They lost Super Bowl, but Patriots aren’t out
Despite Super Bowl loss, New England will remain the team Dolphins and others in AFC must beat.
Unfortunately for the Miami Dolphins, New England will remain the team to beat next season despite loss to Eagles.
Finally, the Patriots are fall
ing apart. All it took was another ho-hum 13-win season and losing the Super Bowl by eight points to send them spiraling into chaos.
Tom Brady and Bill Belichick are feuding. One day, Robert Kraft denies the friction, the next day, he says it’s what makes the team great. This discord will only be settled if it turns out Belichick
likes having the reigning MVP as his quarterback and Brady somehow sees the positives of maintaining a power structure that’s helped him reach eight Super Bowls.
Then there’s the threat of Rob Gronkowski retiring, a possibility he left open after Sunday’s game. Keep in mind, he’s only 28. It’s never too late for Gronk to take up orthopedic surgery or constitutional law.
Malcolm Butler, who won Super Bowl XLIX for New England with that famous goal-line interception, was relegated to special teams and lashed out at Belichick for giving up on him.
And there’s more. Their defen-
sive coordinator left for a head-coaching job. Yes, yes, excellent. It’s all falling apart. Except that it’s not. Not yet, anyway. In the immor- tal words of esteemed phi- losopher D.J. Khaled, “Don’t play yourself ” when it comes to the Patriots.
There are cracks in the dynasty, but not full-on frac- tures. New England isn’t going anywhere, meaning the Dolphins and most of the rest of the league are still waiting this out. It’s no surprise the Patriots opened as the odds-on favorite to win next year’s Super Bowl.
Belichick is the oldest coach in the league at 65, but he’s never dropped the slightest hint that he’s think- ing about retirement. In his most recent work, he masterminded a team that led the NFL in point differen- tial and had the chance to tie the Super Bowl if a Hail Mary deflection had gone a hair differently. He hasn’t lost since including two 2015 consecutive the and playoffs he’s games 60-16 over the past four years.
Belichick has most of his key players signed for next season, a decent overall sal- ary cap situation and a full stock of draft picks com- ing up.
As for Brady, it doesn’t make sense that he’s still this good at 40, but he is. His plan to play to at least 45 doesn’t sound so unrealistic after a season in which he shredded a league full of 20-somethings to finish in the top five in completion percentage (66.3), yards (4,577), touchdowns (32) and passer rating (102.8). His favorite target will still be around, too, and teams like the Dolphins still won’t have an answer for him. Gronkowski is under contract for about $23 million over the next two years, and, sadly, the WWE can’t match that money. With no other suitable occupation, he’ll surely be trampling defenses for at least a couple more monster seasons. In the AFC East, which New England has won nine consecutive times, the Dolphins, Bills and Jets need a better plan than hoping the Patriots implode soon. of The what most happened optimistic in view Sunday’s Super Bowl is that it could be the beginning of the end, but this team isn’t going to drop off a cliff. The Patriots won the division by four games last season, seven ahead of third-place Miami, and that gap isn’t disappearing altogether in one year. Belichick has avoided large-scale deterioration by replacing individual parts before they wear out, and there’s little reason to believe he can’t keep that up.