Your dynasty is dead.

Your dynasty is dead.
Dr. Jamez

To get in to the legitimacy of the Patriots three Superbowl victories at this point would be moot, the facts are out there make you own opinions. Ultimately the wins aren’t going away or getting an asterisk added to them so it’s not worth discussing anymore. I want to focus on the perennial superpower that is the New England Patriots and the perceived best coach active in football and maybe the best ever, Bill Belichick.

It has been ten years since the Patriots won Superbowl XXXVI, the Superbowl that ushered in the Brady era and birthed a dynasty that would win three of the next four Superbowls. Expert game plans crafted by the most revered coach of the time period executed to perfection and derailing the seemingly unbeatable regular season teams of Peyton Manning and his high powered Colts and Kurt Warner and the Greatest show on turf to name a few. Sparking the debate that would become synonymous with both Brady and Manning, who is better? The modest ring winner who is clutch in the playoffs or the statistic baffling regular season great who can’t win the big one, an argument that would plague Manning’s legacy for years. By everyone’s standards an amazing era that will always be revered by all football fans and mentioned with the great teams like the Cowboys, Steelers, and 49ers

That era started ten years ago, since then the Patriots have only been to the Superbowl once and if you think that’s still pretty good, they also missed the playoffs as many times. The team has transitioned to what all the New England supporters criticized the Colts for being over that time, a big time regular season team that is totally out-classed in the playoffs. Since 2006 the Brady and the Patriots and choked when it mattered most. In 2006 the Patriots squandered a seventeen point lead and allowed the Colts to come back to win the AFC championship game that lead Peyton Manning to his First Superbowl victory. In 2007 The Patriots went undefeated in the regular season only to allow Eli Manning for forge his legacy as a New York sports legend by beating them in the Superbowl leaving the Patriots with an 18-1 record that year, what a legacy. In 2009 the Patriots allowed the Ravens to come to Foxborough and blow them out and be one and done by way of three forced Brady turnovers. Most recently in 2010 the Patriots saw the hated rival Jets come to town where they had beaten them 45-3 weeks earlier in a season where Brady broke records for most home wins and most attempts without a turnover in the playoff game the Jets came to Gillette stadium, forced a pivotal interception, and beat the Patriots in a brash, arrogant, and humiliating way.

If you’re keeping track, the Patriots have turned in to the opposite of what “made them great” a well coached, great defense, championship winning team. Over the these passed six years the defense cant stop anyone, the offense chokes when they’re needed most and in the last five seasons most important games Bill Belichick has been completely out-coached by people that were new to coaching or had been on the hot seat them self. Take your most fresh example, the Jets game. Belichick had a bye to get his team rested, had the benefit of seeing the Jets play the Colts who’s offense through an odd happenstance of injury had become strikingly similar the Jets implemented the same game plan versus the Pats something every casual football watcher knew they would and yet still came out flat and borderline listless. What was more shocking is in the second half in no way changing the game plan and trying to spark the team back in to contention. But that wasn’t where the gross miss-management stopped, no. There was the inexplicable lack of urgency in the forth quarter which didn’t make sense around the seven minute mark of that drive but that wasn’t as bad as the fake punt call. Seems like once a season Belichick does something ridiculous like this and no one calls him a bad coach like we do with Jack Del Rio usually because it’s something like going for it on 4th and 29 when they are up by 31 points on the Bills and no one argues that the Pats are classless. But every now and again it’s something like 4th and 2 versus Indianapolis that loses crucial games for the team like this time. One of two things happened on this fake punt either Belichick made a terrible call that ruined the game like I suspect, or you believe what Patrick Cheung (the player who fumbled the snap and was tackled for a loss) said and the choice was completely his. Which in a way might be worst, to think that a second year guy has that much control over the game in crucial situations, but I don’t buy that a control freak like Belichick who needs to have such a strangle hold on the team he benched Wes Welker in a playoff game which most argue caused the interception earlier in the game would let that happen. These are the possible reasons your season ended, Patriots.

So here is your dynasty Patriots, no defense, outdated coaching at best, and cant win a home playoff game to save your season. It’s been ten years since your first title and soon enough it will have been at least a decade since all of them. I think it’s fair to say ……