Until Tom Brady and Bill Belichick came along, the Patriots were known for three things:
1) Using a snowplow steered by a convicted felon to win a game; 2) getting annihilated by the Bears in Super Bowl XX; and 3) losing Bill Parcells because he couldn't shop for the groceries.
To fans under 35, the franchise's laughingstock era is limited to NFL Films, but students of history recognize that no dynasty lasts forever, whether it's of the Ming, Holy Roman, or Belichickean vintage.
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So, welcome to the bad old days. The barbarians have reached the gates of Gillette Stadium. It was always going to end this way.
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Sunday's dispiriting 21-17 loss to the Raiders dropped the Patriots to 1-5, just a game ahead of the Panthers for the worst record in football. It's probably going to get a lot worse before it gets better, since the Patriots face the potential end of Belichick's reign, a roster without a single healthy standout, and the realization that quarterback Mac Jones isn't the answer, necessitating a reset at the game's most important position.
That's a recipe for a decade of darkness, much like the Dolphins have won but a single playoff game since Dan Marino retired in 1999, or the Bills needed 25 years to replace Hall of Famer Jim Kelly with All-Pro Josh Allen. Joe Montana to Steve Young and Brett Favre to Aaron Rodgers are the exceptions. Following Marino with Jay Fielder, Gus Frerotte, Cleo Lemon, Chad Henne, etc. -- that's the rule. So are Cam Newton and now Jones.
If the post-Brady years are a lesson in anything, it's in the destructive power of institutional arrogance. Robert Kraft expects playoff wins because it's all he has known for 20 years, but he's not willing to pay for them. Belichick was itching to prove he could contend with just an average quarterback, thus demonstrating whom the Brady years were really about.
Everyone's getting their comeuppance.
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The Patriots worshipped at the altar of their own infallibility, which led Belichick to decide that hiring buddies Matt Patricia and Joe Judge to coach offense was a good idea. It allowed Kraft to delude himself into identifying Jones as a franchise cornerstone for the simple fact that he had personally selected him, and when was his judgment ever wrong?
The NFL has evolved into a league about game-breaking receivers, dynamic quarterbacks, and creative offensive masterminds. The Patriots lack all three and believed they could keep plodding along with a physical defense and an emphasis on special teams, because fads are for everyone else. The Patriot Way needn't get with the times when it's timeless.
Except it's not immune from the ravages of time, either. Prepare to hear about Rod Rust (1-15 in 1990) and Big Ken Sims (a bust of a No. 1 overall pick in 1982) and Chuck Fairbanks (abandoned one of the best Patriots teams ever on the eve of the 1978 playoffs). Gather round to learn about the benching of fan favorite Steve Grogan in favor of the maligned Tony Eason, the disastrous sponsorship of the Michael Jackson Victory Tour that nearly bankrupted the Sullivan family, and the proposed move to St. Louis under the indifferent ownership of James Orthwein.
While we're at it, let's not forget Mark Henderson, the convicted burglar on a work-release program who drove a plow onto the field before the winning field goal against the Dolphins in 1982, the Bears rolling to a 46-10 victory in the 1985 Super Bowl while making a celebrity out of Refrigerator Perry, or Parcells and Kraft ending their partnership in bitter divorce, paving the way for Belichick to arrive and snag an unheralded quarterback out of Michigan in the sixth round of the 2000 NFL Draft.
We all know what happened next. For the next two decades, the Patriots made history. Now they are history. That's the way of the world, and eventually it gets everyone. We believed it would never end, but their reign was always temporary.