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How this year’s Patriots compare with the 2001 Super Bowl champions that began a dynasty
That 2001 Patriots team also launched a golden age in Boston sports.
I’ve long believed that in my three decades of writing about Boston sports — and in my entire life, really — there are two teams/seasons so magical that they can never be equaled, let alone surpassed.
The first, obviously I hope, is the 2004 Red Sox. Their comeback from a 3-0 deficit against the Yankees, an October after the soul-crushing 2003 ALCS defeat, en route to winning their first World Series in 86 years, wasn’t just a once in a lifetime thing. It was a once-in-a-many-lifetimes thing, a triumph generations of Red Sox fans had pined for amid heartbreaks, a triumph delivered in the most cathartic, ghost-exorcising way imaginable by a team stacked with charismatic personalities.
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That can never happen that way ever again.
The other is the 2001 Patriots. They had won five games the year before, started 0-2, and franchise quarterback Drew Bledsoe suffered a frightening injury in a Week 2 loss to the Jets. Things looked grim under former Browns coach Bill Belichick, who seemed on his way to joining the Not All Excellent Coordinators Are Meant To Be Head Coaches club.
Well, things were not grim, friends. The offense gelled around uncommonly poised second-year quarterback Tom Brady. The defense — already stacked with future linchpins of the dynasty — was collectively smart and relentless. After a 5-5 start that included an emboldening Week 10 loss to the Greatest Show on Turf St. Louis Rams, the Patriots did not lose again.
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They won their final nine games right through the Super Bowl XXXVI rematch with the comically cocky Rams while introducing us along the way to the Tuck Rule, giving us a Bledsoe redemption, making John Madden devour his skeptical words like some leftover turducken, and revealing that Adam Vinatieri was Mr. Clutch whether on a snowy evening in Foxborough or on the Superdome turf in New Orleans. (Put that guy in the Hall of Fame already.)
That Patriots team also launched a dynasty and a golden age in Boston sports. I thought we’d never see anything like it again.
But in certain ways, unignorable ways, we are seeing it again right now. There are multiple parallels, connections, and coincidences between those ’01 champs and what we are witnessing in real time with the 2025 Patriots, who have won 10 in a row heading into Sunday’s matchup with the Bills.
If you were around for the magic in ’01, I know you see it too, especially in the way they were built and how they play.
After the dismal 2000 season, Belichick pared some veterans from the roster, including linebacker Chris Slade, while bringing in more than 20 veteran free-agents, the vast majority of whom became important contributors.
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One of those veteran free-agents was linebacker Mike Vrabel, whose pressure on Rams quarterback Kurt Warner in the Super Bowl forced a rushed throw that Ty Law picked off and returned for a touchdown and a 7-0 lead, the official “Wait, they might just do this!” moment of the game.
Vrabel, in his first year as Patriots coach, followed that ’01 Patriots model, moving on from several veterans (David Andrews and Jabrill Peppers among them) and bringing in a fleet of veteran free agents that have become important contributors and culture builders.
Defensive tackle Milton Williams was the pricey free-agent signing. He’s injured right now, but his impact on the Patriots’ defense was similar to the one rookie first-round pick Richard Seymour made in ’01.
This year’s first-round pick, left tackle Will Campbell, is also hurt at the moment, but his rookie season has been stable and steady, similar to what rookie second-rounder Matt Light did at the same position in ’01.
Other player parallels are easy to find. Rhamondre Stevenson and TreVeyon Henderson can give the Patriots what unheralded Antowain Smith and J.R. Redmond did in the ’01 playoffs. Veteran receiver Stefon Diggs is a hybrid of Troy Brown (Mr. Dependable in all third-down-and-gotta-have-it situations) and what Terry Glenn might have done had he been on good behavior in ’01. He leads a receiver corps that doesn’t have much star power, but has proven reliable and multiskilled as a whole, with Kayshon Boutte becoming especially reliable in the David Patten role.
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Who else? Christian Gonzalez has the talent and toughness to be the type of big-game, big-play cornerback that got Law to Canton. Christian Elliss — whose vicious hit on Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart last Monday was reminiscent of the tone-setting shot Bryan Cox put on the Colts’ Jerome Pathon in ’01 — is one of several Patriots who are becoming the best versions of themselves under this coaching staff.
As for the quarterbacks, the parallels are subtler. Drake Maye, who went No. 3 in the ’24 draft and clearly should have gone two picks higher, had a greater pedigree and more raw talent entering the league than Brady, who as you may have heard was pick No. 199 in ’00 despite a fine career at high-profile Michigan.
But they do have more in common than jarringly similar hairlines as early 20-somethings, including an uncanny knack for quickly fixing perceived flaws, through smarts, instinct, and work ethic. Brady’s greatest strength as a young quarterback was his unflappability, as best evidenced by coolly power-dribbling the ball to himself on a spike on the drive that set up Vinatieri’s winning kick in Super Bowl XXXVI.
Now, there is a long way to go and a variety of barriers in the way in the Patriots’ quest to get back to the Super Bowl for the first time since 2018. We’re not counting playoff wins, let alone championships, before they’ve hatched.
So let’s just say that if the Patriots do get there — perhaps against the Rams again? — I can easily imagine Maye playing with similar tranquility among the pressure and chaos.
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A calm and cool quarterback with a brilliant coach and a supporting cast of players that have mastered their particular roles?
Sounds like ’01 to me. Of course, a well-timed snowstorm along the way wouldn’t hurt the comparison either. Better be ready, Borregales.
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