Today the Patriots will play their final game of the 2020 NFL season. It’s the first time since 2008 that the Patriots will not appear in the playoffs.
Even in 2008 – the season when Tom Brady lost his season after being injured during the first game – the Patriots were 11-5 with a shot at the playoffs on the final day of the season depending on the results of other games.
They ended the season as the only team in NFL history to win 11 games and not make it to the playoffs.
Remove that bizarre 11-5 season, and the last time the Patriots missed the playoffs was back in 2000.
As a Patriots fan and a season ticket holder, it’s been a good run to say the least. One of the silver linings of this disappointing season has been that I have not been forced to watch the team’s fall from section 337, row 21, seat 5. The pandemic has not allowed Patriots fans to attend games this year, so I have spent my first season in nearly two decades at home, watching on the television.
But here is something else that occurred to me today:
The Patriots will end the 2020 season without a quarterback going into the offseason. Cam Newton, the Patriots quarterback this year, is signed to a one year contract that expires today. Jarrett Stidham, the quarterback that some fan – including me – thought was the heir apparent to Brady, is apparently not.
I have no idea who the Patriots quarterback will be in the 2021 season. The last time that happened?
Not 20 years ago. 28 years ago.
Back in 1993, the Patriots made Drew Bledsoe the first pick in the NFL draft. He started that season, and by the 1994 season, the Patriots were back in the playoffs and Bledsoe was named to the Pro Bowl. He took the Patriots to the Super Bowl in 1996, and just prior to the 2001 season, when a hit by Jets linebacker Mo Lewis nearly killed him, Bledsoe had signed a 10 year contract making him the highest payed player in the NFL.
Even in 2001, Bledsoe came back from his horrific injury and replaced an injured Brady for a playoff game, driving the Patriots to a victory and earning a Super Bowl ring.
Since 1993, the Patriots have essentially had two quarterbacks:
Four-time Pro Bowl quarterback Drew Bledsoe for 7 seasons.
Fourteen-time Pro Bowl quarterback Tom Brady for 20 seasons.
Two franchise quarterbacks – the kind of quarterbacks most teams would love to have playing for them – in 27 years. Well over half my life has been spent watching two quarterbacks play for my favorite team.
Astounding.
And the results:
6 Super Bowl victories. 9 appearances in a Super Bowl. 11 AFC championships. 12 AFC championship game appearances.
We’ve been so lucky.
I’m also old enough to remember the years of Steve Grogan, Tony Eason, Hugh Millen, Marc Wilson, and Doug Flutie.
Grogan and Eason took the team to the Super Bowl in 1985, and Grogan might still be my favorite Patriots player ever, but none of those players were near the caliber as Bledsoe or Brady.
This 2020 season marked the first since 1993 when Bledsoe or Brady weren’t slated to start the season. Instead, we had Cam Newton, who did not play well. Signing late and contracting COVID-19 certainly didn’t help, but Newton did not play well at all during the 2020 campaign.
But Cam Newton was a three time Pro Bowl player and former league MVP just four seasons ago. At least there was hope. He was a player with great potential who had suffered some injuries in pervious seasons but was now healthy. Not to mention second year player Jarrett Stidham in the wings, ready to take over if needed.
Now the cupboard is bare. Cam Newton won’t be resigning with the Patriots in the offseason, and it looks like Stidham is not the player I had thought when I replaced my Brady jersey after 20 years with a Stidham jersey that I have yet to put on.
I count my blessings, but I also acknowledge how uncharted these waters feel for a Patriots fan. After nearly three decades of stability and excellence at the most important position in football, my favorite team finishes the season today with a losing record, an absence from the playoffs, and no starting quarterback for next season.
It’s unsettling. Disappointing. Watching Brady succeed in Tampa Bay, it’s also infuriating.
The last time I felt this much uncertainty about my favorite sports team, I was two years out of high school. George H. W. Bush was President. Apartheid still existed in South Africa. Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was at the top of the Billboard charts.
I’m hoping that like so many things in 2020, this season was an aberration. A fluke. Another unfortunate result in a year of unfortunate results.
I’m ready for a new jersey. After donning my Brady jersey in 2001, I have yet to put on another. It’s looking like the Stidham jersey might remain on its hanger forever, a reminder of what wishful thinking and the loss of hope feels like.
The Patriots need a lot of things in the offseason, but it starts with a quarterback. After nearly three decades of stability at the position, we need to fill that position again.
As I watch the Patriots play the Jets today in what amounts to a meaningless game, I will be thinking about the future and hoping that when I return to Gillette Stadium in the fall of 2021, someone is throwing the ball far, straight, and accurately once again, and for a long, long time.
