Mike Dussault

It seems to be generally accepted that NFL teams should start playing their best football after Thanksgiving, leading to peak performance in the playoffs in January and ultimately a Super Bowl title in February. As if there is a clear progression to be made, that slowly builds to a climax in the big game.

However after looking back at the last 10 Super Bowl champions I found that this line of thinking is somewhat of a myth, especially since the 2006 Colts won the Lombardi Trophy.

Look at these post-Thanksgiving records of the eventual Super Bowl champs:

• ‘10 Packers: 3-3
• ’09 Saints: 3-3
• ’08 Steelers: 5-1
• ’07 Giants: 3-3
• 06 Colts: 3-3
• ’05 Steelers: 4-2
• ’04 Patriots: 5-1
• ’03 Patriots: 6-0
• ’02 Buccaneers: 4-2
• ’01 Patriots: 6-0

While no Super Bowl winner has had a losing record after Turkey Day, in 4 of the last 5 years the Super Bowl champs had just a .500 record in the supposedly all-important final six games of the regular season. And no team other than the ’01 and ’03 Patriots went undefeated from Thanksgiving to the Super Bowl (ahhhh, thank you very much)…

This just goes to show it’s not about peaking right after Thanksgiving or even in late December. It’s about peaking in the playoffs, and putting together 3-4 games of your best football when it’s all on the line. Clearly there’s not as much correlation to which teams are playing well at the end of the regular season to who takes home the grand prize as we might think.

Here’s who Pro Football Focus has ranked as the best and worst Patriots of defense.

Top 5

1. Andre Carter – MVP
2. Mark Anderson – really coming on lately
3. Kyle Arrington – only star of the secondary
4. Brandon Spikes – need him back asap
5. Jerod Mayo – where are the big plays?

Bottom 5 (first is the worst)

1. Gary Guyton – not surprising to me
2. Shaun Ellis – most disappointing free agent left
3. Philip Adams – big improvement vs. Jets
4. Antoine Molden – okay vs. Jets in first start
5. Sergio Brown – no longer in the safety mix?

What a difference a week makes huh? Last Friday a lot of fans and pundits thought the Jets were primed to take the AFC East from the steely grasp the Pats have had on it for the better part of a decade. Now the Patriots have what amounts to a three game lead over the Jets and a cream puff schedule before them. Seems like the only thing that will prevent the Patriots from another division title and possibly a bye are the Patriots themselves.

But if the Pats are to make a serious playoff run they still have a ways to go and a lot of that has to do with getting healthy. On Thursday there were a total of 17 Pats on the injury report, and that probably had a lot to do with Belichick deciding not to have a full pads Friday as was expected. But overcoming injuries is something all teams that win a Super Bowl must do.

The two other buzz words that I’ll be focusing on for the final seven weeks of the season are consistency and communication. Consistency for the offense who finally started to show signs of life in the second half against the Jets, and communication for the defensive secondary.

We’ve long preached that young defenses take time to grow together, until they have enough experienced pieces in place to keep the inexperienced pieces in check. Vince Wilfork and Jerod Mayo are two of those cogs, but Patrick Chung is desperately needed back to help settle the secondary.What they did without him against the Jets was nothing short of incredible.

We’ve seen a lot of positives out of the defense the last couple games, now it’s just a matter of keeping that up and building on it. We’ve said it over and over again but the Patriots (for better or worse) run a complicated defense where communication is arguably the biggest key, even bigger than talent.

If you’re running a straight forward system it’s much more about talent, but for the Pats it’s about having everyone on the same page, moving in sync as one. If one guy is out of sync the defense can be exploited. So expect the improvement to continue as the collective experience of the defenders does.

I’m not worried about complacency with the Pats facing an assortment of unproven quarterbacks over the last two months of the season. They need the experience and Belichick will not let them overlook anyone.

What I am concerned about is not having another hyped game before the playoffs start. But who knows, maybe that final Bills game will actually mean something.