Some comments on the comments:
1. Anyone who thought the Pats were going anywhere at the start of the 2001 is just lying. You can give a lot of crap in 20-20 hindsight about the media that year, but legitimate football analysts like Pro Football Weekly were unanimous in thinking that team was going no where. There was of course the now famous article in the spring of that year that labeled the Pats the LEAST like team in the entire league to get to a superbowl in the next 5 years. So ragging on the mediots of that time, isn't really fair.
2. I'd be willing to bet that if you had force BB to tell the truth, he would say that even he was surprised at the level of success that 2001 team had. I'm sure he felt the team would be better than what the mediot thought, but not Superbowl better. More like the 5-5 that they were after the Rams loss. Think about it. Having 5 wins after just 10 games, plus a very competitive loss against what was clearly the best team in the league was a HUGE improvement from 2000, and by that time it was also clear that the team was headed in the right direction.
I think when BB was planning his rebuild, he probably thought 2003 would be the year he'd have a team to compete for a title. Just look at the 2002 team, which on paper was better than the 2001 team, but really didn't have the depth or mental toughness to do better than the 9-7 they wound up at. I bet Bill was thinking that it would take 3 years for the full rebuild, and essentially he was right. The 2001 team was just a beautiful anomoly. It wasn't as bad a team as people were forecasting, but not a great one either. It was one of those teams where everything broke right for them. It was magical.
3. Bob Ryan was a GREAT, not just good, basketball writer. When he gave up the beat to become a columist to Shank, he was just another guy with an opinion like the rest of us, who happened to be able to write well and worked for a newspaper. He could be right or wrong, but he never stooped to the level of spitefulness or meanness of a Borges or Shaunnessy. He never had an agenda, just an opinion and usually admitted when he was wrong.
4. PWP is absolutely correct when he notes that back at TC in 2001, it was clear Brady had a much better grasp of the offense the Pats were trying to institute. I've always felt that Bledsoe was a victim of having something like 4 different OC's the first 7 seasons of his career. And his skill set, due in part to that situation, wasn't what fit THIS offense.
It might have been different if he'd been in this offense from the start of his career, but by 2001, short drops and quick decisions was NOT what Drew Bledsoe did. His demise as the starting QB of the Pats was inevidable. But that being said, no one could have predicted how quickly that end would come. OR how fast Brady's development would happen. Remember BB brought in Damon Huard to be the back up that off season, so back in Feb of 2001 even BB wan't thinking Brady was going to play much that year, but Brady just flat beat him out, became the back up and the rest is history.
5. You know I hate Ron Borges with a passion that borders on the obsessive. And his column that graded the Pats draft that ragged on the Seymour and Light picks and named 3 or 4 players who HE thought the Pats should have picked, ALL of whom had mediocre careers at best; is a classic in guys "getting it wrong".
But remember this is a fan site who hasn't missed having a thread about ANY available WR over the last 20 years, so we shouldn't be were surprised when the mediots complained about the Pats passing on the WR I'm blanking on, to pick some DT we've never heard of. We should be honest enough to admit that, AT THE TIME, most Pats fans agreed with the detestable Borges. Not me, of course.
