An Independent Patriots Blog
At the halftime ceremony celebrating his incredible career, Robert Kraft announced that the Patriots are waiving the usual 4-year waiting period to induct Tom Brady into the Patriots Hall Of Fame, next June, inside Gillette Stadium.
Brady ended his speech by saying “I’m a Patriot for Life.”
The organization will release details about next year’s ceremony in the coming months.
With Tom Brady’s preferred helmet now banned by the NFL after a one-year grace period, there’s no turning back now for the 19-year veteran.
Brady flirted with the new helmet he’ll likely wear this year in the early part of 2018 before ultimately going back to his favorite in Week Two.
I chronicled Brady’s previous flirtations with other helmet styles. But he always came back to what I’d call the quintessential quarterback look. When they put Brady in the Hall of Fame this is how we’ll remember him looking:
Does it scare me that maybe all the magic was in the helmet? Yes. Yes it does. And perhaps this is just another ploy by the NFL to try and cut down the Patriots dynasty.
But from now until the end we’ll just have to get used to this:
The end of June is the time when all those who play and follow the NFL take their vacations and any real meaningful news grinds down to a halt. Of course this is the perfect time for terrible social media debates to pop up and old friend Chris Simms was ready to strike with his latest rankings.
This time of year my superpower of not getting into pointless social media debates about who’s better is put to the test. Even if I managed to not give Chris Simms any attention other than updating that Hot Taeks History post, I was further tested by the Welker-Edelman debate.
Yes, it’s that time of year, when there’s just nothing really left to talk about so personal arbitrary rankings rule the day. At least there’s less than a month left until what I actually love most (football) starts, so let’s just try to get by until then.
Here are some Posits on those arguments and more as we start to gear up for a bunch of season preview posts starting next week.
[Read more…] about Pats Posits: The Offseason Low Point Lives Up To HypeThings can change pretty quick around Foxboro. Today’s malcontent superstar on another team is tomorrow’s Patriots reclamation project.
That’s why the glaring holes on the Patriots roster might be deceiving. But if we’re going off how things look today on April 9th, there’s more pressure than ever for them to get the most out of their team-leading 12 draft picks and sooner rather than later.
Gronk is gone, along with Trey Flowers. They’re starting over at left tackle for the second year in a row after spending 17 seasons with only two different starters. Julian Edelman, Devin McCourty
The cupboards aren’t entirely barren, but if they’re going to squeeze
As I’ve been enjoying the Patriots sixth Super Bowl title over the last month, I found myself glancing back at the 2001 season and how much has happened since then. The Patriots going on a second three-Super-Bowl run has certainly given things a complete feeling. I’ve been saying everything else is gravy but this is getting ridiculous thinking they’re not done.
2001 was a lifetime ago and for the Patriots it was the last time that there were no expectations for them. Really, no one outside of New England really cared about this football team back then, and now, 17 years later, the Patriots are loved and hated around the globe.
I popped the 2001 NFL Films Yearbook DVD in this weekend and was fascinated to see what a microcosm of the dynasty this season really was, how so many games against so many teams would encapsulate so much of what Brady and the Patriots would experience en route to winning five more Super Bowls. The themes that would recur over and over across the next two decades of football.
Let’s take a look at some of the notable moments and pieces that would echo well into the future.
[Read more…] about Patriots 2001: Preview of a Dynasty
It’s hard to believe we’re back once again in the Super Bowl. That this Patriots Dynasty thing is still going strong. I’m not sure when I’ll ever be able to wrap my head around it, but for now, I’m just trying to savor every moment.
I took a look back at my Seahawks, Falcons
It’s hard to really boil things down to their simplest elements needed to win this kind of game. That’s what Bill Belichick excels at, finding just a handful of points to focus on and often when they get out I’m excited to see that I wasn’t too far off with these gameplans I’ve been writing as a permanent feature of the blog since 2014.
How do the Rams stack up to the three most recent Super Bowl matchups? They certainly have an exciting young coach and a collection of new and old talented players needed to win the game. We search for common threads in the Patriots’ Super Bowls, but it has always just boiled down to the final few plays in the final five minutes that decide who wins.
They were down 10 points in the fourth quarter to the Seahawks. They were down 28-3 to the Falcons in the third quarter. They were a fourth down stop away from beating the Eagles last year. What’s clear is these games are a seesaw and the Patriots excel at staying the course no matter how bleak it looks.
With two weeks of buildup there’s been plenty of dissection going on and now it’s time to jump in with my gameplan! Let’s Go!
At this stage of the Patriots dynasty, the regular season is prologue. After a week off to rest up, the real season starts now, against the Chargers in the Divisional Round.
The Patriots have mostly owned the Chargers for the past decade-plus. There were notable losses in 2005 and 2008 with Matt Cassel at the helm, but outside of those the Patriots have dominated Phillip Rivers’ team, including ending their season twice, in 2006 and 2007.
It’s been a long time since then and the Chargers have remade themselves and stayed healthy for the first time in a long time, making them a viable threat to the Patriots hopes of getting to their eighth-straight (!) AFC Championship game.
What do the Pats have to do to give Everything They’ve Got and Beat LA? Here’s the gameplan!
[Read more…] about Patriots Gameplan: AFC Divisional Game vs. Los Angeles Chargers