Patriots Running Up the Score? How 'Bout Just Ensuring a Win...

Last season, the New England Patriots were dominating the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC Championship Game.

They were up 21-3 at one point.

Then they changed their game plan.

The Pats went with the conventional wisdom and started to run the ball in an attempt to run out the clock.

That proved to be a bad idea.

The Patriots went on to lose the game 38-34, missing an opportunity to play in their fourth Super Bowl in six years.

Us Patriots fans took a while to get over that one, and I'm sure Bill Belichick and the rest of the coaching staff thought long and hard about what went wrong.

Actually, maybe they didn't really need to think that hard.

The answer was quite simple:

The Pats lost because they changed their plan of attack based on the score. They lost because they stopped piling on points against a great opponent. They lost because they took a guy named Tom Brady virtually out of the game by leaning so heavily on the run.

Not this season.

Critics everywhere have claimed that the Patriots are showing no "class" by running up the score on their opponents.

News flash: There's no rule against it.

All the Patriots are doing is making sure they don't lose. We've all seen great comebacks. The Pats don't need to learn their lesson twice.

If teams don't want so many points scored against them, they should figure out ways to stop New England. After all, it's not really the Pats' fault that nobody matches up with them.

We'll find out Sunday if the Colts can hang. They're the defending Super Bowl champions. They still haven't lost a game since winning it all. They're even better statistically this year than they were last year.

If the Patriots blow out these Colts, all of those who claim "no class" should pipe down—and show some respect for what may be the best team of all time.