What America was like in 2001, when Patriots' dynasty began

Mike DeCourcy

What America was like in 2001, when Patriots' dynasty began image

If it seems like the Patriots dynasty has been with us forever, it's only because it has.

Seriously. This all began in the 2001 NFL season and has persisted through three presidents, eight "Fast and the Furious" films and 27 different Browns quarterbacks.

There are two obvious threads — head coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady — that tie the current New England squad to the one that struggled through much of 2001 and ultimately found itself in the season's final weeks before upsetting the Raiders, Steelers and Rams to win the first of what would become five Lombardi trophies, with a sixth possible Sunday in Super Bowl 53.

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In that 2001 season, Brady took over for starting quarterback Drew Bledsoe after he was seriously injured on a hard hit late in the season's second week. The Patriots did not catch fire until late in the season, when they closed with six consecutive victories and carried that winning streak through the playoffs.

Belichick had enjoyed only one winning season to that point in his career, but he since has reached double-figure victories in every season but one. Since 2001, the Patriots have compiled a 220-68 record, a .764 winning percentage.

It has been so long since the Patriots were not these Patriots that it’s easy to forget what America was like in 2001, what has changed about the culture — and what has not — in the many years since.

So let us take you back a bit to see what it was like when no one really knew the name Tom Brady:
 
— The Atlantic Coast Conference had nine members: Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Maryland, N.C. State, North Carolina, Virginia and Wake Forest. They staged their 2001 ACC Championship at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, highlighted by an 84-82 semifinal thriller won by Duke on a late tip-in by senior wing Nate James. Three years later, the ACC would expand to 12 members with the addition of Boston College, Miami and Virginia Tech.

— Virginia Tech quarterback Michael Vick became the first player chosen in the NFL Draft, by the Atlanta Falcons. He played 13 seasons in the league, a career interrupted by an 18-month stint in federal prison after he pleaded guilty in 2007 to a dogfighting conspiracy charge. He missed the 2007 and 2008 seasons and returned in 2009. Like every other member of the 2001 NFL Draft first round, he is retired from professional football. The player chosen fifth overall, LaDainian Tomlinson, was inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2017.

— Zion Williamson celebrated his first birthday three weeks before the Patriots staged the first public practice of their training camp at Bryant College — now Bryant University — in Rhode Island.

— Landon Donovan made his first appearance for the United States in a World Cup qualifier on Sept. 1, in a 3-2 loss to Honduras that broke a 19-game home winning streak in CONCACAF qualifying. He became, at 19, the youngest American to appear in a qualifying game in nearly two decades and went on to earn 157 caps for the U.S. and set the team's goal-scoring record with 57. He appeared in three World Cups and played his final international match for the U.S. in October 2014.

— Kicker Adam Vinatieri began his sixth season in the league with two extra points and a 39-yard field goal in a 23-17 loss to the Bengals. He would finish the regular season 24-of-30 on field goals and convert game-winners in the snow against Oakland in the AFC playoffs and indoors in the Superdome against the Rams to win Super Bowl 36. Vinatieri recently signed a one-year contract to kick for the Colts in a 24th NFL season, during which he will turn 47.

— "Pardon The Interruption" began as a regular daily series on ESPN, with Washington Post columnists Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser debating the day's developments in sports in a rapid-fire fashion with the "rundown" of topics to be discussed displayed on the right side of the screen. The first "PTI" episode aired Oct. 22, the day after the Patriots thrashed the Colts, 38-21, with Brady throwing for 202 yards and three touchdowns on the road ... and Peyton Manning being sacked four times.

— Lin-Manuel Miranda was a senior at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, writing and directing college musicals. He had already written and presented the first version of "In The Heights," of which the final version would win the Tony Award for Best Musical in 2008.

— The band Lifehouse released "Hanging by a Moment," which became the No. 1 song of the year. It was from the group's debut album, and it oddly was the top single of the year more for its endurance than its sizzling popularity. It never reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, but it charted for more than a year and stayed in the top 10 for 20 weeks.

— McDonald’s became the majority investor in Chipotle Mexican Grill, which had begun with a single restaurant in Colorado eight years earlier. There were 175 locations, including new markets such as Baltimore, Los Angeles and San Francisco. The company chose to drop "Mexican Grill" from its storefronts, although it remained a part of the official business name. There now are more than 2,400 Chipotle locations.

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— "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" was released in November, around the time the Patriots reached .500 at 4-4. The first in what would become a seven-film series, "Harry Potter" grossed nearly $1 billion, making it the most popular movie of the year. Lead actor Daniel Radcliffe was 11 years old when the movie was filmed.

— Gisele Bundchen appeared on ABC in the "Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show," along with fellow "angels" Adriana Lima, Heidi Klum, Tyra Banks and Daniela Pestova. Three days after the show aired, the Patriots lost at home to the St. Louis Rams and fell to 5-5.

— Oh, yeah, that’s right: The Rams were located in St. Louis, playing in the Trans World Dome and on the way to a 14-2 regular season that would include an Offensive Player of the Year award for running back Marshall Faulk and All-Pro honors for Faulk, quarterback Kurt Warner, tackle Orlando Pace and safety Aeneas Williams. They would make it all the way to the Super Bowl.

— Roger Goodell was promoted to the position of NFL executive vice president and chief operating officer. This put him in charge of football operations and officiating, business functions and NFL Properties. He would be named NFL commissioner five years later.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, now a freshman representative from New York in the U.S. House of Representatives, was in seventh grade.

— Mike Pence was in his first term in the House, serving as the representative from the 2nd District of Indiana, having ended his statewide radio talk show in 1999 to focus on his campaign. He would become Vice President of the United States in 2017.

— Research In Motion, makers of the Blackberry, announced a deal with Nextel that portended the possibility of a Blackberry/cell phone hybrid — a "smart phone."

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— LeBron James was a junior at St. Vincent-St. Mary High School in Akron, Ohio. Sporting News had described his play that summer as "Magic Johnson’s head on Michael Jordan’s body." This would become the school year in which he appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated for the first time — and he would lose the Ohio state championship for the only time in his prep career.

— The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed on Dec. 31 at 10,021.57, down from 10,646.15 at the start of the year.

— "Friends" was the No. 1 show on U.S. television, ahead of "CSI" and "ER." It was the eighth season for the NBC comedy. Two days before the Patriots' Tuck Rule Game victory over the Raiders, "Friends" aired the episode “The One Where Chandler Takes a Bath,” in which Matthew Perry's character memorably describes taking a bath as “stewing in your own filth.”

Mike DeCourcy

Mike DeCourcy Photo

Mike DeCourcy has been the college basketball columnist at The Sporting News since 1995. Starting with newspapers in Pittsburgh, Memphis and Cincinnati, he has written about the game for 35 years and covered 32 Final Fours. He is a member of the United States Basketball Writers Hall of Fame and is a studio analyst at the Big Ten Network and NCAA Tournament Bracket analyst for Fox Sports. He also writes frequently for TSN about soccer and the NFL. Mike was born in Pittsburgh, raised there during the City of Champions decade and graduated from Point Park University.