Great unknown

If the Patriots go 19-0, where will they rank in NFL annals? It's a question some say is best left unanswered

January 27, 2008|Jim McCabe, Globe Staff

To their majestic presence, let us raise a toast and pay tribute to the accomplishments of these men and this greatest-ever football team. Indelible images with each and every close of the eyes measure a collective spirit that could never be broken and a drive that had no match.

Hark back to that most gallant effort, an unseasonably warm December Sunday in New York with a game played upon a frozen tundra as Papa Bear Lombardi shouted instructions to Luckman, who handed off to Ameche for a touchdown that ended overtime and put the sport into overdrive. It was a most memorable play from behind Kramer's block and culminated Montana's surgical work in a scintillating two-minute drill, though surely Unitas's passes to Berry were at the heart of a drive that commanded a nation's fascination and provided the sport with its soul. Oh, how a wall of suffocation was thrown up by Mean Joe and his Steel Curtain mates, behind which Singletary's piercing eyes melted the opposition's mettle and afforded a legend named Otto prime field position time and time again.

And in the end, a group of so-called "No-Name" defenders orchestrated by the iconic Shula and powered by the bullish Csonka proved victorious, much to the delight of coach Brown, who unleashed a relentless fury named Motley, a locomotive of a man.

If it is a montage of yesteryear's glory, it is because a gridiron gallantry that has stretched across more than six decades has produced so many legendary teams that perception is blurred and impossible is the task to single one out. Yet into that delectable mix storm this year's Patriots, the latest to apply for the title of "greatest team ever."

Sitting undefeated through 18 games and a mere four quarters away from a fourth Super Bowl win in seven years, they have momentum and history on their side, not to mention the priceless commodity of being so "now." But strip away all the numbers and all the emotions and all the passion, and ask yourself this about the debate on where the 2007 Patriots rank:

"What difference does it make?"

Such a calming reason defined his Pulitizer Prize-winning career, and even now in retirement, the New York Times's esteemed sports columnist, Dave Anderson, casts a keen eye on the landscape he covered for all those many years. He begrudgingly accepts that the media are fascinated by assigning "greatest ever" labels, yet Anderson long ago found that a senseless task.

"You can't compare players to players, coaches to coaches, teams to teams from all those different eras," said Anderson. "There are so many different rules, so many different size of players. You can point out what [teams] did, but how can you compare them?"