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November 20, 2007

Madden & Tiki talk Pats

Hey all --

Earlier today, NBC had a conference call with members of its Sunday Night Football crew in advance of this week's New England-Philadelphia game, and as you'd expect, analysts John Madden and Tiki Barber had plenty of things to say about the Patriots.

Following are some quotes from that call on the Pats' dominance:

TIKI ON THE PATS DOMINANCE: "The New England Patriots are showing to be the greatest team that we've seen in a long time. Whether you are rooting for or against them having an undefeated season all the way to the Super Bowl, it is certainly entertaining and exciting to think about them going 19-0 and doing it in the dominating fashion they have been doing it."

MADDEN ON THE PATS DOMINANCE: "I think that New England, especially offensively, is as close to perfect as you can be. I think that they're obviously the best team in the NFL and I think the gap is pretty big."

MADDEN ON WHO IS THE NFL'S SECOND BEST TEAM: "For a long time everyone agreed that it was the Indianapolis Colts. Because of injuries and that they have now, it's probably not. You would probably have to go to Dallas and Green Bay."

MADDEN ON IF BELICHICK SHOULD REST GUYS ONCE PATS CLINCH: "That's going to be the dilemma. Do you go for a championship or do you go for a record? At some point he's going to have to make that decision. Knowing Bill Belichick, I know that championships are going to be more important than records. It's just very, very difficult to see, if you get to that point, where you have everything clinched and in essence it's a meaningless game, to have Tom Brady and Randy Moss and that group out there the whole game."

MADDEN ON PATS PLACE IN HISTORY: "It's the best offense that I've ever seen. Tom Brady is playing the position of quarterback, right now, better than anyone I've ever seen play it. So where are they as the best team, I think offensively, they are right there. The best offensive team that won was the San Francisco 49ers. In my mind, this team, the way they're playing right now, is probably better. I would say that this is the best offensive team that I've ever seen. Again, I'm putting the whole thing together with the offensive line, the receivers, the quarterback, everything. When you go to team, you have to put in defense. Their defense isn't the Pittsburgh Steelers defense; it's not the '85 Bears defense. Historically, when you put everything together, I'm not sure that they're the best team ever. I am sure, in my mind and just my observation, they are the best offensive team that I've ever seen."

MADDEN ON IF THE PATRIOTS ARE HATED AS MUCH AS RAIDERS: "When we played on the road and you knew you were going to get booed, I used to tell my people, 'I don't know if they're going to cheer you or they're going to boo you when you run out onto that field, but I'll tell you this, if they boo you, they respect you and they're afraid of you. If they cheer you, they don't respect you and they're not afraid of you.' I knew they were going to get booed. So when the boos would come I would say, 'Told you, they are scared to death of you.' So you would take that thing and just turn it and make a positive thing out of it, because we led the league in boos. I don't know that they [the Patriots] are hated like that. You can go back to the 'Spygate' thing but when you think of the players, I would think that this team is probably half loved and half hated. I think there's a lot of respect. When you see what Tom Brady is doing, what Randy Moss is doing, Wes Welker, the offensive line, Teddy Brushci, Junior Seau on defense, Richard Seymour, I don't know that people are really against those guys. I had some guys where fans really booed. I mean, they booed the guys. This is the kind of thing where, if they are against them, they're against the organization rather than the players."

Posted by Shalise Manza Young  at 4:01 PM | Permalink