Was thinking about the Patriots v Ravens from 2007-through-I-guess-when-Ray-Lewis-retired. Has to be one of the best Conference rivalries of all time.
Most regular seasons for the Brady-Patriots pretty much played out the same way. New England’s offense would show the league something it’s never seen before, they would bury pre-petrified professional sports teams by 35-45 points, The Great Media-Hope of the season would finally face them around week 10 to “assume the AFC Throne,” and the Patriots would embarrass them and send their entire organization into a ten year downward spiral.
But when the Patriots finally faced off in the playoffs against the Ravens, with all the animosities and resentments of an near-entire Patriot-fatigued nation riding on their shoulders, everyone got to see what the Patriots were truly made of.
Every fucking inch, every QB sneak, every three yard pass, was contested with hard-hitting sound of human collisions.
That’s actually a highly undervalued and underrated aspect of the Patriot Dynasty.
Most high-scoring human-highlight reel offenses do not play well against teams that punch them in the fucking mouth.
Unless you can think of a bunch of famous prolific offensive teams that I can’t remember, the ability to play both modern high-flying, high-scoring QB-friendly scheme football and tough-nosed grid-iron bully football (especially in freezing temperatures) with equal effectiveness is, as far as I remember, rare to NFL history.