Re: Great defenses are not forever
I think the fact that Bruschi, Harrison, Vrabel, and (sort of) Law & Seymour all got old at the same time tells us that the 2001-2004 Patriots caught lightning in a bottle with an amazing convergence of elite defensive players in their prime, all on our team at the same time. As I watch Three Games to Glory I am constantly reminded that we won the Super Bowls with our defense (if I had to pick just one between offense and defense).
Not to mention the cap.
We built the dynasty during a capped era.
We had the most talent in the NFL with the same cap as everyone else.
In other words our talent exceeded its cost by more than any other team, and by quite an amount considering we won 3 of 4 SBs and went 34-4 in 2 years.
On March 1, 2005 it was a mathematical impossibility that we could retain our players OR replace them with equal talent. They were more talented than their cost. The ones we kept now took up more of the cap so the ones that we needed to replace had to be replaced not only with the cap room that couldn't possibly find an equal player, but actually with less than that because we gave raises to players we kept. (Brady, Vrabel, Light, Harrison, Seymour, Warren come to mind)
To expect that we could have possilby replaced them with equal talent is to either ignore the cap and our status under it. (It really is an incontoverible fact that the best team in a capped league cannot retain its talent or replace it equally within the cap) Or drafting at or near the end of each round we would have had to draft players that could step in, start and be good enough for the most talented team in the NFL to not regress. Again, impossible, an average team drafting in the middle of each round is unlikely to improve solely with the draft replacing their departures.
The bottom line, IMO, was that it was impossible for us to not decline from 2005 on. The control of the decline was the issue, not its prevention.
In hindsight, I think that BB employed a strategy of getting great at some things to cover the overall gradual decline (ie the passing offense in 2007) that it is remarkable how close he kept us to the top (literally a play away from a ring in 06 and 07 and arguably 08 if that play were the Brady injury) and now we are clearly (IMO) on the other side of the equation where we are enhancing the talent base.
But back to the original point, it was unrealitic to expect we could keep those players or replace them with equal players in the short term.
It would appear that we potentially have/are replacing most with Mayo, Spikes, Cunningham, Meriwhether, Chung, McCourty, Butler, Brace, etc.
If those 8 players or some of those 8 players are the nucleus of one of the best defenses in the NFL over the next 5-7 years, then we actually did replace everyone, it just wasnt reasonable to expect it to happen more quickly than this.
