An era unparalleled
Generation knows nothing but success
FOXBORO — You are a native New Englander in your early 30s, and your belly is getting a little softer. Some gray is popping up here and there. Your knees are dinged up to the degree that indoor elliptical has supplanted outdoor running.
The job is going fine, but you’ve come to grips with the sobering reality that you’re not going to wind up as CEO or vice president of distribution.
You once dreamed of a Jaguar; now you’re tooling around in a sensible Toyota Highlander.
But here’s some really good news, all you thirtysomething native New Englanders: You’ve never had to sit through a bowwow season by the local National Football League franchise. Let’s do the math. If you’re, let’s say, 32 years old, that means you were a 5-year-old when the 1990 Pats stumbled through a 1-15 season. In 1993, when they went 5-11, you were 8. In 2000, when Bill Belichick took over as head coach and the Pats went 5-11 during what we now understand was a rebuilding season, you were still just a 15-year-old high school sophomore, perhaps more interested in “Malcolm in the Middle” than what was happening in Foxboro.
Which brings us to the Pats’ not-always-pretty 3517 victory over the Miami Dolphins yesterday afternoon at Gillette Stadium. The big takeaway stats on defense were that the Pats had seven sacks, two interceptions, two forced fumbles and one fumble recovery. The big takeaway stats on offense were that Tom Brady threw four touchdown passes, two of them to Rob Gronkowski. But it’s the big quality-of-life takeaway stat that should put a bounce in your step this morning: Yesterday’s game marked the 17th consecutive season the Pats have won nine or more games, making them the first NFL team to do so.
Think about that. An entire generation of Patriots fans doesn’t understand what it’s like to play out the string at the end of a lost season. Some of you oldtimers may remember the last regular-season game of 1990, when the Pats hosted Bill Parcells’ playoff-bound New York Giants at old Foxboro Stadium. There was so little interest in the Pats around here that firedup New Yorkers were able to gobble up just about every seat in the park, turn- ing the game into a festive home date for the Giants, who emerged with a 13-10 victory and went on to win their second Super Bowl in five seasons.
That doesn’t happen any- more. A “bad” season for the 21st century Patriots is the 9-7 hangover campaign of 2002, a year after the Pats won their first Super Bowl. In 2008, the year Bernard Pollard re-arranged Brady’s knee and Matt Cassel took over at quarterback and the Pats didn’t make the playoffs, they were still 11-5.
That’s what horrific seasons look like around here: 9-7 and 11-5. And that’s incredible. Now it’s sort-of true that the annual expectation is that the Pats must win the Super Bowl, and that anything less than that is a major disappointment. But the reason it’s only sort-of true is that you can’t go back to regular-season victories that thrilled you and then retroactively decide they weren’t much fun after all because the Pats didn’t win the Super Bowl.
Remember the 2007 Pats? Maybe you don’t, because the Giants’ stunning victory in Super Bowl XLII put the kibosh on the whole season. Fine. But you were thrilled when the Pats ran up a 52-7 victory over Washington in November, exhilarated when they won the Battle of the Unbeatens against the Colts in November, and on Cloud Nine when they topped the Giants in December to complete the 16-0 regular season.
The David Tyree catch in the Super Bowl would come later. In real time, however, 16-0 was 16-0, and 16-0 was awesome.
Do the Pats appreciate 17 straight seasons with nine or more victories?
“I was a kid growing up in San Mateo when the Niners were doing that, too,” said Brady “They didn’t do it for as long as we’ve done it, but I mean it’s pretty cool. Obviously the expectations are really high because of what teams in the past have done and I think the guys that come and sit in these chairs right here look up at coach (Bill) Belichick and understand kind of what we’re playing for and the history of the team and the expectations.
“Winning seasons are great and obviously we’re trying to win every time we take the field. We started 2-2 and to be 9-2 with seven straight wins is pretty good, but we know our biggest games are ahead of us.”
Gronkowski, while acknowledging he wasn’t around for a lot of those early seasons, said, “When you come in you inherit that type of work.”
If the Pats don’t win Super Bowl LII, everyone around here is going to be crushed. But at least fans will know how to deal with it: It’s not like they’ve never seen the Pats lose The Big Game before.
But when the Pats go 4-12 — and that’s probably a long way off if Brady keeps playing — aging Generation Xers won’t know what to do with themselves. They’ve never seen it.