E-Mail This Article to a Friend 2002: The year the Patriots didn’t wear the crown BY CHRISTOPHER YOUNG

Remember when the New England Patriots used to lose nearly every other week? Me neither; but it really was happening not so long ago. And while the team celebrates its third Super Bowl championship in the last four years, one might be tempted to wonder about that one in four — the 2002-’03 season — that got away. After all, why not get really greedy around here by asking, "How come our boys aren’t going for their fifth straight title next year?" On paper it’s a preposterous notion, given this salary-capped era. But it’s worth speculating how things might have been if the Pats had caught a few more breaks that season.

The 2002 NFL season began in euphoria; not only were the Patriots the Super Bowl champions after stunning the Rams in New Orleans the previous February, but the brand-new Gillette Stadium was completed and open for business. The organization christened the new facility by unfurling its first championship banner, and then the team proceeded to whip the Pittsburgh Steelers, 30-14, on ABC’s Monday Night Football. On that night, New England could truly spout the "no respect" mantra, since the defending champs had been installed as three-point underdogs in the game. But the Pats — sporting most of the same heroes who had brought home the title seven months earlier — intercepted Kordell Stewart three times and held a 30-7 lead until the final seconds, destroying the team favored by many to win the AFC in 2002.

A week later in the Meadowlands, the rampage continued, as the Patriots got two defensive TDs and scored 34 second-half points to maul the Jets, 44-7. Suddenly, the team was no longer considered a fluke. It moved to the top of everyone’s power rankings and spurred outlandish talk among the fandom (and, according to published reports, among Tom Brady and Richard Seymour as well) that perhaps the team could go unbeaten.

Back home in week three, the Pats apparently succumbed to the hype and perhaps came out a bit cocky, as some weaknesses were exposed during the team’s 41-38 overtime victory over KC. The explosive Chiefs exploited the Pats’ injury-riddled secondary (Tedy Bruschi and Roman Phifer both were out), but Troy Brown’s club-record 16 catches for 178 yards gave New England a seemingly safe 38-24 lead with five minutes left. After giving up two late TDs, the Patriots won the coin flip in OT and prevailed on that first drive. The team was 3-0 and heading to the West Coast to face a Chargers team that had gone 5-11 the year before. Everything was pointing toward the Pats’ 13th straight win, but things began to go horribly wrong.

The first loss since the previous November was indeed a shocker, as the 4-0 Bolts won before a packed house, 21-14. Drew Brees threw for only 104 yards, but RB LaDainian Tomlinson ran hog-wild for 217 yards, and Brady was intercepted twice as the Pats fell to 3-1. Despite more fine weather, things didn’t get any better the following week for New England as it fell, 26-13, in Miami. The Pats gained just 26 yards in the first half and trailed, 16-0, at the break. Brady was stymied for most of the game, while Troy Brown missed his second straight contest to a knee injury.

It became a certifiable slump in week five, as the boo-birds in Foxborough initially focused on Green Bay’s Terry Glenn, the former Patriot, but soon turned on their own guys during a dismal 28-10 loss to the Packers. Brady was intercepted three times and sacked twice, and didn’t throw a TD pass until it was already 28-3. It was New England’s first three-game losing streak since the middle of 2000, and the team dropped below .500 for the first time in 19 games.

Could it get worse? You betcha. The Broncos extended the Pats’ winless streak to four two weeks later with a solid 24-16 pasting at Gillette. Brady was sacked five times, and the team — coming off its bye week — gained only 179 yards total in the lackluster defeat. The Patriots had now scored just 53 points in their four losses after scoring 115 in their first three victories. It’s but a distant memory now, but this period constituted the team’s lowest point over the course of the past four seasons.

Some order was restored the following week when the Pats hammered the hometown Bills, 38-7, but jaws dropped again the next week in Chicago when the Pats fell behind the 2-6 Bears, 30-19, with less than five minutes to play. But the gremlins of the magical season prior resurfaced, and the Pats got some key refs’ calls and some big-time plays down the stretch in rallying for a heart-pounding 33-30 win. Back over .500 again, the team next had to travel to the house of horrors known as the Oakland Raiders’ home stadium. The Black & Silver — still snorting and simmering over the "Snow Game" playoff loss 10 months earlier — pounded New England into submission, 27-20.

The talk at the outset of the season about going undefeated seemed laughable at this point, but the 5-5 Pats were still only a game out of first in the AFC East, and promptly proceeded to run off three straight wins to get back in the playoff hunt. Wins at Minnesota (24-17, after nearly squandering a 21-0 lead), Detroit (20-12 on Thanksgiving, wearing their retro "Pat Patriot" red jerseys for the first time since 1992), and at home against Buffalo (27-17, as former favorite son Drew Bledsoe was intercepted four times in his return to Foxborough) lifted the Pats to 8-5 heading into the final three games. But the season for all intents and purposes was lost the following Monday night, as New England went to Nashville and was absolutely annihilated by the Titans, 24-7, who outrushed the Pats, 238-56.

Desperate for a win, the Patriots wilted in front of another national TV audience the following Sunday by losing at home, 30-17, to the hated Jets — a team New England had dismantled by 37 points in week two.

At 8-7, the Pats were still technically in the race for a playoff berth, but they needed to beat first-place Miami on the tundra the following week, while hoping that the Jets would lose at home to the 12-3 Packers. Brady & Co. did their part, performing some late-game shenanigans and overtime heroics to beat the Fins, 27-24. But the Jets — buoyed by the posted score from Gillette and knowing their flickering post-season hopes were very much alive — crushed Green Bay, 42-17. With that, the Dolphins and Pats were both eliminated, and the Jets and Browns (all four finished at 9-7), by virtue of various tiebreakers, advanced to the playoffs.

Had the already-playoff-bound Packers won at the Meadowlands, then AFC East champ New England would have hosted Indy (I wonder how that would have turned out?), then gone to Pittsburgh a week later. With Tom Brady apparently playing those final regular-season games with a separated shoulder, it is unlikely that the Patriots would have gone much further — much less to their second straight Super Bowl — but you never know.

On the theory that the run defense needed to be improved and the secondary more youthful, defensive tackle Ted Washington was brought in, and safeties Lawyer Milloy and Victor Green were cut prior to the 2003-’04 season. The Pats started off 2-2 before running off 15 straight en route to the Super Bowl XXXVIII crown in Houston, and we all know what just transpired in 2005, resulting in yet another parade through Boston’s fabled streets.

Whether it was swelled heads, bull’s-eyes on their backs, or just a combination of plays not made, the 2002 season provided the New England Patriots with a tremendous lesson. It proved to be the last time — a blip, apparently — that Bill Belichick’s students would fall short in their quest for supremacy in the NFL.

"Sporting Eye" runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com. Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com