rookBoston
In the Starting Line-Up
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I have always felt the 2001 Pats are the perfect Hollywood screenplay. That team had barely a fraction of the talent that elite teams had in that era. Later versions of the Pats were stacked with talent, but the 2001 team was gutty more than it was talented.
Why hasn't someone already made this movie?
- Coming off 5th place finish in Division under new coach who flopped in Cleveland and is already under the media microscope in Boston.
- QB coach dies of a heart attack
- Widely criticized for drafting long lean DT instead of breakaway sure thing WR at the top of the draft. Media is already roasting the coach before camp has even started. Add Ron Borges quotes here.
- A few no-name free agents signed (Vrabel, Compton, Edwards)
- Starting OC can't shotgun snap (Woody).
- Young stud LB walks out of TC and quits football (Katzenmoyer).
- Patched up OL. (Kenyatta Jones, GRR, and rookie LT Light looks terrible at RT)
- Long time pro-bowl veteran LT (Armstrong) is cut in camp for attitude. Forces rookie into starting LT job.
- Aging has-been FA RB as workhorse (A. Smith) added to the team late
- Aging veteran LB that played for coach before (Cox) added late. Lays the lumber on Pathon in Colts game, and sets the tone for the rest of the team and the rest of the season
- Star WR gets canned (Glenn) for telling the media he was just faking injuries
- Without Star WR, the WR corp consists of a star STer as the #1 target (Brown) and camp trash behind him (Patten, Shockmain, Wiggins, Ruttledge... ?)
- Lose 3 of 4 to start the season. Frustration and stress in the clubhouse
- Big money veteran QB goes down against the Jets, replaced by gee-whiz undersized kid who turns out to be a natural
- Come from behind on the road in San Diego
- Veteran punter is cut (Johnson) for almost blowing the game. Some kid off the street to punt (K.Walter)
- Big money QB comes back healthy, but in a controversial move is benched to play the kid. Kid leads the team to another win.
- Will the QB tensions be too much for them? Coach under the media microscope
- Bad loss to the Rams in Week 10 at home, goal line fumble, with some great cinematic foreshadowing featuring the stars of the SB. Team is 5-5. They would not lose another game that season.
- Late season winning streak, as the team starts to believe in themselves.
- National media remains unconvinced, constantly picking against the Pats.
- Come from behind win at Jets. Team finds ridiculous ways to win.
- Win at Buffalo secured thanks to the fact that unconscious WR's head landed out of bounds prior to fumbling.
- Clinched the Division in a win over a strong Fins team who had been picked to win the Division
- Playoffs: Tuck rule game, with kicker making an incredible crazy FG in a snowstorm. Pure drama. Historic. Cinematic magic. Gutty win in a game that was almost lost more than a few times. (This was the last game ever played at the old Foxboro Stadium)
- Conf Championship: Unanimous national opinion that the cinderella Pats are completely outclassed by the Steelers. Steelers already have their championship shirts printed. The kid gets hurt, and the win led by the good karma, big money veteran QB who gets his moment as the hero-- resolves that plot line. Bledsoe never plays for Pats again, but he goes out on top
- Rematch against the Rams, a clearly a superior team on paper. The Rams offensive starters were introduced individually. In what would be a signature of the team and a practice that would become a new league standard, the Pats were introduced as a team. Defensive scoring and ST play keeps it close. With 1:30 seconds in a tie game, instead of taking a knee, coach decides to drive the length of the field for the win. Pass to Redmond, pass to Brown, pass to Wiggins. A 48 yard FG on the last play of the game
- Cue the ticker tape. Cue the tears. An impossible win. An impossible season. The ultimate cinderella story for team sports. No one believed it could be done, beating the odds week after week.
Deep down, I think the rest of the nation is still very angry about the 2001 Pats. Maybe that's why no one's made the film. Colts fans, Fins fans, Steelers fans, Raiders fans, Rams fans... they all have a reason to hate the Pats for 2001. They all feel the Pats had no basis to win all those big games... that they were playing way over their heads; and maybe they were.
But so many consecutive flukes in a row is not a fluke. It's Fate.
Why hasn't someone already made this movie?
- Coming off 5th place finish in Division under new coach who flopped in Cleveland and is already under the media microscope in Boston.
- QB coach dies of a heart attack
- Widely criticized for drafting long lean DT instead of breakaway sure thing WR at the top of the draft. Media is already roasting the coach before camp has even started. Add Ron Borges quotes here.
- A few no-name free agents signed (Vrabel, Compton, Edwards)
- Starting OC can't shotgun snap (Woody).
- Young stud LB walks out of TC and quits football (Katzenmoyer).
- Patched up OL. (Kenyatta Jones, GRR, and rookie LT Light looks terrible at RT)
- Long time pro-bowl veteran LT (Armstrong) is cut in camp for attitude. Forces rookie into starting LT job.
- Aging has-been FA RB as workhorse (A. Smith) added to the team late
- Aging veteran LB that played for coach before (Cox) added late. Lays the lumber on Pathon in Colts game, and sets the tone for the rest of the team and the rest of the season
- Star WR gets canned (Glenn) for telling the media he was just faking injuries
- Without Star WR, the WR corp consists of a star STer as the #1 target (Brown) and camp trash behind him (Patten, Shockmain, Wiggins, Ruttledge... ?)
- Lose 3 of 4 to start the season. Frustration and stress in the clubhouse
- Big money veteran QB goes down against the Jets, replaced by gee-whiz undersized kid who turns out to be a natural
- Come from behind on the road in San Diego
- Veteran punter is cut (Johnson) for almost blowing the game. Some kid off the street to punt (K.Walter)
- Big money QB comes back healthy, but in a controversial move is benched to play the kid. Kid leads the team to another win.
- Will the QB tensions be too much for them? Coach under the media microscope
- Bad loss to the Rams in Week 10 at home, goal line fumble, with some great cinematic foreshadowing featuring the stars of the SB. Team is 5-5. They would not lose another game that season.
- Late season winning streak, as the team starts to believe in themselves.
- National media remains unconvinced, constantly picking against the Pats.
- Come from behind win at Jets. Team finds ridiculous ways to win.
- Win at Buffalo secured thanks to the fact that unconscious WR's head landed out of bounds prior to fumbling.
- Clinched the Division in a win over a strong Fins team who had been picked to win the Division
- Playoffs: Tuck rule game, with kicker making an incredible crazy FG in a snowstorm. Pure drama. Historic. Cinematic magic. Gutty win in a game that was almost lost more than a few times. (This was the last game ever played at the old Foxboro Stadium)
- Conf Championship: Unanimous national opinion that the cinderella Pats are completely outclassed by the Steelers. Steelers already have their championship shirts printed. The kid gets hurt, and the win led by the good karma, big money veteran QB who gets his moment as the hero-- resolves that plot line. Bledsoe never plays for Pats again, but he goes out on top
- Rematch against the Rams, a clearly a superior team on paper. The Rams offensive starters were introduced individually. In what would be a signature of the team and a practice that would become a new league standard, the Pats were introduced as a team. Defensive scoring and ST play keeps it close. With 1:30 seconds in a tie game, instead of taking a knee, coach decides to drive the length of the field for the win. Pass to Redmond, pass to Brown, pass to Wiggins. A 48 yard FG on the last play of the game
- Cue the ticker tape. Cue the tears. An impossible win. An impossible season. The ultimate cinderella story for team sports. No one believed it could be done, beating the odds week after week.
Deep down, I think the rest of the nation is still very angry about the 2001 Pats. Maybe that's why no one's made the film. Colts fans, Fins fans, Steelers fans, Raiders fans, Rams fans... they all have a reason to hate the Pats for 2001. They all feel the Pats had no basis to win all those big games... that they were playing way over their heads; and maybe they were.
But so many consecutive flukes in a row is not a fluke. It's Fate.