Dynasts...

The house was empty, save an array of pillows and blankets and assorted boxes.  And a Television.

February 3, 2008...

The move had been quick and relatively painless, as five of my kids had lent a hand.  We had one load left before being all the way moved out, but it would have to wait.

This early February evening arrived with great anticipation, with such hope and promise.  Our new home had yet to have cable strung through it and the cable was still on in the old apartment, so we left the pillows and the TV and all of us hunkered down for what was sure to be another great New England Patriot victory, the crowing achievement of the greatest season a team had ever seen in the history of the NFL.

Three brutal hours later we sat in stunned disbelief after the New York Giants and their Street Thug Defense, with a timely assist from a creature named David Tyree, ended the Patriots' dream of being the Undefeated World Champions by scoring one of the greatest upsets in the history of the Super Bowl...

But the Patriots' dreams of perfection weren't the only thing that ended sourly that evening.  New England's Dynasty, which had begun exactly 6 years earlier with a similar upset of the St. Louis Rams, came crashing to the turf, leaving the NFL in a state of flux with no single dominant team to challenge for the Dynastic title.

Not that the Patriots suddenly became a bad team, as an overall 48-16 record over the ensuing 4 years will attest.  Attrition, suspect signings and Bernard Pollard all contributed to the Patriots returning to the pack, where teams such as Baltimore, Pittsburgh and the hated New York Jets were waiting like like pirhannas, poised to take bites out the New England aura...

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Fast Forward:  February 5, 2012.  Another Super Bowl, and another heart-breaking Patriot loss to those New York Giants.  The game was similar in many ways to the 2007 debacle except for one major difference.  The 2007 Patriots, despite their glowing 18-0 record going into the big game, was a one-trick pony - Brady to Moss - with the veterans of their previous Super Bowl victories slowing with age, while the 2011 team was a young squad that managed to reach the Super Bowl despite having a defense brutalized by injury and held together by brilliant coaching and undrafted Rookie Free Agents. This was a team on the verge of starting a new Dynasty.

Every decade has seen a dynasty, and all ended badly with the overthrown regime hitting rock bottom and never really rebounding or threatening to return to power.  Sure, some of those teams - most notably San Francisco and Pittsburgh - have risen from the ashes to claim a title here or there, but none have strung together another run which could be considered dynastic...not until now.

At the beginning of the new millenium, no one saw the Patriots coming.  A new owner and a new head coach quietly assembled a collection of role players that first shocked the unsuspecting Rams' squad, then proceeded to brutalize the AFC over the next 7 years, making players like Tom Brady, Tedy Bruschi and Vince Wilfork into stars - but remaining with their core philosophy that high character role players was what keeps teams on top.

Now, the Patriots are one of the youngest teams in the NFL, reloading with tenured young castoffs, free agents and deft draft picks.  The best news for Patriots' fans is that last season's 13-3 mark and resultant run to the Super Bowl was mostly a matter of a brilliant staff coaching up these young castoffs, constantly putting them in a position to succeed and, more than that, giving these rookie free-agents valuable real-time playing experience, which will pay huge dividends from this point forward.

The Patriots do things right.  Eleven years after assuming control of the NFL and despite heartbreaking losses in battles with the leagues also-rans, the New England Patriots are clear cut dynasts - you can see it coming this time, and there isn't thing one that the rest of the league can do about it...

...that is, unless Bernard Pollard has a shot at one of their player's legs...