"The basic tenets of their team-building approach remain just as true as they were in January 2000," concludes Christopher Price's examination of the New England Patriots' success in his book The Blueprint: How the New England Patriots Beat the System to Create the Last Great NFL Superpower. "Always value the team above the individual. Consider the short term, but always remember that real success is gained when you consider the big picture. And remember that it's not about collecting talent, it's about assembling a team."

And, since the arrival of Belichick in Foxboro, it's about rehabilitating a franchise that has never failed to be a disappointment. Every time the franchise got a taste of success it squandered its gains and quickly returned to the pack. There's the 1976 playoffs, when a legit Super Bowl contender lost on a bad call, and soon fired its coach in a petty dispute, wrecking the team's chemistry. When the Pats finally did make the Super Bowl in 1985, they lost a 46-10 laugher to the Chicago Bears — then the widest margin of defeat in Super Bowl history — and, adding insult to injury, the Boston media revealed the next day that six Patriots had tested positive for steroids. And most famously, there's the 1996 season, when tensions between owner Robert Kraft and Coach Bill Parcells caused the premature breakup of a Super Bowl participant, setting the franchise that had come so far back by years.

Then, there's the flat-out camp that made the Patriots the NFL's lovable losers. This is the team that played the first decade of its existence without a home field, playing at Fenway, then Boston College, and even Harvard at one point (and since Harvard only allowed the Patriots the use of one locker-room, the team had to get dressed in their hotels and shuttle over in full garb). This is the team whose first coach, Clive Rush, almost electrocuted himself in his opening press conference, and ran the infamous one-and-done Black Power Defense. Writes Price on Rush's odd scheme:

"[Rush] told his team he'll be the first coach in the history of the NFL to put eleven black players on the field at the same time. However, Rush failed to see the error in his logic--he didn't have eleven black players on defense at the time. As a result, he was forced to convert a handful of offensive players to defense. After Houston quarterback Don Trull was sacked midway through the first half, forcing the Oilers into a third-and-long situation, the Black Power Defense made its one appearance on the field--and Trull fired a pass down the middle for an easy first down."