With a week left in the Y2K decade, there have been many who wish to ponder which team should stand as the representative of the NFL team of the 2000s.  I honestly don’t feel like writing that article right now, at least not until this season ends.  What I will say now is that unless the Pittsburgh Steelers win this year’s Super Bowl (and call me crazy, but I think they will if they get that Wild Card), no team will have as many Super Bowl wins in this decade as the Patriots’ three (2001, 2003-2004).  Even since then, the Patriots have defined this decade as the team to beat.  QB Tom Brady (6th round draft pick by New England in 2000) and head coach Bill Belichick (hired from New York Jets in 2000) didn’t lose a playoff game until 2005.  The Indianapolis Colts finally won a playoff game against the Patriots in January 2007, and the result was their only Super Bowl win of the decade (so far).  The Patriots started the 2007 season (aka SpyGate season) 18-0 before suffering the biggest upset ever against the New York Giants.  And despite losing Brady in the 2008 season opener to a severe knee injury and missing the playoffs, the Patriots still won 11 games.  This season, it’s been trendy to talk of the decline and rebuilding phase of the New England Patriots.  Call it what you want; all I know is that they’ll have another winning season, perhaps another playoff berth, perhaps another division title.  All of that is a far cry from the New England Patriots in 1999, or B.B. (Before Brady, Before Belichick, Brady-Belichick … take your pick or make a new one.)  And so instead of writing a “Team of the Decade” defense article, because that’s what it would be since the facts speak for themselves, I thought I remind people what the Patriots looked like going into the decade.

The Patriots finished the 1999 NFL season 8-8, but finished last in the AFC Eastern division (not to be confused with the AFC East division).  Pete Carroll went 28-23 in three years as head coach, but the team took a step back every season since losing Super Bowl XXXI to the Green Bay Packers with Bill Parcells as the Patriots’ head coach (and Belichick as the assistant head coach).  The Patriots finished 10-6 in 1997 (winning the AFC Eastern, beating the Miami Dolphins in the Wild Card, and then losing the Divisional to the Pittsburgh Steelers) and 9-7 in 1998 (and going one and done in the playoffs, losing to the Jacksonville Jaguars in the Wild Card).  The 1999 Patriots went into their bye week 6-2, but a 1-6 slide effectively cost Carroll his job as the team finished a game out of the playoffs.

The roster didn’t look too exciting heading into the new decade.  QB Drew Bledsoe just finished his seventh season passing for 3,985 yards, but he only completed 56.6% of his passes and had a 19:21 TD-INT ratio.  WR Terry Glenn stayed healthy and was his best target as he made his only Pro Bowl in 1999, but TE Ben Coates only caught 32 passes and saw his streak of five straight Pro Bowls snapped.  It would be his last season in New England, along with starting WR Shawn Jefferson.  The Patriots were still struggling to replace RB Curtis Martin, who followed Parcells to the division rival New York Jets in 1998.  RB Robert Edwards, a first round pick in 1998 (three picks ahead of WR Randy Moss), suffered a very serious knee injury that put his career in doubt before the 1999 season.  RB Terry Allen ran for 896 yards and eight TDs, but he averaged only 3.5 yards a carry and would not return.  Rookie RB Kevin Faulk averaged only 3.4 yards a carry and wasn’t even the third down back; that would be RB Lamont Warren, who caught 29 passes in his only season in New England.  The offensive line had a terrible season.  Bledsoe was dropped a career high 55 times, and the Patriots averaged only 3.4 yards per rush.  The starting offensive tackles, LT Bruce Armstrong and RT Zefross Moss, were on their last legs in 1999.  Moss would be done playing after the season while Armstrong would play one more year before retiring.  The starting guards, LG Heath Irwin and RG Todd Rucci, would also leave the Patriots after 1999.  C Damien Woody, the team’s first round pick in 1999, was the only building block on the offensive line.

The top 10 ranked defense at least had some intriguing pieces by the end of the 1999 season, but even some of those players had questions going forward with a new coach coming in.  DE Willie McGinest, LBs Tedy Bruschi, Chris Slade, Ted Johnson and Andy Katzenmoyer (a first round pick in 1999), CB Ty Law, and SS Lawyer Milloy all looked like assets on the Patriots defense going forward.  Johnson missed was supposed to start again at middle linebacker, but he missed 11 games with injuries, allowing Katzenmoyer to step in and make some plays.  But Katzenmoyer had what would be a career-ending neck injury.  Bruschi was productive but perhaps out of position as an outside linebacker in a 4-3 defense.  Slade also seemed out of position in the 4-3 defense at strongside linebacker, and while he made the 1997 Pro Bowl with nine sacks, he only had 8.5 sacks in 1998-1999.  Law made the Pro Bowl in 1998 with a league leading nine INTs, but had a career low two INTs in 1999.  McGinest, a 1996 Pro Bowler at DE with 9.5 sacks, stayed healthy and was the team’s best pass rusher in 1999 with 9 sacks.  It represented a bounce back season for him, as he missed 12 games in 1997 and 1998 while only recording 5.5 sacks.  Milloy was the lone defensive Pro Bowler in 1999, as he led the team in INTs and tackles in his fourth season in the NFL.  Besides those players, the Patriots had many questions but few answers.  Defensive linemen Brandon Mitchell and Chad Eaton were excellent against the run but weren’t pass rushers, while DT Henry Thomas was a good interior pass rusher but also 34 years old in 1999 and clearly slowing down with only three sacks.  The secondary had to replace starting CB Steve Israel and FS Chris Carter, and it didn’t appear that 1998 first round pick Tebucky Jones (a college safety) would make a successful transition to cornerback after two nondescript seasons.  The team also had K Adam Vinatieri (pre Super Bowl game winner version), 38 year old punter Lee Johnson, 1997 Pro Bowl special teamer SS Larry Whigham, and PR Troy Brown, who also caught 36 passes in 1999.

So at the beginning of the decade, Bill Belichick had his work cut out for him.  He had a franchise quarterback in Drew Bledsoe who had taken a beating and one threat in Terry Glenn.  There was no running game to speak of, and the offensive line had to be rebuilt.  He had a pass rusher in Willie McGinest, a hitter in Lawyer Milloy, and a ballhawk in Ty Law.  But the roster was thin due to weak drafts from 1997-1999.  Of the 27 players drafted in those three years, only RB Kevin Faulk, C Damien Woody, FS Tebucky Jones, and DE Brandon Mitchell played significant roles on any Bill Belichick-coached team, and in Jones and Mitchell’s cases, “significant” is stretching it.  You can count WR Tony Simmons and TE Rod Rutledge if you want to, but I won’t.  Even the 2000 NFL Draft netted them only one significant starter.  But that one starter turned out to be Tom Brady.  Trust me, nobody in 1999 was thinking about a new quarterback in New England.  And if they were, they were talking about 1999 7th round pick Michael Bishop.

-1SKILLZ