Why did it take 10 years to win more SuperBowls?

[MrNathanDrake]

1. Brady evolved as a QB. You saw in the 2014 season where we won SB XLIX, he started scrambling and running the ball more than ever before. Defenses gave him space and he took it if he couldn't find an open receiver. This paid off big time in this years Super Bowl as well, as his 15 year run at the time was a big momentum swing and our best run of the entire game up to that point. After drafting Jimmy Garopollo, who was praised coming out of the draft for his quick release.... Tom Brady's release got super fast. He started making decisions and releasing the ball so quick it's become hard for most edge rushers to get to him before he throws it. He also improved pre-snap and became more like Peyton Manning in this area. It's as if Brady is able to take the best parts of other QB's and add it to his repertoire. Brady is the best student of the game. It's amazing that such an old QB is still evolving and adding new things to his game.

2. Consistency at the Offensive and Defensive coordinator positions. We won 3 lombardi's with Romeo Crenel and Charlie Weis. After they left it took 10 years to win another Lombardi! We went through Mangini, Dom Capers, and Dean Pees at defensive coordinator. Josh McD and then Bill OBrien, then back to Josh McDaniels at Offensive coordinator. Finally there is stability and both of our coordinators are amongst the best in the NFL.

3. We have a defense again. After the 3 SB wins in the early 2000's, our defense was aging. We eventually lost key players like Seymour and Ty Law. Bruschi, Vrabel, Seau, Harrison, all got old and retired. The next generation of defenders didn't carry the torch. Asante Samuel wanted too much money, Meriweather didn't pan out, and Jerod Mayo was good but not great. Finally we have a real defense again. Devin McCourty and Chung took a few years to find their groove but now their one of the top safety tandems in the league. Malcolm Butler came out of nowhere and is a top CB in the league. Hightower might go down as the best Patriots MLB ever if he sticks around. You really have to credit Belichick, Nick Caserio, and the rest of the front office for the bargain bin finds they've picked up.... Alan Branch. Akeem Ayers. Kyle Van Noy. Chris Long. Eric Rowe. Matt Patricia has obviously been a big reason for our defensive improvement.

4. Rebuilding takes time. Most won't admit that we went through a rebuilding phase, but we definitely did. You look at the 2009 to 2013 draft classes. Almost ALL of those players that stuck with the team took a few years to develop. Edelman certainly wasn't this good during his first few years in the league. He kept getting injured, made mistakes, and had to gain a lot of muscle. 2014 was really his break out season. Chung was drafted in 2009, got labeled a bust, went to another team, came back as "camp fodder" in 2014 and that was really his break out season as well. McCourtey bounced around CB to Safety, then took some time to master his craft at Safety. Now he's one of the best in the league. Marcus Cannon was drafted in 2011 and looked like a bench warmer up until this season. In 2016 he was one of the best RT in the NFL and a huge reason Brady was kept upright this year. Logan Ryan and Duron Harmon were both drafted in 2013. Ryan in particular has had a lot of ups and downs, but he looks like he finally settled in this year. Those two Rutgers defensive backs solidified our secondary.

Players like Gronk and Hightower that come in and beast from Day 1 are the exception not the rule.

5. Brady got injured. 2008 and 2009 were wasted seasons due to Bradys knee injury. Obviously he came back in 2009 but I felt like it took him a whole season to really come back from that injury. If Brady's healthy those years, who knows what happens.

 

[rsd]

While I agree with your points, I think luck and health play as much factors. 2006 easily could've ended with a SB victory and same for the 07/11 losses.

 

[archstanton543]

Because the D got old and had to be replace. But due to their continued success (even though they didn't win the Super Bowl for 10 years) means that they consistently picked at the end of every draft round...and they didn't hit (or didn't draft) on some players. Plus you had coaching changes. Weiss and Romeo left. Then Pees and McDaniels left (McD came back). Hell, Dante left and came back too. You add all that up...plus the league changing rules to stymie your style of play lead to a 10 year drought.

 

[Ivan]

Because they lost two tough ones.

 

[archstanton543]

Also Dom Capers wasn't the D-Coordinator. He was the defensive backs coach.

 

[Bruins29]

Bad PI call
Flu
Miracle
Drop

 

[New England Pride]

Brady has played like a man possessed since the Kansas City beatdown. I hate to oversimplify it because there are other factors at play here such as injury luck, playing better defense, and the luck of the bounce, but Tom Brady is on another level right now by his own lofty standards.

 

[Clonamery]

Can you make it easy on us simple folk and do a poll? I like ready-made answers to life's complexities. Thank you.

 

[Simpelton]

Because winning the Superbowl is the exception not the norm, even in New England, and we still shouldn't be measuring franchise success entirely based on Superbowls, even though as a New England fan I'm glad we are in a position to fool ourselves into thinking we can.

 

[Hammer of Thor]

Don't forget the Jackass also stealing pick #31 in 2008. An extra 1st round pick that year, cost-controlled through the convenient 2008-2012 seasons (the heart of the defensive rebuild), could have been all it took. What if the Pats had taken Jerod Mayo at #10 and Brandon Flowers at #31? The 2010-2012 seasons at least play out a lot differently.

 

[h0c2000]

Because, even thought the Pats make it look easy, it's hard to win a Super Bowl.

 

[LightSkinSmurf]

Because winning the SB is hard. It takes alot of talent and good coaching but also alot of luck. Don't let BeliGOAT and the greatness of tom brady fool you into thinking otherwise. This ain't easy, son.

 

[Nehalem]

Because the D got old and had to be replace. But due to their continued success (even though they didn't win the Super Bowl for 10 years) means that they consistently picked at the end of every draft round...and they didn't hit (or didn't draft) on some players. Plus you had coaching changes. Weiss and Romeo left. Then Pees and McDaniels left (McD came back). Hell, Dante left and came back too. You add all that up...plus the league changing rules to stymie your style of play lead to a 10 year drought.

Also, league stole our 2008 1st round pick. Maybe a stud defensive player put us over the top in 2010, 2011, or 2012

 

[Tony2046]

It's amazing how small the margin is between winning and losing. If Gronk was less hobbled, if Amendola and Edelman weren't injured, if a helmet's surface tension was a few grams less.....

 

[LightSkinSmurf]

It's amazing how small the margin is between winning and losing. If Gronk was less hobbled, if Amendola and Edelman weren't injured, if a helmet's surface tension was a few grams less.....

Yeah, but I'd like to think of us as more fortunate than unfortunate. 5/7 is excellent. We could have been the bills or something. Always make it but never win it.

 

[Wrath Mania]

To me it all comes down to rebuilding, especially on defense. With '07 BB essentially souped up an aging core for one last run. '09 was the transition year, and '10 was really the start of a new era. Thanks to Gronk (and Hernandez)- not to mention Brady still being at the helm- the offense quickly transformed into something prolific. But the defense took a while to mold. The '11 Super Bowl run reflected this disparity. The pieces BB drafted on defense '06 onward to back the aging core of last decade didn't really pan out, which is one reason why I think the D took longer to rebuild.

The acquisition of Talib, which allowed BB to permanently move McCourty to FS, as well as the drafting of Hightower and C. Jones in '12, was really the turning point.

In an extra scene for the "Do Your Job" documentary from '15, BB basically sums up the teams from '11-'13 by saying they were pretty good, but the loss of Gronk plus poor defensive performance in critical situations was why they lost in the end. The defense started to comport itself around '13, though they really didn't learn how to handle a Gronkless world till this year.

The common argument a few years ago was BB was wasting TB's prime years- and while certainly there were disappointing ends in this time, and I think BB should have done what he ultimately did with Talib, Revis, Browner, i.e. bringing outside talent to bolster the secondary until young guys found their footing, earlier than he did, at the end of the day Brady continually evolving and getting better while the players around him cycled in and out was sort of a reflection of what happens when you're a long-lived anomaly amidst a team cycling through different generations.

To me the question now is, do we end up looking back in 2020 and say this decades' team was better than 2000-2010? I think there will be a shot this is the case.

 

[Simpelton]

Likewise if Butler had been a step slower or Browner hadn't set a great pick to expose Lockette, if Amendola hadn't just baaaaaaaaaaarely gotten it into the endzone on the 2 point conversion, if Vinateiri had missed any of those last second field goals...

 

[Ring 6]

Because its hard?
Had one play gone our way in 2007 and 2011, and not in 2014 and 2016, the question would be how could we win 5 in 11 years and then not have won another in the last 5.

 

[drewskie]

Bad PI call
Flu
Miracle
Drop

For the bad PI call and flu, which games/plays were these referring to again? I forget.

My reasoning for the gap was 06/07/11/slow rebuild.

 

[RelocatedPatFan]

Feels like the question is 2 years too late .

comes down to the fact that lots of things have to go well for you to make it back to the SB and win.

The question should be, why do we keep making it back so frequently as most other teams fall short of even qualifying for the opportunity.. That has everything to do with Kraft, BB (GOAT or top 2 if you want to be humble) and his staff/coaching/philosophy/evaluation process/... and that we have the GOAT QB.