Actual Pats Fan
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You're right, and the strike of '75 is another example.The time period that comprised the combination of the Sullivans with Clive Rush and John Mazur, and the Pats attempting to assimilate into the merged NFL was a major dysfunction. As we saw a few years later with contract malfunctions during the Chuck Fairbanks era, I can't really blame a player back then for not wanting to play for the Patriots. Who knows what advice Olsen was getting while he was still under contract with the Patriots. Dryer wanted to be near Hollywood for his post-NFL career.
I think about '74, when after we had our first non-losing season since '66, media tried to explain it away as a fluke. Wikipedia says after '75 the Patriots had a "few good seasons." Eleven winning seasons in 13 years, and .500 in the last season we wore our best uniforms, 1983? A few?
And Wikipedia says "The Patriots reached a nadir between 1989 and 1993 when they won only 19 of 80 games." A period of transition in fact better than a lot of other teams who went through much longer and much worse, during which the Patriot franchise was denigrated unmercifully due in part to the financial collapse of ownership. Hard to say that was worse than the pre-Fairbanks hiring years.