New England Patriots: 3 major reasons why the mighty have fallen

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Tom Brady #12 (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images) /

The New England Patriots have fallen from the pinnacle of success into the downward spiral of irrelevancy among NFL teams. How has that happened?

The Patriots, long at the apex of the AFC East and the AFC generally for that matter, have now fallen into near oblivion. Though the team is still not mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, they likely will be shortly, unless Cam Newton can pull another rabbit out of his hat.

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Unfortunately, the Patriots football operations team has not left him with a hat from which to pull out the pesky hare.

So it is legitimate to ask, how has this colossus of success fallen onto such hard times so quickly since they were competing for a bye week and a good shot at another AFC title game (which didn’t happen obviously) as late as last season? It’s a legitimate question.

And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to ascertain what went wrong. Let’s examine three key reasons for this precipitous fall from grace for the storied franchise (who would’ve thought two decades ago that this franchise would be storied?). There are other reasons, but let’s start here.

New England Patriots: 3 major reasons why the mighty have fallen – No.1: The unceremonious mistreatment, mishandling, and subsequent de facto dumping of the franchise’s all-time best player, Tom Brady.

Brilliant. The loss of Brady had a big impact. So it’s not so brilliant because it’s so obvious. The franchise’s all-time best player was treated poorly. Got ticked off. And a la Arnold Schwarzenegger, said, “hasta la vista, Baby.”

The reasons why Brady left New England after becoming an icon in the region and accumulating unheard-of success (but don’t bet against that QB in Kansas City, Mr. Patrick Mahomes bettering that total of 6 Super Bowl Wins) have been well-documented. No need to over-regurgitate here.

He wasn’t appreciated. Check. He wasn’t acknowledged as the key player. Check. He wasn’t paid for eons as the top player in football. Check. Check. Check.

The fact of the matter is it was clear to anyone paying attention that he was no longer happy playing in New England. (Evidently, he didn’t like living here much either. Go figure.)

Where’s the responsibility lie? That goes to the top and there are only 2 1/2 participants in the top echelon of the New England Patriots’ hierarchy: Robert Kraft, Bill Belichick, and Jonathan Kraft.

These are the key decision-makers in the Patriots’ pecking order. They decided how to treat their all-time franchise player. Their all-time winningest player. Their all-time best player. So how did they decide? Let’s just say, they “chose poorly”.