Past Super Bowl Footage Show Just How Long Brady And Belichick Have Been Dominating NFL
By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- It's widely understood that Bill Belichick and Tom Brady have enjoyed unparalleled, previously unimagined levels of success in the NFL. Most football fans know this.
Yet even still, there are moments and flashes that can come across your screen and really drive this point home.
Take, for instance, the NFL Network's replaying of past Super Bowls involving the Patriots this week. The network decided to air all five of New England's Super Bowl victories this week, and considering it's a quiet week in the sports world, I was able to catch a few minutes of a couple of games.
The first one was Super Bowl XXXVI, played all the way back in February 2002, against the high-flying St. Louis Rams. Watching any part of this game is traveling in a time portal to another era completely. The sport being played barely resembles the one that's played now. That's in part due to the massive shoulder pads often compounded with cowboy collars, but it's also due to the style of game played. The hits that Willie McGinest put on Kurt Warner and the hits that the defensive backfield delivered on Isaac Bruce/Az-Zahir Hakim/Torry Holt would likely get players arrested for assault in today's NFL.
The footage itself looks like it was filmed on a Sony camcorder and then converted to VHS.
Even the field is something of a relic from a bygone era:
Everything about Tom Brady in this game was different. His face barely resembles what he looks like now. His dropback was slow, with massive strides, not entirely dissimilar to the way he looked on his high school highlight tape.
About the only similarity that can be found in February 2002 Brady and January 2019 Brady is the calm composure he showed in the critical moments of a massively important football game.
But, well, that one's obvious, right? We all understand that the 2001 season happened a very long time ago. Duh.
Yet what was really striking this week was catching a glimpse of Super Bowl XLIX against the Seahawks. This game was played just four years ago, but watching some of that game, it felt like it happened at least 10 years in the past.
Consider that these are the 22 players who started for the Patriots that night in Glendale. Players who are still with the team are bolded and italicized.
OFFENSE
Tom Brady, QB
Shane Vereen, RB
Brandon LaFell, WR
Julian Edelman, WR
Rob Gronkowski, TE
Michael Hoomanawanui, TE
Nate Solder, LT
Dan Connolly, LG
Bryan Stork, C
Ryan Wendell, RG
Sebastian Vollmer, RTDEFENSE
Chandler Jones, DE
Rob Ninkovich, DE
Sealver Siliga, DT
Vince Wilfork, DT
Jamie Collins, LB
Dont'a Hightower, LB
Darrelle Revis, CB
Kyle Arrington, CB
Brandon Browner, CB
Devin McCourty, S
Patrick Chung, S
Other players who took a significant number of snaps that night included Danny Amendola, LeGarrette Blount, Alan Branch, Malcolm Butler, Akeem Ayers and Chris Jones -- all of whom are no longer on the Patriots, some of whom are no longer in the NFL.
Not just have the Patriots replaced that entire offensive and defensive line in the years that have passed, but nine of those 22 starters are retired. (One of those nine is in prison.) Another three didn't play a snap at all in the NFL in 2018.
That's 12 out of 22 starters from a championship game played not too long ago who didn't play a single down in the NFL this season.
This was a game that took place long before there was a massive war between Tom Brady and the NFL, as the "DeflateGate" fiasco was only in its infancy. This was a time when critics of the Patriots still shouted that the team had not won a Super Bowl "since Spygate." This was a time when Brady was considered to be lower on the list of all-time greats than not just Joe Montana but also Peyton Manning, Brett Favre, John Elway, and probably more -- depending on who you were asking. There had yet to be an entire international caper surrounding a stolen Brady jersey.
Of course, we know what's happened since then. Brady went 13-for-15 for 124 yards and two touchdowns on his final two drives, and Russell Wilson made a whoopsie on the goal line. The Patriots won.
The Patriots lost the following year's AFC title game in Denver by two points, on a day when the Broncos' defense registered 17 hits on the 38-year-old Brady.
He came back the following year -- albeit after ultimately losing his labor law battle with the commissioner and thus missing the first four games of the season -- to play arguably the best football of his career. He won Super Bowl MVP honors for leading a comeback from a 28-3 deficit over the Falcons, securing his fifth title and fourth Super Bowl MVP.
Last year, Brady beat his own record for most passing yards in a Super Bowl with 505, but a Butler-less Patriots defense allowed 41 points.
And now, as we know, the Patriots are back in football's biggest game. Outside of Brady and Belichick (as well as Ivan Fears, Dante Scarnecchia, and Ernie Adams), there's certainly nobody left from that 2001 game. But there's still been significant turnover from that 2014 team, as well.
Put it all together, and the Patriots are in the midst of a second act that could match the success of the first part of the dynasty. From 2001-04, they reached three Super Bowls in four years, winning all of them. From 2014-18, they've now reached four Super Bowls in five years, and they currently own a 2-1 record, with a chance to make it 3-1 next weekend in Atlanta.
They've become just the fourth franchise to ever reach three straight NFL title games, joining the 1965-67 Packers, 1972-74 Dolphins, and 1990-93 Bills. Eliminating the Packers' pre-Super Bowl title of 1965, those franchises went 4-5 in their Super Bowl appearances.
Meanwhile, just about every single AFC foe has fallen by the wayside during this run. In 2014, the Patriots beat the Ravens and Colts en route to Super Bowl XLIX; those two teams have since gone a combined 1-2 in the playoffs. In 2016, the Patriots beat the Texans and Steelers in the playoffs en route to Super Bowl LI; those two teams have gone a combined 0-2 in the playoffs since. And last year, the Patriots beat the Titans and Jaguars en route to Super Bowl LII; neither team qualified for the playoffs in 2018.
Last year at this time, the Patriots were being picked apart for reported friction behind the scenes -- friction so severe that it reportedly threatened to end the Brady-Belichick partnership immediately. Yet since then, the Patriots have just kept on winning and succeeding at an unprecedented level.
The numbers by now are ridiculous. The Brady-Belichick duo has reached nine Super Bowls since 2001. No other franchise has reached more than eight Super Bowls, ever. The Brady-Belichick duo has more Super Bowl appearances than the Texans, Lions, Browns, Jaguars, Jets, Chargers, Buccaneers, Titans, Cardinals, Saints and Bears franchises have -- combined.
There's been nothing ever quite like it, and there almost certainly won't ever be a repeat.
Again, we know all this. But sometimes there just aren't any words that can get a message across quite like the archived footage that seems to be aging in dog years.
You can email Michael Hurley or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.
