Ryan: 17 years removed from 1st Super Bowl title, it’s still impossible to put this Patriots run in perspective

Super Bowl XXXVI might have transpired close to 17 years ago, but the memories remain as vivid as ever — even if I was just an 8-year-old kid, huddled around my grandmother’s TV set.

Like many others located throughout the Commonwealth, New England and across the country, that sequence starting with 1:21 left in regulation has become as ingrained into my psyche as the cacophony of noise that came from my AOL dial-up service (Man, I feel old).

But who can forget it? Three straight dump-off passes to J.R. Redmond. A 23-yard hookup to Troy Brown underneath the Rams’ zone defense. A 6-yard pass to Jermaine Wiggins to cap off the drive. Forty-eight yards out for Adam Vinatieri? Cash.

As Vinatieri split the uprights and put an end to “The Greatest Show on Turf,” I joined in on the chorus of cheers with the rest of my family — many of whom reveled in Boston’s first title since Larry Bird and Co. dispatched the Rockets in 1986.

It was an unforgettable memory in what was just the start of a childhood dictated by parades rolling down Boylston. Still, I’d be lying if I told you that 8-year-old me had a full grasp on what was happening on my TV set back on Feb. 3, 2002.

New England’s triumph in Super Bowl XXXVI  — what many Patriots fans thought would be an inconceivable outcome for a franchise that nearly packed its bags for St. Louis just a decade prior — was a pleasant surprise to me, a naive (and soon to be absurdly spoiled) sports fan growing up in South Boston.

At that point, I was still a Drew Bledsoe supporter— my fandom due in large part to the Bledsoe-branded Nerf footballs you could absolutely hum back in the day. Hey, we all have faults, right?

Fair to say, seeing a 24-year-old Tom Brady hoist the Lombardi Trophy at the Superdome was a sight that was hard to equate to anything I’d seen before in my early years of sports fandom. This wasn’t supposed to happen to us — not a team from Boston, and certainly not the Patriots.

Seventeen years later, we all know how the script plays out. Four more championships — for now. Eight more trips to the Super Bowl. Twelve more appearances in an AFC Championship tilt.

The narrative has shifted just a wee bit since we all saw Brady and Bill Belichick reach the top of the summit back in the winter of 2002, but that doesn’t make this sustained stretch of Patriots dominance any less unbelievable than it already is.



What quickly snagged headlines as a flash-in-the-pan, miracle run in 2001-02 quickly dissipated after another pair of titles over the span of three years — solidifying New England as the latest pillar of NFL royalty in the same vein as the 49ers of the ‘80s, the Steelers of the ‘70s and the Packers of the ‘60s.

By the time New England clipped the Eagles in Super Bowl XXXIX, the landscape of Boston’s sports fandom landscape had already become uprooted.  What was once a rabble of fans echoing “Why Not Us?” at the dawn of a new season quickly became the braggadocious crew it is today — where winning has become the norm and a 1-3 start signals air-raid sirens across the town’s sports-talk stations.

I myself was guilty of the quick-draw reactions and irrational expectations that came from growing up in a such a success-driven sports market — spending most of my senior year of high school signaling doom and gloom when New England parted ways with Randy Moss in October 2010. You know, the same season where the Patriots' offense was ranked as the most efficient in league history by Football Insiders, up to that year.

All things considered, as the wins continued to pile up, it became easier and easier to take this run for granted — as unfathomable as it seemed.

Every dynasty eventually begins to erode — whether it be due to injuries, increased competition or the inevitable decay that comes with time. Celtics fans saw it in the early 90s as Bird was forced to rest his ailing back on the parquet floor during timeouts, while repeated thrashings at the hands of the Oilers in ‘88 and ‘90 was a sobering sight for Bruins fans hoping for a breakthrough with Ray Bourque, Cam Neely and more in tow.

By 2009, the Patriots appeared to have finally reached their crossroads — a dreaded, but seemingly unavoidable destination for a franchise that ruled over the 2000s.

With regular stalwarts like Tedy Bruschi, Rodney Harrison, Mike Vrabel and Richard Seymour either retired or dealt prior to the start of the new campaign, the Patriots "slumped" their way to a 10-6 record and another playoff berth — only to be manhandled by the Ravens at Gillette Stadium, 33-14, in the Wild Card round.

It was a disheartening result for Belichick and a 31-year-old Brady, fresh off of a torn ACL that robbed him of his 2008 season.

But rather than trend downward, the Patriots once again continued to defy conventional wisdom when it comes to charting out the lifespan of a sports dynasty.

Buoyed from the traditional bell curve of success thanks to an influx of young talent, Belichick’s coaching and Brady’s continued defiance of Father Time, New England managed to forge a second sustained title window within its own dynasty — culminating in the Patriots trip to Super LIII on Feb. 3 against Los Angeles, 17 years to the date since their last postseason meeting with the Rams in a game that started it all.

At this point, the numbers are so absurd that it’s easy for Patriots fans to be numb to it all. Once the laughing stock of the NFL, the Patriots have now appeared in more Super Bowls than other franchise in league history. 

Tom Brady has now won more postseason games (29) than any other quarterback has ever PLAYED in (Peyton Manning, 27). The next closest QB in terms of playoff wins? Joe Montana with a casual 16. For all of their success from 2000-09, the 2010-19 Patriots have already managed to beat their own record for wins in a decade with another regular season to go, holding the edge by a margin of 114-112.

No question, we’re in uncharted territory when it comes to sizing up just what kind of run that the Patriots have managed to orchestrate for close to two decades now. Eight-year-old me might not have truly comprehended what went down back in 2002, but few fans back then would ever fathom that New England was set to embark on a dynasty — especially one of this magnitude.

At this point, it’s fair to have your reservations about just how long this train can continue to roll through the NFL. Brady will be 42 years old next season, while Belichick will be 67.

But for now, let’s take a step back and appreciate what we’ve all witnessed every Sunday for the past 17 seasons. We may not be able to fully appreciate this run until this well of success has all but dried up, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t enjoy what already have — as unbelievable as it might be.

Growing up, it’s a rite of passage for the next generation to listen to tales of the legends of the game that came before you — whether it be the chronicles of Ted Williams’ .406 campaign in 1941 or the jolt that filled Boston Garden when Bobby Orr went end-to-end down the sheet of ice.

Those secondhand stories have always stayed with me — a sentiment that many other young fans certainly can attest to.

Little did eight-year-old me know, 17 years ago, that a miraculous run in New Orleans would set the stage for us to eventually tell our own stories down the road — of growing up in an era where we saw the greatest quarterback and NFL coach of all time lead the Patriots into a dynasty never seen before in modern sports.

Now that — that truly is unbelievable.