An Open Letter To Patriots Fans: Realize You Are Witnessing History Before It’s Too Late

Here we are roughly a week and a half away from Super Bowl LII, and once again for the tenth time in franchise history, and eighth time in the Brady-Belichick era, the Patriots are in the Super Bowl. This may be something we all take for granted considering how dominant the Patriots have been since Tom Brady took over as their starter.

I think we need to take a step back here and realize how amazing this Brady-Belichick dynasty is. In the past 17 seasons the Patriots have won the AFC East 15 times, been to the AFC Championship game 12 times, winning 8 of those, and have posted double digit wins for the past 15 seasons straight. While many Patriots fans, myself included, take this for granted, to put this in perspective in the 40 years before Brady-Belichick this team won the division a grand total of….. 5 times, and was only in the AFC Championship 2 times.

While this team has been consistently good, Brady has proved he’s the greatest QB of all time and Belichick has shown us he is the greatest head coach of all time. Belichick has coached 38 playoff games (most playoff games by a head coach), winning 28 of those (also most playoff wins by a head coach), and he has 5 Super Bowl wins which ties him at first with Lombardi and Halas. He has the third most wins of all time as a head coach only behind Halas and Shula.

If I wanted to I could write another article on Brady’s record alone that’s how many he has, but to sum it up into the most important ones: Brady has the most playoff wins of any QB at 27, he has the most playoff TDs at 68, most AFC Championship appearances (12) and wins (8), and lastly he has the most Super Bowl rings of any QB ever with 5. Oh and by the way he was drafted in the 6th round with the 199th pick in the draft in 2000.

All of those records alone show no justice to the greatness of this dynasty. This kind of greatness would be amazing in any era of the NFL, but the fact that it is happening in the salary cap era is beyond amazing, it’s madness, it’s crazy and it’s just plain silly. The NFL in the salary cap era tries to bring parity to this league, and it has done a good job of it. Eight of the teams in the playoffs this year weren’t in them last year, but the Patriots somehow always find a way to continue their dominance.

This year the Patriots continued their greatness, they lost Julian Edelman in the preseason, and the defense looked absolutely terrible the first month. Many analysts started writing them off very early, yet here we are once again with the Patriots in the Super Bowl. It not only shows how well Brady plays and adapts as a QB, but also this is a huge testament to how well this team is coached by Belichick.

That’s why I say as a Patriots fan, take a step back and look at all the history we have witnessed, take the time to soak all of this in while we can, because this dynasty may possibly be the greatest sports dynasty of all time, and when it’s gone we will all miss it dearly.

Written By: John O’Connell

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