Our #9 Sports Story of the Decade may be the most unlikely of all dynasties in sports history. From a retread coach, to the 199th pick to one of the most obscure rules in football, the Pats seemed to rise from the ashes. The word dynasty is thrown around loosely now in the hyperactive 24/7 sports media, but with 3 Super Bowl wins, 4 Super Bowl appearances, and a 16-0 regular season, the Patriots are the closest thing to it in the NFL. How did they get to this point, and how did almost come crashing down? Take a trip down memory lane, here at RSS!
In the year 2000, the Patriots were going nowhere. After a Super Bowl appearance under Bill Parcells, the franchise was stuck in neutral throughout the late 90's. Pete Carroll had been fired at the conclusion of a typically medicore 8-8 season in 1999. Owner Robert Kraft decided to replace Carroll with Bill Belichick to lead his team into the next decade. On one front, the move made sense. A disciple of Bill Parcells, Belichick seemed to have all the tools to be a successful head coach. But, in his only other head coaching stint, Belichick amassed a 36-44 record in his 5-year stint as head coach of the Cleveland Browns in the mid-90's. Not only that, the Patriots had to give up a first-round draft pick to pry him away from the New York Jets, who hired Belichick to replace his mentor Parcells. The move smacked of desperation from the beginning for a franchise that had never truly tasted success. The 2000 season seemed to confirm the doubters, with the Patriots going 5-11.
But, behind the scenes, Belichick was slowly changing the franchise from the bottom up. The personnel department was overhauled. Belichick also began stamping his trademark defensive aggressiveness on the team. But, something was still missing. Then, the hit that would change the course of a franchise occurred on September 23, 2001. Jets LB Mo Lewis knocked out Pats starting QB Drew Bledsoe.
Enter 2nd-year QB Tom Brady, the 199th pick of the 2000 NFL Draft. Sure, Brady came from a high-profile program in Michigan, but no one expected anything from him. But, somehow, Brady blossomed and led the Pats to a division title and an 11-5 record. All the while, Belichick was assembling the bedrock of his defensive foundation. Players like Seymour, Vrabel, Law, and Bruschi turned the Pats into a dominant defensive force.
The Pats had made the playoffs, but they certainly weren't seen as a Super Bowl contender. In their divisional round game against the Oakland Raiders, many still saw the Pats as an underdog. Then, we all became familiar with the tuck rule. The highlights are below, and as the legend of Tom Brady and Adam Vinatieri grew, the Pats made it all the way to the Super Bowl.
In Super Bowl XXXVI, the Pats would face the Greatest Show on Turf, the St. Louis Rams, already winner of one Super Bowl themselves. With the nation's sentiments on the side of the underdog Pats in the aftermath of 9/11, the game always seemed to have a different feel to it. In the pregame intros, the Pats were introduced as a team, instead of individually. This set the tone for a day where the overall team scheme devised by Belichick, and the late-game heroics of Brady and Vinatieri would defeat the heavily-favored Rams to win the Super Bowl 20-17.
Tom Brady would vault overnight from virtual unknown to one of the best quarterbacks of all-time. He began racking up Super Bowl MVP's, NFL MVP's, Pro Bowls, endorsement deals, and celebrity galpals. Bill Belichick went from maligned Parcells disciple to an even greater coach in the eyes of history than his mentor. Then again, 3 Super Bowls in 4 years will do that to your reputation as the Pats defeated the Panthers in Super Bowl XXXVIII and the Eagles in Super Bowl XXXIX. But, just as the mystique of the Patriots dynasty was reaching a head, it almost came crashing down at the hands of a former entry-level scout, Matt Walsh.
At the beginning of the 2007 season, the Patriots became embattled by allegations of cheating. As videotaped evidence began being leaked forward, the clandestine operation run by Belichick began to be looked at with scrutiny for the first time in the decade. Had the Patriots obtained their success by illegally taping the opponent's defensive signals? Was Belichick just a brilliant cheater, instead of a brilliant coach? All of these questions remain unanswered. The Boston Herald retracted a story of the Patriots taping the Rams Super Bowl walkthrough, but the rumors and doubts still persist.
Belichick was found guilty of violating league rules, fined $500,000, and was forced to forfeit his 1st round draft pick in the following 2008 draft. But, no concrete "cheating" has ever truly been proven. And despite the best efforts of ambulence-chaser Sen. Arlen Spector and Commish Roger Goodell, no clear resolution was found in the Spygate case. Much like many of the hysteria-inducing stories of the decade, it slowly faded away in the background of the game itself.
Nevertheless, the whispers of cheating only seemed to spurn the Pats on to greater heights. Tom Brady and newly acquired WR Randy Moss would set single-season records on their way to leading the Patriots to only the 2nd undefeated regular season in the modern era. And although they lost the Super Bowl to the underdog Giants (see our recap here), there wasn't any doubt the Pats were in firm control of the NFL once again heading in to the end of the decade.
But now, as we bring the decade to a close, the Patriots once again are vulnerable. Gone are the stalwarts of a once vulnerable defense. Gone is the aura of the secretive mastermind Bill Belichick. After his season-ending knee injury in early 2008, even Tom Brady has come under fire for his perceived lack of grit and determination. For the first time in nearly 10 years, it seems as if it's all slipping away from Bill Belichick. Much like the desperation shown at the beginning of the decade, the moves made by Belichick, both on the field and off, show signs that maybe it's beginning to slip away from the Patriots. The greatest example of this manifested itself in Belichick's now dubious decision to go for it on 4th and 2 against Peyton Manning's Colts earlier this season.
After all, nothing in the NFL lasts forever. Maybe it's time. Perhaps we are currently witnessing the beginning of the end of this Patriots dynasty. But, without question, when fans look back at the 2000's, the sentiment will be unanimous. Much like Lombardi's Packers, Landry's Cowboys, Knoll's Steelers, Walsh's 49ers, and Johnson's Cowboys, the Team of the Decade in the NFL of the 2000's was Belichick and Brady's Patriots. And despite the questions SpyGate aroused, that label can never be taken away from the unlikeliest of all the dynasties in NFL history.
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