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Taken on the first day of media availability this past July by the great John Tlumacki. I am paying more attention to the dog than Hunter Henry. I should have known the 2025 team was bound for a special season. Also, I miss wearing shorts.

FOXBOROUGH — Been getting a variation of this question a lot lately, especially when I do out-of-town radio hits: “There are some similarities between the 2001 and 2025 Patriots: an out-of-nowhere team led by a young quarterback makes it to the Super Bowl, etc. In your experience, which team is better?”

I don’t want to argue strength of schedule, Vrabel vs. Belichick, roster vs. roster, or anything like that. The game has changed too dramatically to try and pull each team apart statistically. Instead, I’ll share my own experience in what it’s been like covering each team.

To start, there are a few things you have to understand about that 2001 team that might have been lost to time (or recency bias):

One, the 2001 season was my first on the beat, and with the passage of time — like anything, really — that era has become grander in my minds’ eye. I’m going to view it through a nostalgic lens, and that usually ends up removing all of the negatives that came into play at one point or another. The games were more dramatic, and the players were larger than life. The first time you cover a championship team, especially your first year on a professional beat, the story feels all the more epic. In hindsight, I was more than a little starry-eyed at points during the season, which impacted my writing and reporting. I remember spending 10 minutes interviewing Otis Smith for a Bill Belichick feature, and thinking that was one of the peaks of my sportswriting career. Basically, I’m copping to the fact that I may not be able to talk rationally about that group of players and coaches.

Two, that “being introduced as a team” deal they had really resonated with people during that time specifically in a way that you just can’t replicate today. Specifically, in the wake of Sept. 11, it really struck a chord with people. It’s probably unfair to the 2025 team, but the 2001 team was a product of its time, both from a football perspective, as well as a larger national conversation. This isn’t hyperbolic: that team represented things that Americans wanted to believe they were capable of, namely, willingness to be a part of something bigger. Team-over-self. Sacrifice. It was a roster that people could feel good rooting for.

And three, the 2001 team represented what some believed to be the start of a new era of football. I remember writing a story about how Belichick was studying papers from college professors about the wisdom of going for it on fourth down. They found advantages on the margins, taking advantage of teams who dismissed the importance of special teams. I recall someone praising the Patriots’ team-building approach that year with the phrase: The strength of the wolf is the pack. Business people were studying Belichick and the Patriots to find and find the secrets to their management success.

The 2025 team has a lot of those same earmarks. The quarterback. The bond. (You can tell a team is close by how much time they spend together away from the facility, and buddy, I can tell you these guys are tiiiight.) The complete-and-total buy-in, up and down the roster. Really, the 2025 Patriots are an amazing team, regardless of what happens next Sunday in San Francisco. There were plenty of people who thought the drafting of Drake Maye and the hiring of Mike Vrabel were going to set them on a destination for the postseason. But I don’t think anyone outside of Gillette Stadium thought they were going to get this far this fast.

All right, Price. Stop filibustering and give these good people an answer.

All that being said, in my experience, the 2001 team has the edge, at least at this point, because of how it all ended. The Rams were the shit that year, man. They were a legendary team coming into that game, and one of the best offenses in the recent history of the game. The greatness of the Rams made the epic tale of the 2001 Patriots all the grander by the fact that they were able to slay the biggest, baddest dudes on the block. Super Bowl XXXVI had one of the largest point spreads in recent history. New England was a 14-point underdog. The upset was the cherry on top of the legend that was the all-time ice-cream sundae of a football season. Now, it’s incredibly unfair to the 2025 team, but the fact that they don’t get to play the role of giant killer in the biggest game of the year is part of the conversation, at least when you talk about stacking one team against the other. Sam Darnold isn’t Kurt Warner, Kenneth Walker III isn’t Marshall Faulk, and Mike Macdonald isn’t Mike Martz. (Wait, maybe that last one isn’t such a great argument.)

Only time will tell if the 2025 team uses this season as a jumping-off point in the same way that the 2001 team did. It certainly appears to have all the elements of creating something sustainable; hitting on the right quarterback and coach is like, 40 percent of the team-building process, and they have that. You get those two in place — and if you can keep that cap flexibility by maximizing the fact that you have a star quarterback still on is rookie deal — making the playoffs should be a baseline level of expectation, regardless of the schedule.

Speaking of the young quarterback and the cap, the thing that still sticks in my mind? The roster construction in the offseason prior to the 2001 campaign suggested that they were primed to peak in 2003 and 2004, and the sudden arrival and development of the guy who would become the greatest quarterback accelerated the process to a point where they ended up a year or two ahead of schedule. I do think that there are some similarities there when you talk about good timing and a young group of players meshing with all the right veterans; it’s like the 2025 Patriots found a similar turbo button as the ’01 team.

So in the end, I’m going to give a narrow edge to the 2001 team, more because of the way it all ended than anything. Of course, if Andy Borregales kicks a 47-yard game-winner as time runs out and Julian Ashby runs down to the end zone and does a celebratory snow angel in a flurry of confetti, and Drake Maye puts his hands on his head in gobsmacked amazement after it’s all done, all bets are off.

• While I waited out last weekend’s storm in Denver (I got back Tuesday), I connected with Hogan for our weekly podcast. We looked back at the wild win over the Broncos in the AFC title game, and started to preview a Patriots-Seahawks showdown in Super Bowl LX.

• What are some of the most important logistical things a player has to deal with in the days leading up to their departure for the Super Bowl?

• What do the Patriots need to sharpen up heading into Super Bowl LX? Hogan says they have to have early urgency on the offensive side of the ball against the Seahawks.

• What did the return of Mack Hollins mean for the passing game against the Broncos, and what could it mean for New England in the Super Bowl?

• I’m not going to try and link to the 10 or so radio interviews I did over the last few days. Just know there’s a bunch out there, and there will be a bunch more this week. I’ll try and keep you updated on pending appearances on X and Bluesky.

• Drake Maye sat out practice on Friday with a right shoulder issue and an illness. In my experience, if they were traveling to play a Thursday night game on a short week, things might get a little dicey. But with the two weeks in between games, I think things are going to be OK. Probably.

• Maye was one of five players who missed practice on Friday. I think Vrabel is really working hard to get Harold Landry back. He loves the guy — he was one of his first free-agent signings — and I believe he wants him to play a role in what could be a very special game for all involved. (The same is true for Robert Spillane.)

• Maye was at practice Thursday, cracking jokes and feeling good.

• A terrific mailbag this week. (It was one of the most-read stories on the site this week. Way to go, guys!) There were questions about TreVeyon Henderson, Bryce Baringer, play-action percentages, and more.

• Shawn Smith will serve as the referee for Super Bowl LX. It’s his Super Bowl debut.

• Talked with Eliot Wolf in the locker room after the AFC Championship Game. “To see how quickly Mike was able to get this team to believe in themselves is pretty impressive. After like two weeks, when the players got here in the offseason. I was like, ‘All right, Mike’s going to be able to flip this.’ But I didn’t know how quickly it would happen. And it happened very quickly. And obviously, you know, the results are here. Maybe quicker than some expected.”

• Loved seeing Rhamondre Stevenson carry the load in Sunday’s win. The greatest performance of any running back who finished with less than three yards per carry. “Two-point-whatever it was? It didn’t look good,” he laughed the running back when he was told of his paltry 2.8-yards-per-carry average. “But I think we got it done today.”

• This is it. One last game. We’ll have all sorts of updates all week from the Bay Area leading up to Super Bowl LX. I’m flying out ahead of the storm on Saturday afternoon. Follow along here and here.

I told Mack Hollins on Friday that the greatest gift he has given America with his “Warriors”-inspired entry and exit last Sunday in Denver was to introduce a cult classic to a new generation. It’s a personal favorite of mine that scared the shit out of me when I first saw it as a kid, but as I aged, I came to love it. There were a distressing number of people who hadn’t seen it yet. (It’s currently streaming on AppleTV.)

Until next time.