The Real Reason Behind the Patriots' Dynasty

I’ve done this to the Patriots too many times.

I’m a spoiled fan. I’m 20 years old, and my favorite sports team, the New England Patriots, has won the Super Bowl six times in the last fifteen years. Mind you, they’ve been to the Super Bowl nine times in those fifteen years. Nine! In a league organized to maintain parity with its draft system, hard salary cap, and franchise tag, the Patriots have found a way to maintain winning. Consistently. So, how do they do it?

Well, let me get back to the story I was telling. Like most Patriots fans, I was devastated in Super Bowl 51 when the Patriots were down 28-3 to the Falcons. Like most Patriots fans at NRG Stadium in Houston that February night, I stormed off and stopped watching the game (but I got to go back and watch when the Pats came back. Fans at the stadium didn’t).

The next time it happened, it’s almost like the football gods were saying, “Why do you ever doubt the Patriots?” when I stopped watching. The Patriots were playing the Kansas City Chiefs in the 2019 AFC Championship Game and were down 28-24 with a minute and one second left. Tom Brady took the snap on third and 10, surveyed the field, and tried to sling a dump-off pass to Rob Gronkowski. The throw was a little high, and it deflected off Gronk’s hands and into those of Kansas City’s Charvarius Ward. Game over.

Only it wasn’t, and of course it wasn’t. Dee Ford, one of the Chiefs’ Pro Bowl defensive ends, was blatantly and obscenely offsides on the play, giving the Patriots a retry on the down, plus an extra five yards. This guy was a foot over the line of scrimmage, it’s not like it was just a couple inches. How can you make such a massive mental mistake at this time?

You can guess what happened next. The game went into overtime, and if you skip to 15:45 on this highlight video of the game, you’ll hear Tony Romo famously predict what Tom Brady is going to do on the Patriots’ drive to win the game. Why was Romo able to predict what Brady was going to do? Because Brady knew who he was going to throw to before he snapped the ball too. They both did their homework.

Whenever Brady and the Patriots are given a second chance, they take advantage of it, and they don’t make critical mental errors like my guy Dee Ford (thanks, Dee Ford). Why do they always seem to come through in the moments when it’s hardest to do so? It’s simple: preparation.

Last semester, the spring semester of my sophomore year of college, I was entering I-Core at the Carlson School of Management, which is supposed to be the most challenging semester at the school due to the sheer amount of work you’re assigned and the introduction of new topics. The previous two semesters, I hadn’t performed as well as I wanted to academically, and I was very frustrated with myself. Was I not as smart as I thought I was? Why wasn’t I getting the grades I wanted to get? How can I possibly do better in I-Core than I did in semesters with lighter workloads?

It turns out the answer to my questions wasn’t a complicated one. In my first post, I wrote about how setting goals eradicates coincidence. So does preparation. Before that AFC Championship Game, Brady posted a video on Instagram that included this piece of advice: “If you happen to be lucky, you will be doubted. You will ride the bench. And you will fail. But it’s not about luck, it’s about what you do with what you are given”.

I’ve thought long and hard about that quote, and I realized something. Win or lose, Brady and the Patriots always lay it all on the line. They try their absolute best, and if they fail, they can live with it because they tried their best. And the next time they’re given an opportunity, they try their best to take advantage of it.

I adopted this same mindset for school, deciding: “Okay, I’m just going to study as hard as I can for every exam and work as hard as I can on every project, and if I don’t do well, then at least I tried my best”. Because all you can do is try your best.

Two things happened as a result of that. When you work really hard at something, not only do you get better at the thing you’re working to get better at, but you also get better at working at it. Let me word that another way: when you work long and hard at something, your strategies and processes improve and become more efficient, so then you don’t have to work so blindingly hard because you know what works and what doesn’t.

By working as hard as I possibly could in the beginning of the semester, I found better and more efficient ways to study, which helped me balance a heavy course load, work, and extracurricular activities, and still achieve the results I wanted.

The results? My best academic semester of college yet. I know most people outside New England hate the Patriots for a variety of reasons, but they are truly admirable in the way they prepare, and it’s why they have been so consistent for the last fifteen years. We can all learn something from them, whether you like it or not.

So, readers, try your best. Prepare. If you want to get better at something, work at it. You’ll get there.

In the video Brady posted before that AFC Championship Game, he started off by saying this: “If you happen to be lucky, you will have people in your life tell you that the world can be anything you want it to be. And you will believe them”.

The world can be anything you want it to be. Believe me.