What Is The Biggest Choke Of All Time?

2007-08 Patriots

The New England Patriots utterly choked on Sunday. Marvelously, spectacularly, fantastically choked. They were the first team to start a season 18-0, most of those games being blowouts of the highest magnitude. They dispatched the AFC's best in fairly simple fashion.

And then they blew it against a New York Giants team led by Eli Manning.

The fact is that the Patriots had every necessary ingredient to go 19-0, leading 14-10 late in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl.

The 'unbeatable' Patriots choked much more against a middling Giants team than a good Yankees team did against a good Red Sox team in 2004.

Contact Kevin Meacham at Kevin.Meacham@UConn.edu.

2004 Yankees

Seeing a team from Boston choke against a team from New York is nothing new. It happened in 1978 (Bucky Dent), 1986 (Bill Buckner), 2003 (Aaron Boone) and now in 2007 with the Patriots losing to the Giants.

But it's rare to see the shoe on the other foot, which is what we saw in 2004 when the Red Sox erased a 3-0 deficit in the ALCS to come back and beat the Yankees in four straight games and advance to the World Series.

Failing to close out a series after going up 3-0 is embarrassing and that, ladies and gentlemen, is why the Yankees choking against the Red Sox is worse than the Patriots losing to the Giants.

Contact Dan Olender at Daniel.Olender@UConn.edu

Kevin Meacham: There's no doubt that the Patriots' loss to the Giants was one of the biggest choke-jobs in sports history. You cannot win your first 18 games and lose and expect to escape this fact.

Dan Olender: I would agree with that 100 percent, but the bigger choke-job in recent memory would have to be the 2004 Yankees blowing a 3-0 series lead to the Red Sox in the ALCS.

Kevin: It would be, but for three things: the Yanks and Red Sox were about even that year, the Yankees did not go 162-0 and the Patriots were supposed to have all of the clutch guys, while the Yankees had supposed chokers like A-Rod, Kevin Brown and Javier Vasquez. The fact that the Patriots had everything on their side and still lost is just an embarrassment that should keep Boston fans quiet for the next five years.

Dan: You're right when you say the Yankees didn't go 162-0, but at that point in the year that was irrelevant. Their only purpose was to win four games, and at the point when they began to choke, they only had to win one more game and they had four chances to do so. You say the Yankees had these "chokers" on their team, but may I remind you that it was Mariano Rivera - a dominating force in the postseason - on the hill in the ninth inning, just three outs away from the World Series. The Yankees could not have asked for a better situation.

Kevin: The Patriots' defense was arguably closer to closing the game out - what, just over 2:00 and up by four? And yet the 'intangibles' of Tedy Bruschi, Rodney Harrison, Asante Samuel, et al, let Eli Manning drive 80 yards for the winning touchdown. That would be like Rivera giving up the game-winning hits to Gabe Kapler, instead of David Ortiz. And once Boston got to Game 6 and 7 against the fearsome tandem of Jon Lieber and Brown, any Yankee fan could tell you it was over.

Dan: Even though the Yankees were going to throw Lieber and Brown, they were still going to be at home. Also, the Patriots' defense was far from great this season, but more to the point, the Giants were playing their best football of the year going into the Super Bowl. They knocked off the NFC's top-two teams on the road and had played the Patriots close in Week 17. They had momentum and the Red Sox did not after losing three-straight, including Game 3, 19-8.

Kevin: Correction: played - and lost at home to - the Patriots in Week 17. The Patriots were the greatest team in the history of football, the greatest offense ever and a team that put up points in bunches on this same Giants defense five weeks ago. The Giants adjusted, the Patriots didn't, and thus we have the very definition of a choke - a great team coming up small when it matters most. The 2004 Yankees were not a historically-great team by any definition and the players who came up small weren't on the level of the Patriots. The Red Sox took that series because they got a couple lucky swings against Rivera, then knocked the Yankees out by blowing out Brown and Lieber. The Giants defense crushed the Patriots offense because Bill Belichick was too smug to change his game plan.

Dan: So you're saying the Red Sox didn't make any adjustments after getting down 3-0? I don't care if the Patriots are the best team ever and the Yankees were just good, that's not the point here. The question is which team choked more, and because of the situation it was the Yankees. Also, the Giants only had to focus in and play their hearts out for 60 minutes. The Red Sox had their backs against the wall four times. It was win or go home and I don't care who was pitching for the Yankees, they still had all the momentum because they were in the driver's seat.

Kevin: It wasn't a matter of adjustment as it was David Ortiz and Curt Schilling playing out of their minds. Remember - the Giants had their backs to the wall, too. But in baseball, momentum is only as strong as the next day's starting pitcher. The Patriots choked more because they were 2:00 away from being the greatest team ever and couldn't hold the third-most talented Manning brother down. The 2004 Red Sox didn't lose a playoff game in either of the other series, meaning they had a bit of "momentum" themselves.

Dan: I would say that as a team that's behind, facing three outs in the ninth or two minutes in the fourth is of equal pressure. But again, that's why the Yankees choked more, because they had 81 more outs to try and beat Boston, where as the Patriots didn't have another chance to beat the Giants. And let's not forget the Patriots were not the same dominating team that they were for the first half of the season. They were playing - for their standards - average football. They barely got by a Chargers team that had LaDainian Timlinson for all of two plays, and Philip Rivers who was playing with a torn ACL, so it should come as no surprise that a confident and hot Giants team could take down New England.

Kevin: These things happen in baseball occasionally. Sometimes the Royals sweep the Yankees. If the Yankees had won three games in a row against an equal team, it stands to reason that they could lose three or four in a row. Upsets like this just don't happen in pro football. Not with a great offense that ran nine-minute drives like clockwork against San Diego a week earlier. Not with the golden-boy quarterback who always comes through under pressure. Not with the maybe-cheater coach who always has the perfect game plan. No football fan outside of Massachusetts will ever let the Patriots live this down.

Dan: If upsets like this don't happen in football, then what was Joe Namath and the Jets' Super Bowl III victory over the 18-point favorite Colts. And if there are no upsets in football, how did the Patriots beat the Rams to win their first Super Bowl back in 2002 (oh yeah, they cheated. That's how). As Red Sox nation would have told you in 2004, the Sox weren't just fighting a 3-0 deficit - they were fighting 86 years of disappointment. They were fighting against years of losing to their rival and guys like Bucky Dent and Aaron Boone. Simply put, the Yankees were in better position to win than the Patriots, therefore they can claim the biggest choke in recent memory.

Kevin: Those are two in the 42-year history of the Super Bowl, that's all I'm saying. The important thing is that while we disagree, we can agree on one thing: Mo Lewis should have a statue in Foxboro.

Dan: J! E! T! S!