By: Brandon Murdock
Few fans of the New England Patriots may recall the bad days of the mid 1960s to the mid 1980s. Winning six Super Bowls in the 21st century has a way of erasing memories of bad football in the 20th century, particularly when the team was known as the Boston Patriots and played in just one championship game – a humiliating 51-10 loss to San Diego for the AFL title – in 1964.
But those bad days have returned. Patriot fans are now experiencing what many did in the 20th century: losing.
For the New England Patriots, who moved to Foxborough, southwest of Boston, in 1971, and adopted the name of the region instead of the city, the recent stretch of four losing seasons in five years since their last Super Bowl win in 2019 is a painful reminder of their pre-dynasty struggles.
The two decade long stretch of dominance to open up the 21st century led by head coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady is in the rear-view mirror amid the recent stretch of losing seasons.
Seven years ago, Patriots nation proudly donned the No. 12 jersey of Brady, putting him atop the charts for jersey sales. Now, in 2024, not a single member of the current team cracks the top 30 in jersey sales.
“I just know from being a fan page, like there’s a noticeable dip in fan interaction too. Like people aren’t as they don’t want to talk about it as much,” said Grant Parry, a 24-year-old from Atlanta, Georgia, owner of the Patriots Redzone fan page. “I think it’s way easier to care when the team’s really good. I think the team is at a point now where there’s a lot of people that are like, I’ve got better things to do on a Sunday.”
Even though the 20th century featured more doom than gloom for the team that began play in the AFL in 1960, the Patriots did win the AFC Championship in 1985. In the 1996 season, the duo of coach Bill Parcells and quarterback Drew Bledsoe led the team to an 11-5 record and another AFC title. Both times, however, the Patriots lost in the Super Bowl, first to the Chicago Bears, 48-10, and then to the Green Bay Packers, 35-21.
This team gave the fanbase no faith that they would show up and perform at the highest level when the lights shined the brightest.
However, things changed on the third day of the 2000 NFL draft when the team decided to draft Brady who played at the University of Michigan in the sixth of seven rounds at 199th overall, not the spot that warrants much confidence in the future.
After becoming the starting quarterback in week 3 of the 2001 season after Bledsoe got hurt, the team never looked back. Winning three Super Bowls in his first four years. Brady did not let a 10-year gap in-between winning the big game stop him. Brady went on to lead the Patriots to three more Super Bowl wins to give the franchise a record-tying six wins in the big game.
Following a loss to the Tennessee Titans in the playoffs in 2020, Brady left the franchise and went down south to go play for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He promptly won a Super Bowl.
After 20 years in Foxborough, Brady did as much as anyone could for a football team: six Super Bowl wins in nine tries, four more AFC championship game appearances and 19 AFC East division titles and the post-season berths that went along with that. The team never finished below .500 in a season.
The team now is a shell of its former self, falling to the bottom of the AFC East, allowing the woeful Jets and Dolphins to jump ahead of them while the Buffalo Bills rule the division.
Since Brady left, marking the end of the dynasty, the team has gone an abysmal 33-51, including two last place finishes, four losing seasons. In April 2025, the team’s NFL Draft position mirrored its decline as it held one of the top four picks.
The fans that have experienced the highest of highs and now the lowest of lows are forced to watch a new dynasty be born in the form of the Kansas City Chiefs.
Watching the team lose has been tough to see for Patriot fans, but it’s not something that could be considered surprising after losing not just the best player in franchise history, but NFL history as well.
“You know it was bound to happen once Brady left,” said Patriots’ fan Richie Greene, a 21-year-old from Halifax, Massachusetts. “Everyone knew it was going to be a rough couple of years, and we’re at the bottom of it. We only got one place to go now, and that’s back to the top.”
Season-ticket holders who pay thousands of dollars each year to watch the team at Gillette Stadium are disgruntled, to say the least.
“I have been a season ticket holder my entire life. My Dad got his tickets when Drew Bledsoe was drafted by the patriots. It’s been very interesting seeing the Patriots go from first to worst,” said 22-year-old Patriots’ fan and lifelong season ticket holder Zach Phinney, of Pembroke, Massachusetts. “It was going to happen eventually, but it is very weird. My entire lifetime the team had been competing for championships, and that was put on pause for a few years while we transitioned from one era to another.”
While none of the past five years have been anything to brag about, the 2024 season may have brought the fanbase past the point of optimism.
Team owner Robert Kraft fired Belichick after a 4-13 season in 2023. Belichick had coached for 24 years and for many young fans, he was the only coach they had ever known. Kraft brought in Jerod Mayo to coach the team even though Mayo had never served as a head coach. That signaled a new era as Phinney had signaled.
Things didn’t work out well. The team struggled to another 4-13 season, represented by a 40-7 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers at a dreary, half-filled Gillette Stadium in late December.
The team’s lack of energy and careless turnovers put their effort into question.
Now, fans are wondering whether it’s worth still supporting the team that once provided so much joy and victory parades in Boston.
For years, 66,000 screaming fans filled Gillette expecting victory. Now, the new norm is empty seats and vacant parking lots once brimming with tailgate parties.
The team finished 27th out of 32 teams in total attendance last season and averaged 64,636 fans per game. Towards the end of the year, things got even worse.
“I mean, you look at kind of the attendance last year, late last year, and they were having trouble,” said Alex Barth, a 31-year-oldco-host on 98.5 the Boston Sports Hub from Boston, Massachusetts. “It was less people than it was five, six years ago. Clearly, ticket prices on the secondary market were down, things like that. So yeah, all the metrics say that fans are definitely feeling it and reacting accordingly.”
An example of what Barth was talking about came in the second to last game of the season, where they played the Los Angeles Chargers. The game started with many seats still available, and by the time the 40-7 Chargers rout was completed, the stadium was eerily empty and not just because of the rain.
The final game of the season the following week was not much better for the team. The usual pregame tailgating festivities were absent and vast stretches of the parking lot were empty.
Ironically, fans became irate in the season finale against Buffalo as the Patriots won, spoiling their chance for the top pick in the 2025 draft.
The journey from happiness to sadness in just six short years was officially complete.
While Patriots fans bow their heads in defeat, fans of the other teams in the AFC East are overjoyed after more than 20 years of seeing their teams lose annually to New England.
“Being a Jets fan, the last few seasons despite the Jets not having any success themselves have been enjoyable because the Patriots have been so bad,” said Eoghan Doran, a 24-year-old Jets’ fan from Queens, New York. “Getting to see them go from super bowls with Tom Brady to Mac Jones has been one of the few things the NFL has given that makes me happy.”
New England is ready to start a new chapter led by hope being found in their new coach and the new signal caller.
The squad may be heading into the right direction with new head coach Mike Vrabel, a former Patriots star who coached the Tennessee Titans for four years and led the team to the AFC Championship in 2019. The revamped defense, the No. 4 pick in the upcoming draft, and of course, rising superstar quarterback Drake Maye has the chatter around a turnaround getting louder.
“I as a fan am very excited to see what the future holds. I am excited to see Maye grow in his second season and to see if the coaching changes make a difference,” continued Phinney. “While this team still has many holes to fill, I do think they are headed in the right direction. I am most curious about how they navigate the draft.”
Fast forward to April 27 and the Patriots have been widely considered the kings of the draft.
The golden egg was Will Campbell at fourth overall, filling a hole at left tackle that the team has had for quite some time. The team spent a lot of picks getting high character and phsycial players. They mirror a lot of what Vrabel was as a player. This is how you win a fanbase back.
While the road to glory still seems to be a far distance for Patriots fans, the first few bricks seem to have been paved.