There they were, driving again into enemy territory. There he was, reared back to throw, delivering a dagger to Ben Watson and into the hearts of the Colts, cutting through the RCA Dome. There they were, celebrating, ready to deliver the knockout. The trip to meet the Bears was emminent, a fourth title in six years was emminent. Little did the Patriots know, did Tom Brady know, that a little piece of yellow cloth would change it all. Offensive Pass Interference was the call, 1st and 10 at the 19 became 2nd and 17 at the 34.
Then Reche Caldwell happened, and Peyton Manning and Dallas Clark happened, and David Tyree and Plaxico happened and now Ray Rice and Terrell Suggs happened. Gone was everything they worked for, everything they have acheived. Brady was still there, Belichick was still hoodied, but their faces express sadness not smugness, anhillation not exuberation. It was over. The dynasty, the mystique, the era, the decade. The team that won over America, then lost America, was finally losing themselves. The "end of an era" was here, as Kelley Washington exclaimed. He was wrong, it ended long before, when Troy Brown interfered with Nick Harper, when 1st and 10 became 2nd and 17.
The Patriots were the team of the decade because they represented America. They were smart, selfless, tough and talented. They played as a team, each player playing for each other, working together to do things that no team had ever done. Nothing was beyond their reach. Best Offense: they held them to three points. Best Defense: they scored 41 on them. Down 10 in the fourth quarter, doing nothing, about the choke away the last game in Foxboro: they scored 10 straight and broke hearts in Oakland. They were the team that could do anything. They could run, they could pass, they could defend both easily and effectively. They were the perfect TEAM. 10 straight playoff games, 10 straight opponents beaten. Guys like Tedy Bruschi, Mike Vrabel, Willie McGinest, Ty Law and Richard Seymour combined to create the must ruthlessly effective defense the sport had ever known. And controlling all the strings, masquerading as the enemy to protect the soldiers, was the hoodied one, Bill Belichick. They were America's team; the Patriots. They were a dynasty, born in New England, crowned in Jacksonville.
Then, the 2006 Title Game happened. They built the Patriot way: no player was more important than the next, no player would command more money than needed. This was the strategy that built a dynasty, and one that would eventually end it. Top receiver Deion Branch was let go, just another body trying to challenge the Patriot Way, another body that failed. Like always, the Patriots were effective defensively, second in the NFL in scoring defense, 12-4, winners of the AFC East, and winner's of another amazing comeback against the NFL's top team. Another year in the playoffs, another league MVP knocked off (Tomlinson, the 5th straight MVP the Pats had beaten in the playoffs), another showdown with their lap-dog the Colts awaited. The game started like any other Pats playoff game. The Pats made all the plays, the Colts made nary a one. The Pats controlled the game, marching up and down the field, pressuring Manning, shutting the once raucous RCA Dome into a stunned silence. Holding a 21-3 lead, Troy Brown was flagged for pass interference. Brady was sacked, and 35 points later, the Colts were the ones celebrating. It was all so knew. The year before, when Champ Bailey broke hearts and broke the Pats, that was merely a road-bump. A fitting conclusion to an injury marred season. However, this was different, this was a sign that the Patriot Way was over. Their defensive run was over, their ownership of the Colts was over. A new team was king of the AFC, the Colts were on top, Manning over Brady, Dungy over Belichick, drafting stars and paying them well over gathering team pieces, interchangable parts. The methodology of a Champion was new. It was not low-cost free agents, adding to a team that had the heart and the head to win. No, it was offense, it was stars. Get you QB and surround him with weapons. The Patriots did not do it, the Colts did, and the Colts charred that team with offensive fireworks. This was the true death of the Patriots dynasty. The dynasty, in what it was built on, the tenets of its very existence, were beaten, sentenced to death just two years after its highest point.
The reason that this moment, not the decrepid performance that was displayed on the Gillette Stadium field last Sunday, marked the last night of the Patriots Dynasty was that it signaled a change in the mindset, in the build, the makeup of the Patriots. The Patriot Way was beaten. Deion Branch fought the way, and lost. However, the Patriots lost their only reliable receiver, the ailment that killed them in the 2006 Title Game. They new having reliable receivers, what made the Colts so great, was a huge hole that laid itself right in the middle of a once sturdy lockerroom. In came Welker, and Moss and Stallworth, three receivers, all high-cost acquisitions. They were the heroes entering the castle, built to match the Colts, built to own the new NFL. However, they were no longer the same defense, one that could constrict the life out of any opponent. They were now the Colts, they were the team that they had hated and had beaten more often than not. They exploded on the NFL and the scoreboard, putting up points at record rates. Belichick, angered by slights and taunts due to his own cheating scandal, left the horses in, punching teams in the mouth and then kicking them when they laid motionless, defenseless on the ground. It was beautiful, vengeful, confident and callous all in one move. It led to wins and wins, touchdowns and touchdowns at record rates. Yet, it led to nothing but failure. They lost to the Giants, ending their run at perfection one game to soon. Two years later, whatever mystique, whatever ability they had to play better as the games got tighter, was lost. The Patriots had transformed, completing when they sent Richard Seymour to Oakland, piling him on the heap of discarded veteran leaders that led this team to Glory. They were now nothing like the team that piled up wins and Lombardi trophies with a confident ease.
The Patriots dynasty did not die Sunday. The new Pats died. They transformed their team into an offensive juggernaut, and like most offensive juggernauts, it ultimately ended in defeat. There was no swagger, no intensity. Tedy Bruschi once just ripped the ball out of Colts' Dominic Rhodes hands in the 2004 Playoffs, now it was them getting balls ripped out. The Patriots thought the Patriot Way, the very thing that led to ultimate success and the label of the first "Dynasty" of the 21st Century, was old and fruitless. They made a concerned effort to switch to an offense-first team, a team that emulated the Colts, the Rams, all of the teams the Dynastic Patriots used to beat with regularity. The new Patriots died, as Brady, Moss all aged before our eyes. Now, Welker is probably out till mid 2010, and Moss seems to be more interested in putting things on his big shoulders than playing a game. Brady is not the same post-injury, and seeing by Carson Palmer's play, he may never be the same again. It is now over, the post-Dynasty offensive juggernaut Patriots, that is. The real Patriots, the ones that held the Lombardi Trophy over their heads three times, that beat MVP's and stars time after time, were long gone, decaying in the now-barren RCA Dome, the sight of their defensive emasculation, the sight of their now scalped defense-first mantra. The Pats are never-more now, but in reality, the Pats have never been the Pats. They were the Colts-wannabes. The Pats have been gone for three years now, and it will be a while before they reach those levels again, and it won't be with Brady and Belichick, as they are too far gone in their offense-first mentality, and too advanced in age to change.
Had the offensive pass-interference never been called, the Patriots probably would have tacked on some more points, making an already one-sided game into a blowout that would have shaken the NFL earth, forever killing the Colts. Instead, it killed the Patriots dynasty. When the Cowboys were finally beaten by the Panthers, an upstart team with less wins than the Cowboys had hall-of-famers, it was over. They were never to be seen again. When Joe Montana fumbled the exchange to Roger Craig, he was never to lead that team to a Super Bowl again (I'm guessing that Brian Hoyer is not Steve Young incarnate). When the Bills smashed the Steelers, Bradshaw and Noll never stook on top of the football world again. And finally, when Brown needlessly smashed Nick Harper, and the yellow cloth bounced of the RCA Dome turf, they were never to hold the league hostage again. The dynasty was over, dead, lifeless. That was the last night of the Patriots dynasty.
