When Did Bill Belichick Have His First 'Pretty Good' Patriots Team?
First, Bill Belichick won a Super Bowl. Then, he assembled "a pretty good football team."
A recent revelation from Belichick adds to the uncanny, if not illustrious, legend of the New England Patriots' lasting new-century dynasty. Speaking with The 33rd Team, Belichick said he felt like his Patriots weren't truly a well-operated, well-oiled machine until 2003 ... two years after his first Foxborough-based Lombardi Trophy hoist.
"When the opportunity came in 2000, even though this team was nowhere near the team that we left in ’96, it had declined quite a bit, there were still a few pillars here that we could build with,” Belichick said in a video posted on The 33rd Team. "I’d say by ’03, even though we won in ’01 ... this was a pretty good football team in all three phases of the game."
Belichick was the assistant head coach under longtime collaborator Bill Parcells during the Patriots' run to Super Bowl XXXI at the end of the 1996-97 season. New England did not return to the AFC title in three ensuing years under Pete Carroll and went 5-11 in Belichick's first year at the helm. His second season saw Tom Brady rise to the occasion after taking over at quarterback for the injured franchise man Drew Bledsoe, though mainstays from the 1996 group (i.e. Ty Law, Lawyer Milloy, Adam Vinatieri) did their part as well. Together, they defeated the St. Louis Rams 20-17 in Super Bowl XXXVI, the first of six championships under Brady and Belichick's watch.
The Patriots missed the playoffs in the first season after the original Super Bowl run but restocked with the veteran additions of Roosevelt Colvin, Rodney Harrison, Tyrone Poole, and Ted Washington. They also found future Pro Bowlers Asante Samuel and Dan Koppen in the latter stages of the draft. It was a season that saw the Patriots start 42 different players en route to the AFC East title, a record for a division winner until New England itself broke it two years later.
Despite the frequent turnover, the Patriots won 14 contests for the first time in franchise history (part of a then-NFL record 18-game regular season winning streak) and got back to the Super Bowl, where they defeated the Carolina Panthers in the 38th edition.
Then, and only then, did Belichick feel like he had something special to work with. It reminded him of the growing process he had in his prior head coaching spot with the Cleveland Browns ... albeit on a much more lucrative scale.
In his fourth season in Cleveland (1994), Belichick guided the Browns to an 11-5 mark and a victory in the AFC Wild Card round (ironically over the Patriots). The team's subsequent relocation controversy stifled any further momentum he was trying to generate, but Belichick's vision was allowed time and space to breathe in Foxborough.
“It kind of took the same basic four-year window that it took in Cleveland," he said. "We were fortunate to win in ’01, but I’d say by ’03, ’04, we had one of the better teams in the league.”
Geoff Magliocchetti is on Twitter @GeoffJMags
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