It was the hot debate of the summer: Will the 2017 New England Patriots be better than the 2007 squad that went 16-0?
Then, when the Patriots dropped their season opener to the Kansas City Chiefs in embarrassing fashion, comparisons immediately were drawn to a similarly rough outing they had against the Chiefs early in the 2014 season.
Bill Belichick has had it with all of that talk.
One day after Kansas City blasted New England 42-27 at Gillette Stadium, the Patriots coach urged media members to stop comparing the current Patriots team to previous iterations.
“I think I’ve said it a thousand times: I think we’ve got a lot of work to do,” Belichick said Friday in a conference call with reporters. “I don’t think anything that we did really was good enough. I’m not really interested in living in the past — in 2014, 2015, 2003, 2004 — which constantly keeps coming up. Everything’s about some other year but this year and this team.
“I don’t really think all that’s relevant, because we’re talking about another team. But we get a thousand questions about it every week. I’m really concerned about the 2017 team — what this team is, what this team needs to do. I’m not trying to live in the past like everybody else is.”
Belichick’s comments came after a night that was chock full of nostalgia, as the Patriots honored each of their first four Super Bowl-winning teams in an extravagant ceremony before unveiling their fifth Super Bowl banner.
Thumbnail photo via Stew Milne/USA TODAY Sports Images
