Are the Patriots truly being punished for their insolence?

The last five years for the Patriots would make many people believe in karma. Since Tom Brady left his baby mama Bridget Moynahan for Gisele and Bill Belichick got caught videotaping other teams’ run throughs, here are the Patriots season results:

• 2007: Crazy late game Super Bowl loss to the underdog Giants
• 2008: Brady tore his ACL early in the season and they missed the playoffs despite going 11-5
• 2009: Brady had a stinker in a first round loss to the Ravens
• 2010: Finished 14-2, but Brady had another stinker in a second round loss to the rival Jets
• 2011: Brady nearly blew it against the Ravens again in the AFC championship game and they sneaked into the Super Bowl, only to suffer another late game loss to the underdog Giants

Gisele continued her negative influence by blaming the loss on drops by the Patriots receivers (only Aaron Hernandez had a truly bad drop, and it was probably too late to matter). The Patriots have 60 wins over the last five years (12 per year), but no rings. If the Patriots go 15-1 next year and get a rematch with a 9-7 Giants team, the Giants will probably be favored. They can’t get past those guys.

Close games are generally decided by luck — Bill Barnwell gets into this at Grantland, but finds himself backtracking almost immediately to avoid angering Giants fans (“The Giants were not lucky to win Super Bowl XLVI because they fumbled twice and fell on both of them.”). There will be no backtracking from me! The Giants were lucky to win (as the Patriots would have been if they had won). Here’s the way the ball bounced

NFL instant replay: a broken system

The Super Bowl is only 26 hours away, but Adrian the Canadian is working overtime to improve the NFL review system. Here are some potential disasters that he came up with for Sunday, along with his advice for the NFL:

While many fans across North America are spending Super Bowl week analyzing match-ups, placing bets (shhhh…), worrying about Gronk’s ankle, or pinching themselves in disbelief that a team with a negative regular season point differential could be the pundits’ choice to win the game, I’m hoping for something else: that the game turns on a controversial play that finally blows up the NFL’s nonsensical and unfair instant replay system. Because, let’s be honest, the NFL’s challenge system is absurd and has become more absurd with the imposition of mandatory review in the final two minutes of each half and of scoring plays. What sort of plays could lead to an overhaul? I’m glad you asked: 

Rematch!

There were no True Wins handed out yesterday. The Ravens, Patriots, Giants, and 49ers treated us to two extremely close football games. Close games generally come down to luck to determine the winner; indeed, I thought both games would be close but was fortunate to pick both winners last week. Regular season True Wins and actual wins both predicted the Patriots victory but failed on the Giants, who are underrated by wins measures due to their ridiculous strength of schedule. For the first time since 2007 (and only the fourth time since 2002), actual wins is going to beat out True Wins in predicting playoff games. Both measures suggest the Patriots will win the Super Bowl, since they have far more wins and True Wins than the Giants, and actual wins are a half game up going into the final (5.5 games correct to 5 games correct):

The two championship games had some common themes, actually. The “offensive” teams (Patriots, Giants), playing against good defenses, did not have their usual panache. However, they both stacked the box