It was fueled by a lot of Brady leaving bitterness.
By contrast, although everybody loves him, obviously only a few saw how special Flutie was. It was as obvious about Doug as it was about Montana @ND. He made his teams winners.
The entire NFL ignored him as he hung around his home in Natick playing pickup basketball for over six months. After rightfully, mercifully firing Berry, Kiam could have signed him and made him the starter for relatively cheap, the stands would have been filled and the team would have at least been in the playoffs.
Most people believe media narratives, like the Patriots were horrible forever. We were not. Even in 1981, that team had lots of talent and lost most games by a close margin. Local and national media treated three (3) seasons from 1990-92 without a quarterback like a quarter century.
If we had gone 0-16 last year, it would have done nothing to diminish Belichick's accomplishments, ability or reputation with me. I know the Cleveland years were hard for Browns fans. I understand. But the difference between a team learning and building, and one that is treading water going nowhere is not always reflected in the yearly records.
The writing was indeed on the wall at the outset of 2001. He had pressure on him. For me, it had already been painfully obvious for years that Bledsoe was only getting older, slower and not developing the football acumen he never possessed in the first place. I trusted that somebody as smart as Belichick had to see that eventually. As with Eason, it took an injury to get him out of there, but once he was, Belichick saw what was going on and acted accordingly, instead of just worshipping Bledsoe like the Browns fans expected him to do with Kosar.
I liked a LOT of what I saw last year. We were competitive in several respects, with some huge, glaring holes in some key positions. After almost thirty years watching Parcells and Belichick coached teams, you'd think at least some fans would get that becoming good often involves some adversity, stumbling blocks and lessons in the form of losses.