Will there ever be another NFL team to go the entire season udefeated?
I'm going to go ahead and say probably not. The name of the game in professional sports these days is parity and the NFL has a lot of it.
Anyone can beat anyone on any given Sunday. It happens all the time. And it happened today as the previously-unbeaten Colts stumbled and fell to the San Diego Chargers.
The Chargers aren't a horrible team, so it's really not that much of a shocker. But since the Colts clinched homefield advantage throughout the playoffs last week the talk this week was all about whether the Colts should rest starters or play them and go for the undefeated season.
Well, the starters played, for the most part, the entire game and the Horseshoes still lost.
So, what's that mean? Well, Peyton Manning isn't God. He screws up too. As do his receivers, who seemed to not get a lot of his audibles today. Of course, Manning acted like somewhat of an ass after his receivers ran the wrong routes. Or at least he seemed like an ass to me, it's good to be intense, but c'mon buddy it's the first half, you're only down by a touchdown and your acting like you're losing the damn Super Bowl.
It's not like his receivers aren't some of the best in the NFL either, they probably know what they did wrong, hoss.
I'm never a fan of teammates just freaking out at each other. Let your teammate know what you did wrong, pat him on the butt and run the next play. Let the coaches do the screaming.
Anyway, the Bolts did what they had to do to win the game and what every Colts opponent will try and do from here on out. They put pressure on Manning. That caused problems for the Colts late and the '72 Dolphins popped the champagne corks and breathed a huge sigh of relief.
As they will probably do for the rest of their lives. In today's NFL, I just don't think it'll ever happen again. It will take a spectacular team to pull it off, and I don't think you can put together a truly spectacular team and stay within salary cap requirements.
But even if you do somehow get the team together, you'll probably clinch homefield and the division early into your undfeated campaign. Then, just as the Colts saw, you are faced with the dillema of playing the studs or letting your second string get some experience and avoiding costly injuries. That could very well put the undefeated season in jeopardy.
But as the Colts proved today, you don't have to rest anybody for the undefeated season to wash away.
This could be the best thing ever for the Colts, now they don't have to worry about that mess anymore and can get refocused and go into the playoffs strong.
But at least the Colts did make the run, allowing for the media attention to fall off of T.O. for a while.