The Perfect Season vs. Parity

The Tennessee Titans are 2008’s only hope of breaking the 1972 Miami Dolphins record…going undefeated and recording a perfect season.

By this point, all but one of the thirty-two NFL teams has recorded a loss. Some, like the Miami Dolphins, lost their opener and others have yet to record a win – the Detroit Lions and Cincinnati Bengals.

The word “parity” has dominated the league lexicon and been outright abused by sports reporters, players and coaches. Parity is defined as, “equality, as in amount, status, or character.”

But is that really true in the NFL?

At large, the answer is yes because as the hackneyed paraphrased-adage goes, "anyone can beat anyone on any given Sunday.” However it isn’t true as stats and standings go. The Lions, Raiders, Buccaneers and Bengals have proven this, by earning reputations for suffering year-after-year losing seasons.

Parity is not all the Titans have to overcome, they have to win more games as the 1972 season comprised fourteen regular-season games compared to sixteen today. The Dolphins 1972 record was 17-0, just one more game than today’s regular season – something nearly accomplished by the Colts and Patriots in recent years.

Likewise, the Titans may have to overcome the loss of star players, as happens so often in the NFL, once a star is sidelined; the whole team suffers an injury.

It’s not only parity aspiring perfect-season teams are up against, they are threatened weekly with the best of the best in contact sports, the biggest and fastest in league history. Moreover, they are up against sometimes hostile crowds and extreme weather.

Mercury Morris recently told the Nashville City Paper, “I’ll be watching the Tennessee Titans, and I hope to see them go unbeaten,” Morris said. “We’d like a little company.”

With all of the challenges the Titans face, Morris is likely to be waiting a long, long time.