The Patriots lost to the Dolphins on Sunday, making this the first time in 12 years that Bill Belichick’s team didn’t reach the postseason. That’s the one thing about this itineration of the Patriots that we know to be true—the one factual piece of information surrounding the league’s most analyzed franchise that will be endlessly dissected in the coming weeks and months.
The Patriots are often an avatar for our own feelings. For the conspiratorial, they are simply a dark force reshaping themselves for another 20 years of havoc on the unwitting AFC East. For the realistic, they are a dot at the low end of a logical scatterplot: For every 20 years of football, one or two will inevitably be bad.