Patriots' Dynasty Coming Back to Pack

In the NFL, dynasties usually don't crash, they just slide into mediocrity. That may be what we're watching with New England right now.

Unless, of course, Bill Belichick really is smarter than everyone else in football combined.

It wasn't that New England lost in Miami 22-21 on Sunday, because it still leaves them at 7-5, a game up on the Dolphins and Jets in the AFC East. They'll still probably win the division after improbably missing the playoffs last season despite an 11-5 record with Matt Cassel filling in at quarterback for an injured Tom Brady.

But the Patriots' chances of going very far in the AFC if they do make the postseason are minimal. Because if they win their division, they'll get one home game and if they win that, they'll have to go on the road where they are 0-5 -- assuming you don't count their nominal "home'' win in London over Tampa Bay, where they were designated the "visitor.''
Yes, they were two yards away from handing Indy what would have been its only loss in Indy. But Belichick's gamble to go for a first down on fourth-and-2 in that game demonstrates what they really are: a team in transition, especially on a defense that Belichick didn't trust to keep Peyton Manning out of the end zone from 70 or so yards away and less than two minutes left.

If the Patriots were a normal team, not one that has won three Super Bowls this decade and went 18-0 two years ago before losing in the title game, you'd expect days like this.

"We certainly had our opportunities today and we didn't make them,'' said Brady, who was rumored to be suffering from a hand injury that had the betting line fluctuating wildly before the game. "We're just not closing the game out when we have an opportunity."

Brady's hand didn't seem to be bothering him in any visible way. He was 19 of 29 for 352 yards. But he threw two interceptions, one in the end zone, when his fade to Randy Moss came up short, something that almost never happens. Then he threw another as he was hit on New England's final possession while the Patriots were trying to get into position for a game-winning field goal.

That's the thing about dynasties and superstars -- we expect too much of them.

Eli Manning, for example, threw an interception worse than Brady's to Moss. But the Giants beat the Cowboys anyway, and he was throwing to the inexperienced Mario Manningham, not to one of the game's best receivers. And Manning's teammate, the ultra-reliable Steve Smith, who no longer is "the other Steve Smith''' because Joe Buck and Troy Aikman said so during the telecast, dropped an easy TD pass.

But the Giants aren't a dynasty, the Giants are only a generally good team that won one title this decade, and Eli is a quarterback who fans (unjustifiably) love to spend their time bashing.

It really is an expectations game.

Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh, for example, lost 27-24 to Oakland Sunday, and people are noting that they are just 6-6 and blame the absence for most of the year of Troy Polamalu, one of the true defensive impact players in the NFL. But the Steelers haven't had the "dynasty'' tag since the 1970s, when they won four titles in six seasons. Yes, they've won two in the last four years -- 2005 and 2008 -- but they haven't had the consistency, slipping to 8-8 after winning as a wild-card entry the first time. So nobody expects as much.

But we really should have known about the Patriots. As they kept winning in 2007, you had to notice that Rodney Harrison and Mike Vrabel and Teddy Bruschi, three of their defensive stars, were well into their 30s. You had to notice that Richard Seymour, their best defensive lineman, was playing hurt much of the time. But Belichick had been so good at plugging in other guys since their run started in 2001, you didn't notice.

This year, he traded Seymour, and then he didn't plug as well -- Adalius Thomas, a major free-agent acquisition in '07, has been such a disappointment at times that he was inactive for one game this season. And drafts haven't produced the gems they used to. Yes, they have some good young players like Jerod Mayo, the new leader of their defense. But one who emerged this year, offensive tackle Sebastian Vollmer, has been hurt and the aging offensive line has missed him.

With Belichick in charge, the Patriots are not going away the way the 49ers did after winning five titles between 1981-94. When they fell, they fell hard, something that won't happen as long as the Kraft family owns the team -- unlike the 49ers, who changed hands, the Krafts will find someone almost as capable when B.B. hangs it up.

They may not even be like the Steelers after their run ended -- in Chuck Noll's last 12 seasons as coach after the final title, he was 91-89 in the regular season, almost perfect mediocrity.

But it looks like New England now will be just an ordinary good team -- a contender most years like the Steelers or Giants or Colts, the teams that have won Super Bowls the last three years. But no longer the team that everyone fears.