Wasif's World

Patriots fans are worried. As well they should be. Is this the end of their magical run of greatness? The team that dominated the decade, the team that set all sorts of records, the team that set a new bar of perfection in a season over which other teams must now jump has suddenly become (gasp!) mortal.

Unthinkable as it may have once been, it’s now a reality. I mean, we’re talking about a team that put itself in the same conversation with the Steelers of the 1970s and the Walsh/Montana, Seifert/Young 49ers.

New England won three championships, but was essentially four minutes away from five in seven years. If Reche Caldwell (he of the googly eyes) catches the wide-open, coverage-breakdown pass and runs into the end zone versus the Colts in the 2007 AFC Championship game, New England more than likely goes on to beat Chicago in the Super Bowl. And, of course, there were the events of one year later, during their undefeated season, when they lost the Super Bowl on a miraculous catch from David Tyree. (I mean, seriously, who catches a ball against his helmet?)

Then Touchdown Tom Brady gets hurt, the potent offense grows somehow stagnant, they sputter into the playoffs with all sorts of things wrong with them, and here we are; they’ve gone from perennial Super Bowl favorite to once-was, apparently with no more bullets in the chamber. It’s the classic depiction of the rise and fall of a dynasty.

Rome went the same way. Remember when Caesar’s offensive linemen gathered around him and stabbed him, right there at midfield, as he was about to hand off to Augustus, their scat back? “Et tu, Hog Hannah,” he uttered.

However, there’s reason to believe it may not be the end at all, but rather a hiccup in the finely-oiled machine that is the New England Patriots.

Patterns in sports are not too uncommon, as they are for imperial kingdoms as well. The Patriots, for instance, were a 14-point underdog to the purely powerful and potent “Greatest Show on Turf” one winter’s day back in 2002. They eked out a three-point win. Flash ahead six years and the Patriots

possessed a record-setting offense that was favored by 14 points. The Giants won by 3.

This is just one example of the repetitive plot lines that permeate sports. The mystery, however, is which pattern a team will follow, and that is what keeps gamblers and prognosticators on edge. To wit, I present to you, the New York Yankees. (Pardon the smell.)

Take a look at the larger picture and you may find that this certain baseball team from the Bronx serves as a remarkably similar model for Patriots fans to observe.

Picture it – the Bronx, mid 1990s; a core group of youngsters hit the scene and win multiple championships out of the gate.

And they were poised to win more. Jeter, Posada, Pettitte and Rivera had many years left in them. They were in the World Series for the fifth time in six years, in 2001. They lost in seven games, with their once perfect superstar, Rivera, blowing the save. The loss shocked the once infallible Empire.

Then came another losing trip to the World Series in 2003, and their monumental collapse to Boston in 2004. Their fans didn’t know what to make of this. That year, Buster Olney declared they were dead in his book, “The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty.”

Sure, they kept winning games, enough to make the playoffs, but they couldn’t seal the deal as they had once done without difficulty. These Yankees weren’t the same.

But as we all know, the Yankees were not done. They were merely reloading.

The Patriots are that team now. Brady, the quarterback, and Belichick, the coach, the two most important cogs of a football squad, are still in place. But they’re struggling. It is the darkest night of their dynasty, as New York's baseball boys faced in the middle of the decade.

In baseball, free agency played a key role in putting the Yankees back over the top. They spent and spent and spent, and their investments came to fruition. It helped that they still had their core, though.

In football, the draft is the tool team executives and head coaches look to in order to replenish their gridiron warriors. And the Patriots have more premium draft chips over the next two years than any other team does. So don’t count them out.

With the addition of some studs during one whirlwind offseason to the solid foundation already in place, the team might be back on top like Navin Johnson at the end of “the Jerk.” Couple their potential draft coup with an uncapped season and you may be looking at the remake of “A Yankee Tale.”

Now, I know you’re all reacting emotionally right now – they’ve lost too many key ingredients; the league’s built on parity; Belichick’s grown too arrogant – but you don’t know the future. And neither do I (save for that one recurring vision I have of never getting a shot with Rachel McAdams). I’m just saying that a Patriots Rebirth is possible.

It looks dark now – and represents a wonderful opportunity for the Buster Olneys of the world (is there more than one?) to craft some very poignant prose about the summation of the Patriots path – but perhaps such fare is premature. Care to put money down on it, Augustus?