After the turn of the millennium, the twenty-first century has officially begun.

Over the past 12 years, the NFL has been a great league.

The Pittsburgh Steelers and the New York Giants each won the Super Bowl twice, rewriting team history; The St. Louis Rams and Tampa Bay Buccaneers also won a Super Bowl with their defensive breakaways; In addition, the Indianapolis Colts led by Payton Manning, the New Orleans Saints led by Drew Bliss, and the Green Bay Packers led by Aaron Rogers won the championship once and achieved brilliant results.

But if asked, the most successful NFL team of the 21st century, the New England Patriots are undoubtedly the obvious choice.

Founded in 1959, the New England Patriots were one of the founding members of the NFL and the first teams to join the NFL in 1970. The team is located in the Greater Boston area of Massachusetts, USA, and officially moved its home stadium to Foxburg, a suburb of Boston, in 1971, and changed the name of the team from "Boston Patriots" to the current "New England Patriots".

The home stadium, Gillette Stadium, is located in Foxborough, which is why many fans affectionately call it "Fort Fox".

Historically, the New England Patriots were not a strong team, from 1970 to 1990, they only entered the playoffs twice, and experienced a gap of thirteen consecutive years without the playoffs, which was the longest record of missing the playoffs at that time, although the 1985 season had a highlight, reaching the Super Bowl, but facing the devilish Chicago Bears defense of the year, they lost 10:45, which was also the largest margin of the Super Bowl that set a record at that time.

In fact, even during that downturn, the New England Patriots were hated by countless people in the league. There is a historical reason for this.

Tracing back to the European frontiers, or the first history of the invasion of North America, New York and Boston were the main port locations, but there are slight differences between the two regions, and the New England region, where Boston is located, is mainly English Protestants fleeing religious persecution; Those who remain in New York are more diverse, including speculators, blue-collar workers, and the poor.

In the mid-twentieth century, most of the traditional industries were moved to other states in the United States or overseas, where labor costs were lower, and high-tech areas centered on Boston began to emerge, including biotechnology, education, finance, services, pharmaceuticals, and so on.

Slowly, it became the richest and most high-end area in the United States, with Yale University, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and so on. Law, economics, politics, finance, etc. are also in a unique leading position in the region.

Naturally, the people living in this region actively or passively distinguish themselves from the rest of the world, and a distinct hierarchy of classes begins to permeate all corners of society:

From the economy to politics, from education to law, from journalism to gangsters, from language to culture, this region seems to be a region independent of the United States, with its own pride and dignity that refuses to be compared to other states.

In fact, the New England claims to be "discriminatory" because they claim to be descendants of the British Empire, rather than people of mixed American and other immigrant descent.

The term "New England" is no longer applicable, and it refers specifically to the region of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, with Boston being the center of gravity of the entire region. Despite the inclusion of six states, the area and population are not large -

The population of the entire New England region is only the fifth largest of all states in the United States; The area of the region as a whole is the 20th largest of all states.

In other words, it's a very, very small area. But they have their own system, even in Hollywood, with a unique Boston gang that distinguishes itself from other groups and excludes all outsiders. The story of the film "Spotlight" takes place in Boston, and through the film, you can see the unique system of this area.

When people mention the North American continent, the West Coast led by Los Angeles and the East Coast led by New York are-for-tat because of geographical and historical reasons; But in the midst of this, the New England region, led by Boston, is on the rise, and they even look down on New York, showing a kind of self-respecting arrogance.

As a result, the New England region was not welcomed by other states in the first place. The teams of the four major sports leagues located here, the Boston Red Sox in baseball, the Boston Celtics in basketball, the Boston Bruins in ice hockey, the New England Patriots in football — and the New England Revolution in football — are not popular in other regions.

The reality is that all five teams are strong teams in their respective leagues, and they have all won the top championship in their respective leagues multiple times.

And now, the Patriots are even worse off, they have changed "Boston Patriots" to "New England Patriots", adopted a name with strong pride, and the suffix is still "Patriot", which is clearly provoking all other regions of the United States, claiming that they are the purest pioneers and patriots of the blood.

Imagine, with such a history and cultural precipitation, how can people possibly like this team?

Every year, protesters emerge in the coalition who want the Washington Redskins to change their name because they are used discriminatorily against Indians; Similarly, there are countless fans who want the New England Patriots to change their name because they are provoking the endurance of the entire United States.

New England patriots have never been the favorite of the American people, and that's history; Later, after they created their own dynasty, it became even more unbeatable, and coupled with the unkindness and uncompromising methods of the old fox team of Bill Bilicek, the negative press emerged one after another, so the team became a public enemy of the league.

After the turmoil of the '70s and '80s, the team reached a turning point in 1994 when Robert-Kraft bought the New England Patriots in the midst of bankruptcy and turmoil; Prior to that, in 1993, Bill-Parcells, the coach who led the New York Giants to two Super Bowls, took charge of the team, and gradually gave the team a new vitality.

With the support of his new owner, Pachels gradually became a fish in water, and after a poor first half of the season, he boldly adopted a no-collar offense that almost no one dared to use at the time, ending the second half of the season with a wave of seven straight wins and coming back to the playoffs.

In 1996, after Bill Pasles' apprentice, Bill Bilicek, was fired from the Baltimore Ravens and came to the New England Patriots to become an assistant to his mentor as a defensive guard coach.

However, after reaching the Super Bowl again in 1997, they lost to the Green Bay Packers led by Brett Favre, and the relationship between Passers and Kraft was also broken - because Kraft dictated the team, interfered with Passles's decision-making power as the team's manager, and completely used Passles as a puppet, and the relationship was completely torn apart.

After the Super Bowl loss, Pachels chose to resign and try to coach the New York Jets, but he still had a contract with the Patriots and couldn't change jobs, so the Jets came up with a compromise and hired Passles' assistant Bilicek as the team's coach, and then gave Palss an advisory position to operate behind the scenes.

The incident sparked a fury from Kraft, and in the end, the league intervened and ended the farce by using the New York Jets' draft picks as compensation for Pastles' trip.

Over the next three seasons, the New England Patriots entered the Pete Carroll era, the current head coach of the Seattle Seahawks, but Carroll was not doing well at Fort Fox, failing to make the playoffs for three consecutive years, and after the 1999 season, Carroll was fired, and Kraft wanted to invite the team back as head coach.

Also in 1999, Pastles also resigned as the head coach of the New York Jets, announced his retirement from the NFL for the second time, and negotiated with the team to replace him; But at the inauguration press conference the next day, Bilicek wrote his resignation statement on loose-leaf paper, and the inauguration press conference became a resignation press conference.

The farce of Pastles leaving the Patriots happened again, the Jets refused to let Bilicek leave, and the league intervened, and the Patriots traded the 2000 first-round pick for Bilicek, and on January 27, 2000, the Patriots officially entered the Bilicek era.

Later, in the 2000 draft, Bilicek selected Tom Brady with the 199th pick in the sixth round. After that, the story becomes simpler.

In 2001, 2003, and 2004, the New England Patriots became the second team in league history to win the Triple Crown in four years after the Dallas Cowboys; At the same time, it also reached the Super Bowl twice in 2007 and 20011, losing to the New York Giants; In addition, the team has become the absolute dominance of the American League East Conference, never losing the top spot in the division except in 2002 and 2008.

Over the past 12 years, the New England Patriots have become the strongest and most consistent team in the league, and no other team has come out on top.

One can look for a hundred reasons not to like New England patriots; But objectively speaking, this is the NFL's most consistent team in the past decade, and there is no one. The combination of Bilicek and Brady is also the league's most threatening pairing, even though no one outside of New England likes them at all.