Patriots Can Celebrate One-Year Anniversary Of Being Declared Dead On National TV
BOSTON (CBS) -- One year ago, the sky above the Patriots universe had fallen.
The team was 2-2, embarrassed on a Monday night in Kansas City. The 37-year-old quarterback was all done. Soon, we'd be hearing reports from a certain Chris Mortensen that said the team would switch to Jimmy Garoppolo "sooner than later." Very little light seemed to exist at the end of the tunnel, and the Super Bowl "drought" in New England looked certain to extend another year.
It was all capped off by a simple statement from former NFL quarterback and current analyst Trent Dilfer, on the very field on which the Patriots were dominated just minutes prior.
They're not good anymore.
And that was that.
Except, well, it wasn't.
Since that date -- one year ago today -- the Patriots have won 16 of their 18 games, and that's including the Week 17 loss to the Bills when the Patriots were resting up for the playoffs after already securing a first-round bye and home-field advantage.
The Patriots have scored 615 points; their opponents have scored 355 points.
Tom Brady has completed 481 of 713 passes (67.5 percent) for 5,351 yards, 48 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. He picked up a Super Bowl MVP along the way, throwing four touchdowns against a historically great Seattle defense.
Rob Gronkowski has caught 16 touchdowns in 17 games, re-establishing himself as the most unstoppable force in all of football.
Julian Edelman has caught 122 passes since that night in Kansas City, including the game-winning touchdown in the Super Bowl. He also had this to say after emerging victorious:
"What'd Trent Dilfer say? The Patriots are the worst team? They can't win? It's unbelievable to hear that man say that. It's embarrassing. For him."
Now, one year later, it's no time to bash Dilfer. The man gets paid to offer his opinion, and he was certainly not the only voice declaring the Patriots dead after that showing against the Chiefs. Plus, Dilfer admitted he was wrong and owned up to it -- which is something some other ESPNers have had trouble doing over the past 12 months. (Hi, Mort!)
Instead, with the Patriots sitting at 3-0 and with the early-season bye week providing an unwanted interruption to the current run of success, now is a good time to think back to one year ago and assess just how far the Patriots climbed out of that hole.
The noise one year ago today was tremendous. Dilfer only started it. It continued just about everywhere the following day, and you can bet that Messieurs Felger and Massarotti were all over the drama.
"I just think this is a classic case of cutting too many corners too frequently, and eventually you end up with a situation like the one you're in now without a line on either side of the ball," Mazz said. "That blows my mind how that could happen."
Felger's concerns went much deeper than the linemen. Much deeper.
"Don't you just feel like there's something wrong? There's something wrong," Felger stated a day after the K.C. loss. "It feels like there's something wrong on the team. Between the players and themselves, the players and the coach, the quarterback feels like he's prominent in this. ... I just think something is wrong. I don't want to get into a big body language exercise, but just gauge it from what you see between the whistles. The team is not playing together, they're not playing hard, they're not playing with their usual intelligence — there's something wrong with that team."
The fears and concerns and criticisms have now all been washed away, one victory at a time. It began with that demolition of the Bengals, which on a Sunday night that really marked the beginning of the Tom Brady Revenge Tour. Brady threw four TDs in a win at Buffalo the following week before the Patriots eked out an ugly win over the Jets on a Thursday night. They then strung together four straight victories over the Bears, Broncos, Colts and Lions, winning each game by an average score of 43-18. An uninspired game plan in Green Bay was perhaps by design in case of a Super Bowl rematch, but it led to a loss on Nov. 30. The Patriots haven't lost since.
It's incredible, really, and it's just one more remarkable chapter in the Bill Belichick/Tom Brady era, one that will go down as certainly the greatest decade-and-a-half (or two decades?) in franchise history, and one that most certainly did not come to a crashing end last year on this date.
Read more from Michael Hurley by clicking here. You can email him or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.
