ESPN ranked this Patriots roster as the No. 1 NFL team of past 25 years
"The 2000 Ravens were the only team with a better pythagorean expectation over the regular season and postseason combined."
The Patriots fielded some of the greatest teams in NFL history over the course of their two-decade dynasty.
As such, it should come as little surprise that multiple rosters led by Bill Belichick and Tom Brady made the cut for ESPN’s Bill Barnwell and his ranking of the 25 best NFL teams of the last 25 years.
With six Super Bowls secured by New England since the new millennium, Barnwell had four Patriots teams featured in his top-25 list. But the club that took the No. 1 spot on the list, ironically enough, was one New England squad who didn’t end up lifting the Lombardi Trophy.
Yes, Barnwell’s No. 1 team of the last 25 years was the 2007 Patriots — the stacked group of players that rewrote the record books en route to a 16-0 regular season … only to fall to the Giants in Super Bowl XLII.
“Over a full year, it’s tough to find a team that can realistically compete with the 2007 Pats, even with Super Bowl wins on their résumé,” Barnwell wrote of the ‘07 Patriots. “They were the only one-loss team of the era. They had the largest average margin of victory (17.5 points) by more than a field goal over the next-best team. The 2000 Ravens were the only team with a better Pythagorean expectation over the regular season and postseason combined.
“You remember (or have heard about) the offense, but the defense wasn’t too shabby, either. The Patriots ranked sixth in EPA per play and fourth in points allowed per drive. The defense contributed six touchdowns during the regular season, which seems almost unfair given what the offense was doing on a weekly basis.
“Getting to play from ahead as often as they did obviously made life easier for Mike Vrabel & Co., but even with win probability constraints on their performance and measure what they did when each team had at least a 20 percent chance of winning, New England ranked fourth in third-down conversion rate and QBR allowed.”
Here are all four of the Patriots teams that Barnwell listed in his rankings — with the other three groups all taking home Super Bowl titles at various stages of the franchise’s dynasty.
No. 1: 2007 Patriots, 18-1, lost Super Bowl XLII
No. 3: 2004 Patriots, 17-2, won Super Bowl XXXIX
No. 7: 2003 Patriots, 17-2, won Super Bowl XXXVIII
No. 11: 2016 Patriots, 17-2, won Super Bowl LI
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