The Patriots aren’t just facing the Tennessee Titans Saturday night at Gillette Stadium in the foreign-to-Foxborough AFC wild-card round. They’re also confronting another opponent that threatens their NFL empire, one that always prevails eventually — time. With the Patriots, the past always looms as a comparison point, the present is equivocal, and the future is not promised.
Win or lose, there is a possibility this could be the last time we see the dynastic duo of Tom Brady and Bill Belichick share a sideline at Gillette. Brady, whose contract automatically voids on the last day of the 2019 NFL league year, March 18, isn’t the only one who could be bidding the Foxborough Faithful farewell. The Patriots could be ushering in an era of change if they aren’t able to do something they have never done under Belichick and Brady — advance to the Super Bowl from the first weekend of playoff play. This could be the last hurrah for the Patriots as we know them.
Predictions and premonitions about the demise of the Patriots dynasty have been a cottage industry for the last decade, but this time it feels different, more plausible, more tangible. The page could be turned. It will start a new chapter, one possibly without Brady and some other familiar faces.
By virtue of their stunning home loss to the Miami Dolphins in the regular-season finale last Sunday, the AFC’s number three-seed Patriots aren’t beneficiaries of a first-round bye for the first time since 2009 as they pursue capturing the 7 pounds of sterling silver that serve as football’s Holy Grail, the Lombardi Trophy, for a seventh time. After Saturday, they’re not guaranteed another home game in the playoffs. Win and they’re guaranteed a trip to Kansas City Jan. 12. Thus, there is an air of finality to the proceedings at Patriot Place. The start of their playoff run feels like the end of an era, one way or another.
No matter what happens Saturday or beyond in the playoffs, the Patriots won’t have the same constitution next season. That’s the nature of the NFL, and the nature of an aging team. Winning never gets old for Brady and Belichick, seeking a 10th Super Bowl appearance in their 20 seasons together, but the team around them has.
According to the NFL, the Patriots had the highest average age in the league on their opening day roster (27.23 years) and the highest average experience level (5.3 years). The league average age for team rosters was 26 years old with an average of 4.1 years of experience. Led by the 42-year-old Brady, the Patriots kickoff weekend roster had 13 players over the age of 30, according to the NFL.
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Tom Brady revealed little regarding his future plans at his news conference Thursday.
That was the second-most in the league, trailing only the Atlanta Falcons (14). The Falcons dealt one of their 30-plus players to the Patriots during the season, wide receiver Mohamed Sanu. The 30-year-old Sanu was acquired in October for a second-round pick to reinforce a weak wide receiving corps that has held Brady back all season.
While Brady is the most prominent principal who could be moving on, the team has plenty of notable free agents with uncertain futures. Venerable safety Devin McCourty and special teams captain Matthew Slater are both in the final year of their contracts. Boogeymen linebackers Jamie Collins and Kyle Van Noy are poised to cash in on their key roles in the league’s stingiest defense. Second team All-Pro left guard Joe Thuney is primed for a payday.
But the most notable non-Brady departures could be from Belichick’s brain trust. It’s a race for the exits in Fort Foxborough. It’s a matter of when, not if, offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels becomes a head coach again. The prodigal play-caller departed the Patriots after the 2008 season and flamed out in Denver in a polarizing head coaching stint. But after he flirted with numerous opportunities and left the Indianapolis Colts at the altar in 2018 after agreeing to take their job, it feels like a fait accompli that McDaniels departs this time.
The Cleveland Browns, Carolina Panthers, and New York Giants have all expressed interest in McDaniels, who is eligible to do interviews next week. (In addition to McDaniels, the Giants have also expressed interest in Patriots special teams/wide receivers coach Joe Judge.)
Nick Caserio tried to depart in the offseason for the GM job in Houston, reuniting with his friend, former Patriots offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien. The Patriots blocked him, essentially sending a cease-and-desist order to the Texans via tampering charges. It was the second straight offseason Houston courted Caserio, the Patriots director of player personnel since 2008. Caserio’s contract is up after the 2020 NFL Draft; he can go wherever he wishes.
This is the backdrop for Saturday night’s game against a formidable foe in Tennessee. The 9-7 Titans are a tough, physical team that, thanks to head coach Mike Vrabel and other ex-Pats such as Logan Ryan, won’t be intimidated or mesmerized by the Patriots’ aura. They’ll see the Patriots for what they really are, not what they’ve been.
The Titans aren’t playoff pushovers. They’re a big-play team that posted the best red zone touchdown percentage in the NFL since 1991 (75.6 percent), bad news for a Patriots team without much margin for error offensively. Older Patriots fans might get some Earl Campbell flashbacks watching behemoth back Derrick Henry, the NFL’s rushing leader this season, barrel through and burst by defenders for the erstwhile Oilers.
Younger fans might experience flashbacks to the Baltimore Ravens running right through the Patriots the last time New England played in the wild-card round, 10 years ago.
It would be poetic in some ways if the Patriots lost Saturday night in a winter storm to the Titans and Vrabel. Few players typified the ethos of this undying dynasty better than the cerebral, sardonic, versatile, and unselfish Vrabel. The former Patriots linebacker was part of a dominant defense while moonlighting as a touchdown-catching tight end.
Vrabel was there for the start of it all. Eighteen years later, his Titans can close the door.
That feels unlikely. It’s hard to fathom that this era of unprecedented success comes to an ignominous end at the hands of Titans quarterback Ryan Tannehill, the ultimate QB tease.
The Patriots are destined to change, but some NFL truths are everlasting. Tannehill, who is making his first career playoff, has never won at Gillette (0-6). He enters the game with an apropos 49-49 career record as a starter. It’s time for him to turn back into a pumpkin after leading the NFL in passer rating this season (117.5).
The Patriots’ season and our era of football good feelings won’t end Saturday. But history says it’s unlikely to end with another Super Bowl crown. The last six Super Bowls have all featured participants who were the beneficiaries of a first-round bye.
The closest the Brady-Belichick Patriots have come to making the Super Bowl without being bye beneficiaries was 2006, a season in which they also were 12-4 and left Brady bereft of weapons at wide receiver. A gassed Patriots team blew a 21-3 lead to the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC Championship game in Indy, one of the more painful playoff losses of the Brady-Belichick canon.
Now, the Patriots carry an air of vulnerability and finality into this playoff run. No matter where and how it ends, it feels like the last ride of this Patriots dynasty.
Christopher L. Gasper is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at cgasper@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @cgasper.
Related Slideshow: Insiders predict NFL wild-card game winners (provided by Stacker)
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