Oh Damn, Not Them Again!

So the New England Patriots are in the Super Bowl again. You can either hate the Pats or loath them (or, in the case of those in the New England states, love them), but you gotta give Tom Brady and Bill Belichick their due.

The Patriots are making their 11th Super Bowl appearance overall. They're 5-5 in those games. But for the Brady-Belichick squads, this will mark a ninth Super Bowl. Brady is currently 5-4 in those games. Overall, 6-7 in AFC title games.

The Patriots are one of the "Original Eight" American Football League squads that started up in 1960.

• Patriots -- began as the Boston Patriots
• Buffalo Bills -- beloved by Buffalo and the area, early AFL champions but shut out in four straight Super Bowl trips
• Titans of New York -- now known as the Jets
• Houston Oilers -- became the Tennessee Titans
• Oakland Raiders -- became the Los Angeles Raiders, then back to Oakland. Next stop, Las Vegas
• Los Angeles Chargers -- moved to San Diego after one season, but are back in LA now
• Denver Broncos -- Orange Crush still the pride of the Mile High City
• Dallas Texans -- after a single season sharing a stadium, and fan base, with the Dallas Cowboys (also born in 1960), Lamar Hunt moved the franchise to Kansas City to become the Chiefs

In an era of free agency, player agents and higher salaries, I think Belichick's continued success is amazing. It's a different NFL from the dynasties of the Green Bay Packers of the 1960s or the Pittsburgh Steelers of the '70s. In Vince Lombardi's run, the Packers lost the 1960 title game, then won championships in 1961, '62, '65, '66 and '67. He was 9-1 in the playoffs. Pretty heady stuff, but a different era.

In those years, teams stayed together longer, players were working regular jobs in the off-season, they didn't get into shape until reporting for duty in late summer, agents were pretty much unheard of (I recall center Jim Ringo showing up in Vince Lombardi's office to negotiate his contract, only to have Lombardi leave the room, return and tell both they had to talk with the Philadelphia Eagles -- Lombardi had just traded him).

As far as player conditioning, well I think the iconic photo of Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Lenny Dawson says it all. Taken at halftime of the first Super Bowl, there's Dawson, seated on a metal folding chair, pulling a drag from a cigarette, an open bottle of Fresca between his feet. It's a great photo -- just google Len Dawson in the Super Bowl. Doesn't get much better than that.