They had similar confidence in Denver in '05, Indy in '06, Glendale in '07 and Gillette in '09. Again, there was reason.
The reason was that they'd done it before. They had, to use a tired yet oh-so-appropriate cliche, conquered all odds. They'd won when it seemed impossible, they'd come back from dire straits and they'd overcome bad calls to go on an unprecedented run of success.
Those five playoff losses don't make the Patriots a bad team, nor do they soil the legacies of Tom Brady and Bill Belichick. All those losses do is reinforce how fortunate this team was to win three Super Bowls in four years and remind everyone just how incredible that stretch truly was.
Now years removed from the last Super Bowl win, it's not always easy to remember how close the championship seasons came to ending prematurely. Everyone remembers the tuck rule play, but how many people remember the fourth-down Brady pass in overtime which Jermaine Wiggins somehow knew to let go by him so that David Patten could make the drive-saving catch? What about Brady getting injured in Pittsburgh, which led to Drew Bledsoe getting leveled on one of his first plays of the game? Had Bledsoe gotten hurt, the chances of Damon Huard lofting that perfect pass to Patten in the back corner of the end zone were rather slim, wouldn't you say?
And that's just the first Super Bowl. After that, there was Drew Bennett's dropped pass for the Titans, John Kasay's out-of-bounds kickoff that set up the winning score in the Super Bowl, Donovan McNabb's "cardiovascular" struggles in Super Bowl XXXIX, and so on and so forth. The Patriots were catching breaks and making the most of them, and it led to an unbelievable four-year period.
Since then, the breaks have gone against them. There was an absolutely atrocious pass interference call on Asante Samuel in Denver that cost the Pats 39 yards and, essentially, seven points. The famed Ben Watson play should have resulted in a touchback and a Patriots possession on their own 20, but instead, it once again cost them seven points. They lost that game by 14.
In '06, the Pats had appeared to have fortune on their sides once again, as Marlon McCree turned in the dumbest of dumb plays in the history of dumb plays. A week later, though, Reche Caldwell was clobbered in the end zone in Indianapolis, but there was no call. The Patriots settled for a field goal instead of a touchdown; they lost by four.
In '07, in the game that need not be named, Mike Carey could have called a holding penalty on the Giants during the play that need not be remembered, but he didn't. Jarvis Green could have hung on to Eli Manning on the same play, but he didn't. David Tyree could have dropped the ball on the same play, but he didn't. Samuel could have caught the interception that went right through his hands on the play that immediately preceded the Tyree catch, but he didn't.
(OK, sorry, I'll give you a moment to punch the wall.)
Where the Pats had caught breaks and had bounces go their way from 2001-04, their fortunes turned drastically in the years that followed. A pessimist may say that they've turned into chokers, or that they've lost their way, or that Belichick is trying to do too much or that Brady is washed up. A realist might just say that such is the nature of professional sports.
Every team in every league has athletes who are the best in the world. Every team has professional coaches (well, except the Raiders), and every team lifts weights, runs sprints and studies film. The difference between a champion and a cellar-dweller is tiny, but somehow, the Patriots were able to overcome a league that prides itself on parity to win three times in four years. That accomplishment is far more surprising than any events that have transpired since.
And in that short span, Brady and Belichick (and probably owner Robert Kraft, for that matter) were able to cement their places among the greatest of all time — something that typically takes 10-15 years for most to do.
They haven't won since the '04 season, of course, and that hurts. Losing is the worst. There's no way to feel good about it, especially when a team that's 14-2 and has so much promise has its season cut short by an opponent as hated as the Jets. But winning is incredible, and with all that has happened since February 2005, you have to appreciate the Patriots' accomplishments that much more.
As we've all learned firsthand in the past years, we may never see anything like it again.
