New England Patriots - "Survivors"

The Patriots have flown way below the radar since that thrashing. At this point it's almost a given that they'll end up in the playoffs. But in the eyes of most, it will be a mere formality, due more to the rottenness of their division, than their own personal excellence. They'll take a look at their record, perhaps the worst of all the AFC playoff teams, and feel confident that the Patriots will be easily dispatched. Over the past two months, they'll have spent far too much time staring starry-eyed at the stunning Colts,  or getting sentimental about the Bengals. They won't have taken the time to realize that the one decimated Patriots have been slowly reassembled. The defense that relied so heavily on Rodney Harrison has had fifteen weeks to prepare for playing without him. The running attack, so badly bruised that the back-up to the back-up to the back-up ended up getting injured in a game, is not only healthy, but fresh. And the offense is lead by the greatest hero that this league has seen, coming off of the best season in his career. Yet all the while, they've been too distracted to realize that the Pats aren't patsies any longer.

As I thought about how this Patriots year has played out, I couldn't help but notice the similarities to this past season of Survivor. In retrospect, all those promo's that CBS played during commercials may have been an omen of things to come. As the show got down to the wire, the tribe was split into two groups. The one was the powerful alliance of six, who were primed to pick off their other four members. As the weeks passed, those four slowly got voted off until one remained. She was a sports-radio host named Dani. She was as thin as a toothpick and on the outside appeared to be no threat to stronger members of the alliance. Since she didn't appear to be endangering anyone's place in the game, the alliance decided to leave her alone, choosing rather to take out the larger threats from within. Week by week the alliance tore itself apart until only two remained with Dani. The entire time they became so preoccupied with jockeying for position down the stretch, they never stopped to notice the quiet girl who was biding her time until the moment was right to slit their throats. At the final immunity challenge, Dani decimated her two opponents, and the rest is a million dollars worth of history.

I saw it coming the whole time. I'd watched enough of Survivor to know that when you've got somebody down, you'd better just take them out. The last thing you want to do is let them hang around, slowly reload, and then take another shot at you. The Colts, and the rest of the NFL didn't have the luxury of taking the Patriots down at their lowest point. And as a result, this team has just bid its time, licked it's wounds, and loaded up for the playoffs. Thanks to the ineptitude of the Jets, Phins, and Bills, that Patriots never had to worry about winning enough games, they only had to concentrate on surviving. And while everyone is preoccupied with the Colts march to 16-0, the quest for a bye-week, and the wild-card race, nobody stopped to notice how the Patriots drubbing of the Bills last week was, by far, the best they had looked all season. In fact, they looked like they did last year.

I can't say that I know how this will all play out. The Colts have been flat-out incredible. They've been so incredible, I've probably typed their name out more times than I have the Patriots this article. But you have to wonder if all that time spent picking off their easy victims has numbed them a little bit. If perhaps their quest for perfection has taken their eyes off their most deadly threat. Like I said, I don't know for sure. But what I do know, is that every time you let Tom Brady and the New England Patriots take another shot at you, it's going right between your eyes.