No Predictions

The good news for every football fan west of the Connecticut River? The Patriots will not be going to a fourth straight Super Bowl. The bad news? Pigskin pundits and bobbleheads won't stop talking about the Patriots. 

If this is the end of the Patriots pigskin reign of terror, er, dynasty, it's been one hell of a ride. Unprecedented? Check. A pigskin phenomena we shall not see again in another 100 years of professional football? Definitely bet the over on that one. 

I rooted for a lot of bad football teams growing up as an Army brat. I rooted for the Giants after Y.A. Tittle. I rooted for the Broncos before Elway. I moved to New England when the Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins were good and even the Jets were better than the Patriots. I know. It sounds crazy but it's true. So I've got plenty of context for what I've been lucky enough to witness over the last 20 years. Nothing can ever take those memories. AFC East winners 17 times, AFC Conference champs 9 times, and 6 Super Bowl wins. One hell of a ride? That may be an understatement of galactic proportions. 

Could Brady return to the Patriots next year? Could Belichick find the missing pieces for one more Super Bowl run? Maybe, but I'd be foolish not to recognize the existential threats to the Patriots of Belichick and Brady. This two decade run by New England may have given the impression that they were pigskin demigods but the truth, as witnessed Saturday, is that they were human, after all. If anything, that should cast what they have accomplished in an even brighter light. 

I've already written about a possible future where Brady follows Josh McDaniels to Cleveland, where he'd be throwing passes to Odell Beckham, Jr. and Jarvis Landry with a running game featuring Nick Chubb. Let's say McDaniels then signs free agent guard Joe Thuney, and uses the assets from the Baker Mayfield trade (shipped to Tampa Bay in this scenario) to further bolster the offensive line. 

Thuney isn't the only free agent who could walk, a list that features Devin McCourty, Kyle Van Noy, Matthew Slater, and Jamie Collins. Slater could retire as could McCourty and twin brother Jason. Do David Andrews or Stephen Gostkowski come back from their season-ending injuries?

Regardless of the specifics, it seems likely the Patriots team we'll see next year will look nothing like the 2019 edition. They'll be playing a 1st place schedule next year. Chiefs, Ravens, Texans, plus 49ers, Seahawks, and two games against a Bills team that will be an even tougher out next year. Will they have a 1st place roster capable of navigating that schedule?

Yeah. 

It could get ugly for Patriots Nation in 2020. 9-7-0 almost sounds optimistic.

That's for then, of course, and this is now.

Brady says he's unlikely to retire but is he likely to stay in New England if Josh McDaniels leaves (which does seem likely)? Unitas didn't finish his career in Baltimore. Montana didn't finish his career in San Francisco. Favre didn't finish his career in Green Bay. Manning didn't finish his career in Indianapolis. History would argue that Brady will be playing elsewhere in 2020. 

Where does McDaniels land and does that have anything at all to do with Brady's thinking? The McDaniels and Brady Cleveland scenario is speculative fiction at best; McDaniels may be (as rumored) interested in working with Baker Mayfield. Or with Daniel Jones in New York. More importantly from Brady's perspective: Who replaces McDaniels in New England? 

Belichick may regret the decisions made to bring the aging band back together for one more shot at a Lombardi Trophy; he may even see Brady as the problem and not the solution for the 2020 Patriots. He may think that trying to retain those free agents and add to the current roster via free agency and the draft only repeats those mistakes and puts off the inevitable. Maybe Belichick thinks it's time to turn the page; blow it up and start over. He is kind of famous for moving on a year too soon rather than a year too late.

Could Belichick pull a Parcells and resign as HC of the NEP to keep McDaniels and Brady in New England? It would give us a "rhyming history" bookend to Belichick's career in New England. Something only those of us who are slaves to narrative might consider a possibility, I suppose (see "moving on," above).

As the Dude once noted, "This is a very complicated case... You know, a lotta ins, a lotta outs, a lotta what-have-yous."

Nature, it seems, seeks balance. Will Patriots fans have to pay for the Belichick and Brady  years by wandering in the pigskin wilderness for 20 years? Perhaps we will. 

Even if that's the case, I have to say, it was worth it. Winning SB36 as 14 point underdogs to the Greatest Show on Turf. The '03-'04 teams that authored back-to-back 14-2-0 seasons and back-to-back Super Bowl wins. Thinking I would never see a greater comeback win than SB49 only to see it topped by the greatest Super Bowl game in the history of everything just two years later. The improbable, incredible, Hollywood scripted run for SB53 culminating in Gronk's last catch. From 2001 to 2018 the Patriots played in half the Super Bowls and won a third. That is not supposed to happen in the NFL; the NFL is designed to keep that from happening. But it did.

There is no room in my pigskin heart for anger or bitterness or sadness today; I'm too full of gratitude for everything the New England Patriots have given to me as a fan of the greatest sport I know.