I never listen to talk radio or even read the papers much after a Patriots loss. Especially a bad one like last Thursday to Buffalo. That’s because for the most part all you get is blame, finger-pointing and vitriolrather than insight and perspective on what happened.
Not that there weren’t things that were bad, or even exasperating, like wasted timeouts and the usual for 2022 high number of penalties at the worst time.
Most watchers these days are in denial, judging the Patriots with expectations based on what they have been for the last 20 years, rather than a sober evaluation of what they are now, an ordinary team with a lot of holes that hasn’t been as good as their former patsy Buffalo for three years now.
Given how long their former relationship lasted, it is understandably hard to compute even with the evidence piling up, making much of Patriot Nation and the media unwilling or unable to go against muscle memory to face the reality that Brady and company ain’t walking through that door to save the day.
Said another way: The dynasty is over. Done.
It’s not an unusual reaction when that has happened, as fans and the media are the last to know. Or maybe the last to give up/in.
And it’s not confined to football. Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy still refers to the Celtics as the NBA’s greatest franchise when they have won just one title since 1986. That, for the mathematically challenged, is 36 freaking years ago. They certainly have a glorious history, but their rivals in L.A. have won that title eight times in the same period. Ditto with the Canadiens in Montreal, who haven’t won the Cup since 1993, or much of anything else for that matter since Patrick Roy left the building in a snit with the brass two years later.
Bringing it back to the NFL, there have been four dynasties since I have been following the NFL. Which I define as lasting for 15 years or more amid turnover of the original group of players to more good players that eventually formed a completely different team as the winning continued.
That takes out historically superior teams like the 1960s Packers and ’70s Steelers because both faded as their throng of Hall of Fame players declined or retired as they aged with no one near good enough to step in for them to keep it going.
And sorry, ’90s Cowboys, while you were a dominant team, winning three times in four years is not nearly long enough to qualify. Ditto for one-year wonders like the 1986 Bears and 2000 Ravens.
The final qualification is that being in the mix to contend for a Super Bowl title year in and year out is more important than actually winning a huge number of SBs. Which is a legit point of debate as the aforementioned Packers and Steelers won five and four respectively during their impressive reigns but missed the cut because their excellence didn’t last long enough and a dynasty by definition is about length of time.
So that leaves the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s Oakland/L.A. Raiders and Dallas Cowboys, the ’80s/’90s Bill Walsh 49ers and the Patriots from 2001 to 2019. Notice I said the Patriots dynasty ended in 2019, to drive home the point that dynasties end long before most realize it.
Each ended for different reasons. Oakland ended as maverick owner Al Davis lost his fastball. That was somewhat the case for the Tom Landry-led Cowboys, but it probably had more to do with losing their edge in finding talent as the rest of the league copied their sophisticated use of newfangled computers and method of drafting players for athletic skills — speed, quickness, size — over the position they played. Their mantra was “get me the best athletes and we’ll find a position for them.” Concepts now identified by all at the pre-draft combine.
The advent of the salary cap croaked the 49ers, because it leveled the playing field for a team always willing to outspend others for talent or to keep their own.
Which brings us back to the Patriots. I know a lot of people bring it back to the “Was it Bill or Tom?” debate. But while losing Tom Brady certainly was a blow, it started before that. The one who knew it first was probably Brady because he pouted all throughout 2019 that he had terrible receivers and the offense was a disaster for a lot of the year. Along with other factors, this led him to take his talents to Tampa Bay, who, oh by the way, had two 1,000-yard receivers, so voila, he was TB-12 again.
As for the rest of us. While the dual drubbings by Buffalo at the end of 2021 made it clear how big the gap was between the two teams, it didn’t kill the notion that they could close it.
That’s come this year via a number of signs like their non-effort vs. Chicago on MNF, (used to be) uncharacteristic penalties piling up and the fact the team no longer has swagger or conveys the feeling they can get out of any jam.
The final piece for me is knowing they were gonna get thumped again on Thursday.
The culprit has been horrible drafting dating back to the early teens along with swinging and missing on almost everyone outside of Matthew Judon and Jalen Mills in their 2021 free agent spending spree.
Then there’s also that in not seeing how important game-breaking speed receivers have come to be in the 2022 NFL, there could be a creeping early sign it may be passing Bill Belichick by.
Hopefully, that feeling is wrong. But if it isn’t, the dynasty is dead and buried.
Email Dave Long at dlong@hippopress.com.
