This notion of being close is one of the most maddening phrases you're going to hear. The "we're close" applies to teams like Tampa...they've been building up.
The Green Bay Packers won a SB in 2010, and went 15-1 the following season only to bow out in Round 1. We've been in the playoffs every year since. We've been declining and flatlining ever since. Obviously, we were close in 2014. We're not as close after this season but we almost got there with the secondary we had and Ty Montgomery playing RB but it wasn't good enough. Just a strong focus on improving this team during the season may have been enough, but we didn't and cling to almost and next year because we're close.
"We're close" is a phrase for a team surprised by it's new found success. It doesn't apply to a team who has won a SB with the best QB in the game that keeps falling short year after year.
Murphy speaks like McCarthy. The phrase "we're close" is a hopeful pacifying phrase. It paints what's happening in a positive light. The phrase should be "we're not close enough". That is what a winner would think...not good enough. A loser thinks...close, and good enough.
I know I'm railed for my insistence on these kind of points but they're everything. We honestly think like a loser and are exactly that. Thinking like a winner would produce different results from the top on down.
EDIT: The we're close as applied to the Patriots? Un blanking real to even mention yourself in the same breath considering your team is known for either getting blown out or losing in bizarre fashion in the playoffs. The Pats are known as winners. Nothing else will do but a SB victory for them. We're close? LOL. We think nothing like they think. To sound contented being close to what New England has accomplished is just more loser mentality.
Ted Thompson sits on his hands per former GM: "because they’ve had 25 fricking years of great quarterbacks. Of course it works. Try it without a special quarterback."