Patriots lost their Way?
Recent drama leads us to ponder future
Are you prepared for the day when the New England Browns take the field at Gillette Stadium?
You laugh.
That could never happen. Not here. These are the New England Patriots we’re talking about — as in five Super Bowl championships, as in the greatest quarterback of all time, as in the greatest coach of all time, as in solid, committed local ownership.
So stop with the lame, snarky New England Browns comments, you say.
The Patriot Way is what you say.
The Pats have quarterback Tom Brady, coach Bill Belichick and owner Robert Kraft. The Cleveland Browns have … well, never mind.
There’s The Patriot Way … and there’s the Cleveland Browns. And to borrow from Rudyard Kipling, never the twain shall meet. (Disclosure: I didn’t know this was a Kipling line until I looked it up.)
And now that we have all the chest-pounding and turf-minding out of the way, Patriots fans, I defy all of you, any of you, to look me in the eye and tell me you’re not worried about the future. Sorry to bring some additional rain to a week of soggy weather, but you’d have to be a fool not to be jaw-dropped by what’s going on with the Patriots these days.
It all begins with the midseason giving-away of Jimmy Garoppolo, who was going to step in for Brady and lead the Patriots to another decade of automatic bids to the AFC title game.
This was followed by a flood of discouraging words out of Foxboro — ranging from talk-radio whispers to the trumpets-a-blazin’ Seth Wickersham piece — that Belichick, Brady and Kraft aren’t meeting for Wednesday night card games anymore.
We still don’t know why Garoppplo was traded. We
still don’t know who ordered it, who approved it, who endorsed it.
And speaking of things we don’t know … there’s Malcolm Butler and the Super Bowl.
And when the game was over? The Patriots were barely off the field following their crushing loss to the Philadelphia Eagles when Hall of Fame-bound tight end Rob Gronkowski said just enough to make people wonder if he’s going to retire.
Stories then made the rounds suggesting that Gronk may emerge as the best professional wrestler of Polish heritage we’ve seen since the days of Ivan Putski.
And then there was Pats offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, who had one foot on an Indianapolis-bound plane, soon to be introduced as the new head coach of the Colts. Turns out the Krafts got ahold of the other foot and yanked McDaniels off the plane. He’ll be back as the Patriots offensive coordinator, but with a new title: Head Coach in Waiting.
Oh, wait, there’s one more: Remember the photo of Kraft and Belichick having dinner at Davio’s? It was supposed to be a sign that everyone is on the same page and looking forward to next season, except that Kraft and Belichick looked like two cardboard cutouts.
This is supposed to be The Patriot Way?
No. Sorry. This is The Cleveland Browns Way.
The first pro sports dynasty of the 21st century suddenly presents itself as uncertain, unsteady and unable to explain this or that decision. “In Bill We Trust” still rules the convention hall, but a growing chorus of Pats fans really do want to know why Garoppolo was traded, why Butler didn’t play, why McDaniels bolted the Colts.
It’s entirely possible the Belichick-Brady Pats have another Super Bowl championship in them. But Pats fans, know, deep down, that not playing Butler may have cost them a sixth Lombardi Trophy. Just as they know giving Garoppolo away may have cost them a seventh … an eighth …
This is how you become the Cleveland Browns: You keep making mistake after mistake after mistake, ranging from head-scratching to laugh-out-loud dumb, and that’s how you become a perennial NFL bottomfeeder.
Again, you say it can’t happen here. You say the analogy is bad because the Browns — the old Browns, the new Browns — have never even been to a Super Bowl, let alone win one.
So take the Browns out of the discussion. Consider, instead, the 49ers. We’ve seen two editions of great Niners runs eventually, inevitably, hit rock bottom. We’ve seen the Dallas Cowboys, America’s Team, make visits to rock bottom.
Again and again: This wasn’t going to happen with the Patriots. They had Belichick. They had Brady. They had Garoppolo warming up in the bullpen.
In an essay for The Players’ Tribune last year, former Pats running back Kevin Faulk wrote, “The Patriot Way ain’t about nothing but winning, man.”
Anyone out there worried this might not be the case in a couple of years?
Anyone worried it could have been prevented?