That's not how talent works, in any sport. Setting aside the fact that the best team has lost outright to a worse team in literally every season but one, there is no reason to believe that a superior team should be in the lead from wire to wire.
I am also forced to wonder what happened to NE's "team culture" when they choked away a 21-3 lead to the Colts in the 2006 AFC Championship game. If we are to ascribe such importance to individual games, what is your explanation for that one?
Again: this is not how talent works; you can have just superior enough talent to win a record 6 titles in 18 years without winning literally every game. "Talent" is not some sort of on/off switch where either a) you literally do not trail in ANY game for 18 straight years or b) your wins are due to something other than talent.
For me the matter comes down to this:
1) What the Patriots did in the 2017 Super Bowl reflects an emotional variable, not a physical talent variable. The Patriots didn't "flip a switch" on physical talent in the fourth quarter -- they flipped a switch on something emotional within them. The Patriots didn't suddenly get "more talented" in the fourth quarter of that game --
talent doesn't vary from quarter to quarter in a football game.
Emotion does, however!
2) That wasn't a mere one-game phenomenon for them -- that was something they did routinely and consistently throughout their 20-year run. There may have been variation in it, as there is in virtually all things, but they nonetheless displayed that at a level overall that distinguished them significantly from the rest of the league during that period. They varied at a higher level with regard to that variable than did the rest of the league.
3) Given the consistency over 20 years in their ability in that regard, that suggests an organizational culture variable was at play -- a "who we are" in the locker room that could be drawn upon when necessary and fuel those sorts of emotional responses.
4) That culture was one of selflessness -- all for one and one for all. The drive to give 110% of oneself in the name of winning as a team.
5) The cornerstone of that culture of selflessness was Tom Brady -- the 20-year mainstay at the most important position on the field, and the player who exhibited that selflessness poignantly by sacrificing his own income to essentially "pay" other players to help the team win. An incredible act of team leadership that functioned as the cornerstone of the team culture. When Brady is essentially "paying" other players to help the team win, there is no player who will feel comfortable giving less effort than Tom Brady. And again if Brady's effort is stellar, and of course it was, well then so is the entire team's. Leadership in a nutshell, and the effect of that on an entire team culture. Extremely powerful.
6) The power of that variable elevated their performance as a team from the level of very good to the level of dynasty -- a team that performed consistently at an extremely high level for a very long period of time. Rather than being a team whose performance fluctuated more widely up and down through that period, they instead functioned at a consistently very high level throughout. The unique and powerful team culture they experienced compensated for variation in other variables related to winning during that period and made them function at a level higher than they otherwise would have.
That's about all I have to say about this. We can keep going round and round about it, but I'm about at the agree to disagree point.
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