Chuck Klosterman recently turned in an ESPN.com article about the sociatal value of the New England Patriots. He argues that a New England loss will be infinitely more interesting than a Pat's win. Think about it: if the Giants win 52-10, wouldn't this Super Bowl easily be the greatest ever? But if the Pats win 52-10, who would care?

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=perfectpats

"Man o' War is arguably the finest horse who ever lived, and one of the best arguments for thoroughbred perfection. It is, however, very difficult to name any horse he raced against, except one: Upset, the only ungulate who ever beat him. This is how it goes. When measuring -- and particularly when remembering -- the greatest performances in the history of any sport, the moments that matter most are almost always tied to situations when that entity failed. Very often, those specific failures are the essential details people recall about dynastic achievement. The memory of perfection is inevitably tied to the memory of lost perfection.

Objectively speaking, the "most perfect" teams of the TV era were Wooden's UCLA Bruins who won 10 hoop championships in 12 years, going undefeated four times. In the abstract, everyone understands this, simply because those squads rarely lost to anyone. But those rare UCLA losses outlive almost all of the wins. Lew Alcindor was beaten only twice during his tenure as a Bruin, but his most famous collegiate game is one of the defeats (1968's "Game of the Century" against Houston). Bill Walton led UCLA to 88 straight wins in the early '70s, yet the two most memorable games of his career were losses in 1974 (the streak-ending defeat at Notre Dame and the double-overtime Final Four loss to David Thompson's NC State Wolfpack). Wins tend to run together, negating their own influence. Conversely, losses demarcate time."