PATRIOTS: Still here after a strange year

The journey may have been both lengthy and improbable, but the Pats reign over the NFL for the sixth time during the Bill Belichick-Tom Brady era.

FOXBORO – What a long, strange trip it was.

Hit the rewind button.

Turn the 2018 season back to mid-March of last year and an offseason when the exit door at Gillette Stadium became an exit ramp as, in alphabetical order, wide receiver Danny Amendola, cornerback Malcolm Butler, running back Dion Lewis and offensive left tackle Nate Solder all set personal bests in the 40 when they sprinted out of Foxboro at the outset of free agency.

Over the course of the spring, not only did Tom Brady, the ultimate workout warrior, keep his distance from the Patriots’ voluntary conditioning program he skipped organized team activities as well, as rumors swirled that after nearly two decades with Bill Belichick the New England honeymoon between the quarterback and the coach that had produced five Super Bowl championships was in need of some serious counseling.

Rob Gronkowski, a free spirit off the field who’d earned five Pro Bowl berths on it, was also MIA at the voluntary conditioning program and OTAs, the tight end turning the offseason into a circus sideshow (even by his standards), pondering retirement while the team considered trading him away.

Acquired from New Orleans the previous year, wide receiver Brandin Cooks, whose 65 receptions for 1,082 yards and seven touchdowns all had ranked second on the team in 2017 to Gronkowski’s numbers (69 for 1,084 yards and eight TDs), was one and done in New England, dealt to the Los Angeles Rams as he headed toward the contract year in his rookie deal and the promise of another tax bracket the Patriots had no intentions of putting him in.

Then in June, with the start of training camp beginning to come into view, the team learned that after missing the entire 2017 season with a torn anterior cruciate ligament, its best receiver, Julian Edelman, would miss a quarter of the 2018 campaign for violating the NFL policy on performance-enhancing substances.

A 27-20 season-opening victory over a solid Houston team at home was exhilarating, but losses at Jacksonville and Detroit by a combined score of 57-30 were embarrassing and left the team at 1-2 with a 3-0 Miami team coming to town.

The power in the AFC East, many said, was shifting.

After 15 division titles (including nine straight) and five Super Bowl championships dating to 2001, the dynasty, they said, was dead.

A sixth Super Bowl championship, it seemed, was a football fantasy in Foxboro.

Then life, the team restoring order by winning six straight games beginning with a 38-7 beatdown of the still-overmatched Dolphins in Foxboro while it acquired wide receiver Josh Gordon, an unquestioned talent but one who brought with him a troubled past from Cleveland.

And then the dynasty died for the second time.

Three losses in five games, including two in December, one in jaw-dropping fashion when the Dolphins successfully executed a 69-yard hook-and-ladder on the game’s final play to walk away with a 34-33 win, the other at Pittsburgh when the offense was uncharacteristically flustered in a 17-10 setback, brought the team’s loss total to five, all on the road.

Days later, a bad situation turned worse when Gordon, whose720 yards in receptions led the team at that time, was suspended indefinitely by the NFL for violating the terms of his conditional reinstatement under the league’s drug policy.

Who knew then that the Patriots were saving their best for last?

Double-digit wins over Buffalo (24-12) and New York 38-3) wrapped up an unbeaten regular season at home and allowed the team to come away with the second seed in the AFC playoffs, but those were taken for what they were – wins over the Bills and Jets, the Patriots’ divisional pinatas.

There were no “yeah, buts” attached to an impressive 41-28 win over Los Angeles Chargers, a worthy playoff foe whose regular-season record (12-4) was superior to the Patriots (11-5) but one that had to settle for the conference’s fifth seed due to its second-place finish (and wild-card berth) behind KC out West.

A trip to Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium for the AFC Championship game followed, a roller-coaster ride unto itself that saw the Patriots hold the league’s most prolific offense scoreless in the first half prior to getting torched for 31 points in the second, with the two teams combining to score 38 in the fourth quarter alone. Rebounding after allowing the Chiefs to cover 48 yards in 31 seconds for a game-tying field goal with eight seconds left in regulation, the Patriots took the overtime kickoff and marched 75 yards in 13 plays for a 2-yard touchdown run by Rex Burkhead that allowed them to walk off with a 37-31 win.

With that, they were on to Atlanta for Super Bowl LIII with the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday night, the final improbable chapter in a season filled with them. The pregame hype centered on an old hand (the 41-year-old Brady) facing a young gun (24-year-old Jared Goff), but on this night the sharpest quarterback in the stadium was working for CBS (analyst Tony Romo). With the two QBs on the field struggling to complete 40-of-73 passes between them for 491 yards and no touchdowns with two interceptions for a combined passer rating of 64.4, the Rams and Pats – the league’s second- and fourth-most potent offenses during the regular season – combined to produce a 13-3 tug-of-war, the lowest-scoring game in the 53 years the Super Bowl has been played.

It’s all history now, but nearly 11 months after that mass exodus of free agents on Route 1, more than six months since the Patriots reported to Foxboro for the start of training camp and following a season in which their epitaph was written on more than one occasion, the rest of the NFL got the message.

They’re still here.