Over the last few months, Patriots.com has started compiling a series of “Top 10 All-Time” lists, a series that has included the Top 10 personnel moves, draft classes, rookies and opponents in the history of the franchise.
Now, as their 50th season looms, the Patriots are asking their fans to put together their own list of the 10 greatest moments in franchise history. The voting began earlier this month and closes on Aug. 1, and the results will be announced starting in October with a series of features on “Patriots All Access” and in the pages of Patriots Football Weekly.
Here’s our Top 10:
10. The 1985 AFC Championship Game. The Patriots hadn’t won in the Orange Bowl since 1966, an 18-game losing skid in their own personal house of horrors. But six Miami turnovers helped New England knock off the Dolphins 31-14 and advance to the first Super Bowl in the history of the franchise. When you consider the emotional impact of the streak, as well as the idea of beating the defending AFC Champions in their own building in a conference title game, it was nothing less than a seismic victory for the Patriots.
9. Selecting Drew Bledsoe over Rick Mirer. He’s goofed on a lot around here for not being Tom Brady, but Bledsoe was the face of the franchise for several seasons, and was just as responsible as Bill Parcells and Robert Kraft when it came to making the franchise relevant in the mid-1990s. His signature game? A 1994 effort where he went 45-for-70 for 426 yards and three touchdowns in an overtime win over Minnesota.
8. Bill Belichick naming Tom Brady the starting quarterback in the fall of 2001. The decision to go with Brady over Bledsoe -- even after the veteran was pronounced ready to go after suffering a collapsed lung -- signified a major change in the culture of the franchise. The message was clear: No matter how much money you make, no matter how well established you may be within the confines of the locker room, you are replaceable.
7. Adam Vinatieri’s game-tying field goal against the Raiders in the 2001 AFC Divisional Game. While he has connected for field goals to win Super Bowls XXXVI and XXXVIII, this is the kick they’ll show over and over again when he goes into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. In a driving snowstorm, Vinatieri successfully booted a 45-yarder with 27 seconds left in regulation that tied the game at 13. Aesthetically, it wasn’t anything to write home about -- a low line drive through the snow that just barely wobbled over the crossbar. But given the overall situation, no kick was bigger, and it closed out Foxboro Stadium in style.
6. Hiring Bill Parcells in 1993. The hiring of Parcells gave a sense of legitimacy to the franchise. The team had just gone through its darkest days -- it had won just nine games the previous three seasons -- and was irrelevant on the NFL landscape. With the arrival of Parcells, things were different. There was suddenly a sincere belief the Patriots could consistently go toe-to-toe with the rest of the NFL
5. Robert Kraft purchasing the Patriots. The turnaround really started when James Busch Orthwein bought the team in 1992 and installed Parcells as the head coach a year later. But Kraft -- a local owner with deep pockets, a first for the franchise -- took the whole thing to another level in 1994 when he purchased the team. Fans responded by purchasing 5,958 season tickets the day after Kraft assumed ownership, a staggering display of faith.
4. Mary Sullivan’s decision to wait on her Cape house. Feels kind of low at No. 4 -- after all, there probably wouldn’t be football in New England if it wasn’t for Billy Sullivan. But after Sullivan convinced his wife to wait on the Cape house he had promised her, he took that dough and put that toward the AFL entrance fee. Fifty years later, the rest is history.
3. The Tuck Rule. When Walt Coleman returned from going under the hood late in the 2001 AFC Divisional Game between the Patriots and Raiders, he made the announcement: “After reviewing the play, the quarterback's arm was going forward…” The crowd drowned out the rest. After years of coming out on the raw end, New England finally got a makeup call. It set the tone for the next decade of good fortune for the franchise.
2. Super Bowl XXXVI. The first of the three championships, it is a watershed moment in the history of the franchise. Until the 2004 World Series, it was the New England sports equivalent of the Kennedy Assassination -- everyone had a story about where they were when Ty Law picked off Kurt Warner, when Brady found David Patten or when Vinatieri connected on the game-winner. Even now, seven-plus years later, a replay of the game is guaranteed to leave you shaking your head in disbelief.
1. Hiring Bill Belichick in 2000. Of course, it took a month of legal wrangling involving the Jets (as well as the surrender of a first-round pick), but the arrival of Belichick was the first move in a four-month process that laid the groundwork for an unparalleled run of success. Shortly after Belichick was hired, Scott Pioli was brought on board as the de facto GM, and a couple of months after that, Tom Brady was drafted. Not a bad few months.
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