Playing for History

When the New England Patriots take the field this weekend to take on the New York Giants, the Patriots will be aiming to be the first team to go 16-0 in the regular season.

That will be two more regular season wins than the undefeated 1972 Miami Dolphins had -- but Miami went undefeated in the era when the NFL season was 14 games, not 16. The postseason was three games for Miami, the same as it will be for New England, so the Patriots will have to go 19-0 to cap a perfect season. Miami went 17-0.

Today, it was announced that new TV arrangements make the Patriots-Giants game accessible to just about everyone. Instead of airing only on the audience-limited NFL Network, both CBS and NBC will televise the "potentially historic game," in the words of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.

It reminds me of the fuss that was made in 1974 when Hank Aaron was about to break Babe Ruth's career home run record.

At the end of the 1973 season, Aaron pulled within one home run of Ruth's career mark, and that left him with the entire offseason to think about what he would be trying to do the following spring.

I was 14 at the time and, as I recall, Aaron tied the home run mark in Atlanta's first series of the 1974 season, which was being played in Cincinnati. After Aaron tied the mark, the Atlanta manager took him out of the game and benched him for the remainder of the series. He wanted Aaron to break the record in front of the home fans.

Major league baseball wanted to televise the historic event. In those days, there was no cable so major league baseball wasn't accessible every night of the season. The networks did have Monday Night Baseball, but it didn't usually begin broadcasts until the summer, when the networks were heavily into reruns.

In this case, baseball made the exception and had a special broadcast of Monday Night Baseball in early April. Everyone wanted to see Aaron break Ruth's record. And, as it turned out, he did break the record that night.

But he might not have broken the record that night, and baseball would have wound up with egg on its face.

I don't think that's a possibility here. Whether the Patriots win and finish the regular season 16-0, or they lose and finish 15-1, it's an historic game. Either the Patriots make history, or the Giants prevent it, which is historic in itself.

The Patriots deserve to be congratulated for their accomplishment. Nothing that happens this weekend can change what they've achieved this year.

And the Dolphins should be remembered in the history books for what they did in 1972, even if New England goes 19-0 and wins the Super Bowl.

After all, no one else went 14-0 during the era of the 14-game seasons. And no one else went 17-0, including postseason wins, during that era. That distinction belongs to the 1972 Miami Dolphins. And it always will.

The real challenge for the Patriots will come next season -- if they finish 16-0 or 19-0 this season. Because next season will be when everyone will be gunning for them. That's when the Patriots will have bull's eyes on their chests and it will be a fight to the finish every week. Whoever snaps the streak will be remembered by history. Playing the Patriots will be each team's Super Bowl.

For the record, the 1973 Dolphins were nearly as good as the 1972 team. The streak was snapped in the second game of the season by the Oakland Raiders, but Miami went 12-2 in 1973 and won the Super Bowl again, finishing 15-2.

Not a bad encore, eh?