How will you spend your Thanksgiving break?
The biggest tilt of Week 6 of NFL action is the NFC showdown between the New York Giants and the New Orleans Saints. Barring a tie, one of the two teams will leave the Superdome with a win and the inside track (albeit in October) to an NFC first-round bye.
Yet much more is at stake than first place and the ownership of the head-to-head tiebreaker.
Perfection is at stake.
Heading into Week 6, five teams remain unbeaten. The Giants, the Indianapolis Colts, the Denver Broncos and the Minnesota Vikings are all an unblemished 5-0, while the Saints sport a 4-0 record coming out of their bye week. It is unlikely that any (let alone multiple) team will finish unbeaten, but the 16-0 Patriots of 2007 give the smallest glimmer of hope.
On the flip side, recent history is also a bleak omen to a select handful of other teams. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Tennessee Titans and the St. Louis Rams carry winless records into Week 6. These teams hope to avoid joining the ranks of last year's Detroit Lions, who suffered through an ignominious 0-16 season.
Though a winless start is never good, it gets worse for these teams. This quartet has combined to lose its last 39 regular-season games, as well as Tennessee's postseason loss to Baltimore. The most recent win for any one of them? Tennessee's 31-14 home win over Pittsburgh Dec. 21 last year.
It is unlikely, however, that these nine teams can maintain their streaks over the course of an entire season. The 2007 Patriots and 2008 Lions are the exception, not the rule, which has to cause at least some relief in Nashville. This begs the question: Who will be the last one standing?
We can start by noting the remaining games on the schedule where two of today's unbeaten teams get together. There are four such games remaining: Giants at Saints this week, Giants at Broncos in Week 12, Broncos at Colts in Week 14, Giants at Vikings in Week 17. And the Rams visit the Titans in Week 14 in the only matchup of two of today's winless wonders. Just judging from these matchups, at least two teams would suffer a first loss, and either St. Louis or Tennessee would pick up a first win.
It is tough to tell who the last unbeaten will be. New Orleans seems to have the easiest schedule of the five remaining unbeatens after this week. But they still have the tall task of beating the Giants on Sunday. Still, I see the Saints slipping up at some point, leaving the last unbeaten, in my opinion, to be the Colts. Indianapolis has some tough but winnable games (New England, the Jets, Denver at home, Baltimore on the road), and have a healthy and motivated Peyton Manning pulling out victories. Look for the Colts to get to 9-0, at least.
Still, if you're looking for the last one standing, I'd go with an inept winless squad to outlast any unbeaten. I think it's easier for a team to find new ways to lose than it is for them to stick to the tried-and-true blueprints for victory. I see the Rams bumbling their way to double-digits in the loss column before a win. The only winnable game I can foresee for them is a road date in Detroit, and even the Lions have a little friskiness to them.
Best of luck to the 5-0s and the 0-5s. History, the Pats and the Lions will be watching.
