2001 Patriots to be honored at Sunday’s game // Email of the Day // The Final Word - 10/8 (Hour 4)

Tony Massarotti (0:01)

Oh, right, of course, because I should know who that is.

Michael Felger (0:03)

I don't hear what you think.

SPEAKER_3 (0:05)

It's...

Michael Felger (0:05)

I'll tell you something that rubbed me right.

SPEAKER_4 (0:07)

Felger & Mazz, a 98.5 The Sports Hub.

SPEAKER_5 (0:11)

And now, ladies and gentlemen, choosing to be introduced as a team, here are the American Football Conference champions, the New England Patriots.

SPEAKER_6 (0:34)

They're starting offensive lineup for the Rams. But the Patriots, as Bill Pellichapkin said during the week, teamwork is the most important factor in us staying in this game and winning in this game.

Michael Felger (0:51)

Final hour, Felger & Mazz. So, you talk about the 2001 team celebrating 25 years since that Super Bowl championship, Mazz. Do we just play that? Because I think that's the legacy of the team or the one that I think, well, I, you know, I anyone feel the best about.

And I say that, just because of this, because it's like, it's easy for us or anyone to get sort of jaded about the other stuff. Like, you know, Bill's kind of an a-hole and you don't have warm fuzzies about Bill, even though he was brilliant and good, great head coach and accomplished so much.

He's done so much wrong, frankly, that you could, it's a little jumbled in your head. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_7 (1:33)

Of course.

SPEAKER_8 (1:34)

The legacy's tarnished a little bit.

Michael Felger (1:36)

Yes, he's tarnished his legacy. He has.

Brady has not done it nearly as much as Bill, but there's a little bit of, there's a little something with Brady too. It's like he's kind of weirded out on you. You know what I mean? And then, you know, if you want to look at it more cynically, like there was some cheating in there and they got a lot of lucky breaks and you can do all that sort of stuff. The coming out as a team to me is still sort of the, you really can't dent that one. And I think of all the legacies for that team to have, that's a wonderful, great legacy. The thing about coming out as a team, now everyone does it and no one did it at the time. And, you know, I was in the stadium, but if you were watching on TV, it was like one of those. And they had been doing it all year. So, you know, if you were at the games, you paid attention to it. You didn't really notice it on TV because they never really for anything other than the Super Bowl, and they didn't focus on pregame introductions.

But that moment sort of stopped a lot of people in their tracks. And I just think it's a wonderful legacy for that team to have. That to me, that's the thing that I think, when I think of the 2001 Patriots, I think of that.

Tony Massarotti (2:45)

Well, that was their true identity. I mean, to your point, like, you know, there was, they had a handful of great players on that team, as it turned out. But that was a team that's whole, was better than its individual parts, right?

Michael Felger (2:59)

I mean, so look, but I mean, just the gesture, you know?

Jim Murray (3:02)

Yeah, because no one had really seen that before. And again, the contrast with the Rams, who were full of all this really amazing individualistic talent like Marshall Falk and Kurt Warner, who obviously came on the scene there in those couple of years, and Torrey Holt, among others. But yeah, no, I remember, I still at that time, I got chills about that. It's still like one of the coolest things I've seen in Boston sports.

Tony Massarotti (3:20)

I think they're one of the most important teams in the history of Boston sports.

Jim Murray (3:24)

Definitely.

Tony Massarotti (3:24)

Why do you think? I put them right there with, you know, the old four Red Sox to me would be the two biggest ones. Because I think they changed the whole mindset and culture here, and it started with the Patriots and O-One. And the gesture you're talking about, you know why it worked? Because it was real.

They really believed it. Brady wasn't a star yet. Seymour was still young, like, you know, some of those guys had been around a little bit, but they bought in. The whole idea was, you know, we're a group, we're an entity as a collection, we're not individuals.

And it was legit. It was what they were.

Michael Felger (3:59)

And it's just, you know, what's, if you want to get, so I don't get cynical about this. Like, I think it's just a wonderful, great legacy and a great thing to be remembered for. And truly something that, you know, I don't know how to articulate this, that I think they kind of changed. Like any team after that, who came out individually, looked like a bunch of a-holes.