. That is irrelevant IMO since he's asking about how they were perceived heading into the playoffs. Well, if we're just going off odds, 07 Giants were +5000 at the start of the playoffs while the 01 Pats were +900. So it's not even close looking at archived futures, which is not surprising. Now going off their odds heading into season is another story (Giants were +3000, Pats were +6000). These archived odds could be wrong, but they make sense to me.

Not only were the Giants a 6 seed as opposed to a 2 seed with a bye (which right off the bat makes the Pats a far more likely SB winner), but the Giants had 2 very good 13-3 teams they would likely have to go through, while the Pats just had one in the Steelers. Both years there was a team pretty heavily favored to win it all (Rams in 01, Pats in 07), but those 07 Pats were favored like never before to go all the way once the playoffs started (-400).

 

[Art_Vandalay]

1 hour ago, RandyMossIsBoss said:

Not only were the Giants a 6 seed as opposed to a 2 seed with a bye (which right off the bat makes the Pats a far more likely SB winner)

Thread starts and ends right here.

[Bolts223]

2 hours ago, RandyMossIsBoss said:

I wasn't following NFL in 2001 so I can't say for sure how it seemed, but people keep bringing up Pats 5-11 finish. That is irrelevant IMO since he's asking about how they were perceived heading into the playoffs. Well, if we're just going off odds, 07 Giants were +5000 at the start of the playoffs while the 01 Pats were +900. So it's not even close looking at archived futures, which is not surprising. Now going off their odds heading into season is another story (Giants were +3000, Pats were +6000). These archived odds could be wrong, but they make sense to me.

Not only were the Giants a 6 seed as opposed to a 2 seed with a bye (which right off the bat makes the Pats a far more likely SB winner), but the Giants had 2 very good 13-3 teams they would likely have to go through, while the Pats just had one in the Steelers. Both years there was a team pretty heavily favored to win it all (Rams in 01, Pats in 07), but those 07 Pats were favored like never before to go all the way once the playoffs started (-400).

 

This is a good point. It is worth noting though that the Patriots were bigger underdogs in the final 2 games than the Giants were. Pats were 10 point dogs to the Steelers and 14 to the Rams. Giants were 7 to the Packers and 12.5 to the Patriots. Main argument I think is that having a first round bye increase your odds significantly. 

Edited July 10, 2019 by Bolts223

[RandyMossIsBoss]

Just now, Bolts223 said:

This is a good point. It is worth noting though that the Patriots were bigger underdogs in the final 2 games than the Giants were. Pats were 10 point dogs to the Steelers and 14 to the Rams. Giants were 7 to the Packers and 12.5 to the Patriots. Main argument I think is that having a first round bye increase your odds significantly. 

Yeah, again I wasn't "there," but it wouldn't surprise me if game by game the Pats run felt more unlikely, because I remember the Giants win over Cowboys didn't feel that crazy. Under dog for sure, but they were division foes and had played them close already, had momentum, last time we saw Romo was chokejob. Then with the the GB game, well the Giants were now coming off 2 good wins and playing great football so again it wasn't a shocker. I think if we're just talking between the end of week 17 to the wild card round, it'd have to be Giants, but by the CC it may very well have been the Pats run that was seeming more unlikely.