AFC East: All-decade
To get in the spirit of ESPN.com's all-decade week, I asked readers on Monday to select their AFC East team for the 20-aughts.
Although some insisted on submitting ballots that included a 4-4-4 defensive scheme and somebody kept signing on under different usernames to stuff the box for guard Adam Levitre (I think "they" meant Buffalo Bills rookie Andy Levitre), the results were sound.
Here are your picks along with my own.
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| Al Pereira/NFL | |
| The Jets' Curtis Martin eclipsed 1,000 yards rushing in five seasons this decade. |
OFFENSE
Quarterback: Tom Brady.
- Of note: One vote came in for anybody other than the two-time Super Bowl MVP. Chad Pennington was the recipient.
- My pick: Brady.
Running back: Curtis Martin.
- Of note: There have been some stellar rushing seasons in the AFC East, but not much longevity. Martin's closest competition was Ricky Williams. Beyond that, nobody received more than two mentions. Thurman Thomas, who had 28 carries this decade, got a vote.
- My pick: Martin.
Fullback: Tony Richardson.
- Of note: Richardson's career credentials are remarkable. He has blocked for five 1,000-yard rushers. But last year was his first in the AFC East.
- My pick: Larry Centers. He spent only three seasons in the AFC East, but he had 80 catches for the Bills in 2001, earning him Pro Bowl honors.
Receivers: Randy Moss, Laveranues Coles.
- Of note: The only thing worse than Richardson getting votes after one year would be Terrell Owens after zero. Thankfully, nobody made that mistake. Moss and Coles were clearly ahead of the field, with Lee Evans coming in third and Chris Chambers fourth.
- My picks: Moss, Eric Moulds.
Tight end: Randy McMichael.
- Of note: Aside from Brady, no player was more unanimous at his position than McMichael.
- My pick: McMichael.
Tackles: Vernon Carey, Matt Light.
- Of note: Only four tackles were nominated, with Light edging out Jason Peters by one vote. Kareem McKenzie was a distant fourth.
- My picks: Light, Peters.
Guards: Logan Mankins, Stephen Neal.
- Of note: Ruben Brown, a nine-time Pro Bowler at left guard, received only six votes.
- My picks: Brown, Mankins. If Neal can learn right guard without playing a down in college, then Brown can learn how to play there on my team.
Center: Kevin Mawae.
- Of note: Nick Mangold came in second with half as many votes as Mawae, a player many readers felt should have been on the NFL's all-decade offense instead of Olin Kreutz.
- My pick: Mawae.
DEFENSE
Defensive ends: Jason Taylor, Richard Seymour.
- Of note: Not even close.
- My picks: Taylor, Seymour.
Defensive tackles: Vince Wilfork, Pat Williams.
- Of note: Williams edged out Kris Jenkins, who's coming off his lone season in the AFC East.
- My picks: Wilfork, Ted Washington. Washington was a Pro Bowler for the Bills in 2000 and won a Super Bowl with the Patriots in 2003.
Linebackers: Zach Thomas, Mike Vrabel, Tedy Bruschi.
- Of note: Thomas was omitted from the NFL all-decade defense, but he received the most votes of any AFC East linebacker. Joey Porter finished fourth, four votes behind Bruschi.
- My picks: Thomas, Vrabel, Takeo Spikes. Many folks overlook Spikes because his teams never had success.
- Of note: Aside from Brady, nobody received more votes at his position than Law.
- My picks: Law, Patrick Surtain. While Samuel was a Pro Bowler in 20
07, he started only three seasons for the Patriots. Surtain went to three Pro Bowls and was named All-Pro once this decade.
Safeties: Rodney Harrison, Brock Marion.
- Of note: Marion edged Lawyer Milloy by a single vote.
- My picks: Lawyer Milloy, Marion. Harrison had one All-Pro season with New England. Milloy was a two-time Pro Bowler and had productive seasons for the Patriots and Bills.
SPECIAL TEAMS
Kicker: Adam Vinatieri.
- Of note: Some clown voted for Olindo Mare.
- My pick: Vinatieri.
Punter: Brian Moorman.
- Of note: Tom Tupa received a couple votes, but Moorman was the obvious selection.
- My pick: Moorman.
Kick returner: Terrence McGee.
- Of note: Leon Washington might have been impacted by readers splitting their votes for him between punt and kickoff returner.
- My pick: Washington. He ran back three kicks in 2007, led the NFL in all-purpose yards last year and still might be getting better.
Punt returner: Roscoe Parrish.
- Of note: He led the NFL in punt return yardage the past two years.
- My pick: Parrish.
Patriots sweep all-decade team, coach, MVP
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| ESPN.com Illustration | |
| The Patriots won three Super Bowls in four years during the 2000s, leading to all-decade honors for the team, coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady. |
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- Over the course of 50 years, Steve Belichick stockpiled football books. He scoured shops across the country, always hunting for a title he didn't yet own.
Belichick's son began compiling in the 1970s. Their pursuit grew into what's believed to be the planet's largest collection of football books outside the Library of Congress and the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
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The Belichick collection -- stocked with 500 works that include "Practical Thesis in Football" by Amos Alonzo Stagg and "American Football" by Walter Camp -- is contained within the U.S. Naval Academy, where Steve Belichick coached 33 years.
As history advances and more books are added to the shelves, there will be an increasing percentage with Bill Belichick's name in them alongside other sideline legends.
ESPN.com selected Belichick as its all-decade coach for guiding the New England Patriots to three Super Bowls and four AFC championships and at least tying for the AFC East's best record each year since 2001.
That same résumé is why ESPN.com also chose Tom Brady as its MVP and the Patriots as its team of the decade. The honors were bestowed with consultation from NFL general managers, coaches, scouts and players.
When a team wins three Super Bowls in four years and plays in its conference championship game five times in a decade with one season to go, the choices crystallize.
"You have to recognize championships because, ultimately, that's what we're playing for," Belichick said when informed of ESPN.com's selections.
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| David Drapkin/Getty Images | |
| As Patriots head coach, Bill Belichick owns a 102-42 regular-season record. |
Belichick is more than a head coach. When the Patriots hired him in 2000, owner Robert Kraft essentially gave Belichick total control over football operations. Belichick handpicked his supporting cast and signed off on every major decision.
"He's made some great moves, brought in some players who had been released from other places. And he's done it year after year," said Ted Marchibroda, the coach who gave Belichick his start with the Baltimore Colts in 1975.
The Patriots went 5-11 in Belichick's first season but haven't had a losing record since. After a mostly miserable gig with the Cleveland Browns, he is 102-42 in the regular season for the Patriots, a .708
win percentage.
Former Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy won two more games this decade for a .722 win percentage. Former Pittsburgh Steelers coach Bill Cowher had a .647 win percentage.
The difference, though, is the Lombardi Trophy. Cowher and Dungy won one apiece. Belichick won three in a four-year span.
"It's definitely an honor when you consider the other great people that are involved in that, Coach Cowher, Coach Shanahan, Coach Dungy, a lot of great coaches there," Belichick said. "It's certainly an honor to be placed among the coaches of that time."
What about all-time? The Pro Football Hall of Fame has drawn up all-decade teams since the 1960s. The list includes Weeb Ewbank, Don Shula, Bill Walsh and Bill Parcells. The first three are enshrined in Canton. The fourth is on his way.
When I mentioned this to Belichick, he might've blushed for a half-second. He quickly praised his players, counting off a long string of names critical to the Patriots' success. Many of his players, however, were players other teams considered unworthy, malcontents, washed up.
"It's certainly flattering to be mentioned in the same breath as those guys, but honestly I don't sit around a
nd think about it a lot," Belichick said. "We're so in the moment. We always have another bridge to cross.
"But I'm certainly proud of what our teams have done, proud to have been a part of them. I understand that it's not run-of-the-mill. We've had some great moments in this franchise. I've been pretty fortunate."
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| JEFF HAYNES/AFP/Getty Images | |
| Belichick-Brady will be linked together in NFL history like Noll-Bradshaw or Walsh-Montana. |
Fortune smiled most brightly -- and had a cleft chin -- in the sixth round of the 2000 draft. New England picked an awkward Michigan quarterback many viewed as a project.
Paul Brown had Otto Graham. Vince Lombardi had Bart Starr. Tom Landry had Roger Staubach. Chuck Noll had Terry Bradshaw. Walsh had Joe Montana.
Belichick and Brady will be linked forever.
Sooner than anybody could have fathomed, Brady supplanted Drew Bledsoe as the starter and led the Patriots on a final-minute drive to win their first Super Bowl title.
One of the enduring images from their upset victory over the St. Louis Rams, known as the "Greatest Show on Turf," was a boyishly exuberant Brady popping Bledsoe on the shoulder pads and yelling "We won!"
Belichick's "greatest move is when he replaced Bledsoe with Brady," Marchibroda said. "Nobody really believed it at the time.
"We on the outside hadn't seen Brady that much, but we'd seen Bledsoe, and it's hard to give up on a guy like Bledsoe. But [Belichick] did it and he was right, and Brady was a winner. To say that I could see that kind of success with Brady, I couldn't visualize that at the beginning."
In deciding the all-decade MVP, discussion came down to Brady and Peyton Manning. Some of our consultants claimed LaDainian Tomlinson might have won had he not shown signs of slippage last year.
Brady suffered a season-ending knee injury on opening day, but actually seeing Tomlinson as less than his usual, dominant self made an impression on our NFL experts.
Manning fans will point to the Colts quarterback's prolific passing stats, but where Brady sets himself apart is postseason performance. Brady won as many postseason games as Manning played in.
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| Al Messerschmidt/Getty Images | |
| Belichick's decision to supplant Drew Bledsoe, right, with Tom Brady may have been his best decision. |
Brady is 14-3 this decade, while Manning is 7-7. Brady has thrown 26 touchdown passes and 12 interceptions. Manning has thrown 22 touchdowns and 17 interceptions.
Also of note, Brady won three Super Bowls with an uninspiring group of receivers. In the one year he had Randy Moss and Wes Welker, the Patriots set several NFL records.
"The guy's just a winner," Miami Dolphins defensive end Jason Taylor said. "He knows how to win, period."
Taylor was named to ESPN.com's all-decade defense. Taylor has sacked Brady more than anybody else has, and you won't find a bigger Brady fan.
"He's got the talent. But everybody at this level has talent," Taylor said. "Maybe he does have a little more God-given ability than some others, but between the ears he's as good as they come."
Some Patriots critics still scoff at their success because of the Spygate scandal, one of the biggest NFL stories of the decade. Belichick was turned in for illegally videotaping opponents' defensive signals. The NFL fined him and stripped the Patriots of a first-round draft pick.
But ESPN analyst Herm Edwards, the former New York Jets and Kansas City Chiefs coach, laughs at the overblown notion.
"If you're naïve to believe that helped him win a Super Bowl, you're kidding yourself. I don't believe that," said Edwards, who on one of the tapes submitted into evidence could be seen waving to the Patriots' cameras.
It also should be noted the Patriots went 18-1, nearly pulling off the NFL's first unblemished season since the Dolphins did it in 1972, after the Spygate mess.
About 30 other NFL franchises wish they could fail like that.
All-decade chat at 4 p.m. and other geegaws
Here are a few AFC East programming notes to consider. Or ignore.
Totally up to you.
ESPN.com will reveal its MVP, coach and team of the decade at 11 a.m. Because I wrote the story, we will hold a chat at 4 p.m. to discuss the selections.
Don't read anything into the fact my byline will be on the story. All of the assignments for this project -- Bill Williamson on the offense, Mike Sando on the defense, Kevin Seifert on the special teams, Matt Mosley on the top moments -- were handed out before the NFL owners' meeting in March.
To give you something to yap about until then, I'll narrow the choices down for you to guess. I'll list the finalists in alphabetical order.
- MVP: Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, LaDainian Tomlinson.
- Coach: Bill Belichick, Bill Cowher, Tony Dungy.
- Team: New England Patriots, New York Giants, Pittsburgh Steelers.
My weekly chat will take place at its usual time of 3 p.m. ET Friday, but we NFL bloggers will be conducting a block of all-decade chats that day. So mine won't go its usual two hours.
For those of you in the Buffalo area, I will be in studio with Brad Riter at 5 p.m. ET Thursday. His show is heard on WECK 1230-AM in Buffalo, on WLVL 1340-AM in Lockport and on your computer by clicking here.
One last thing: If you haven't signed up for my Facebook page yet, feel free to jump on there.
By friending me you will receive alerts to all of my blogs the moment they are published and be able to join the debates among your fellow AFC East fanatics. An impromptu chat or mailbag session might break out. Take a look-see.
A month ago, Randy Moss declared himself "the best wide receiver of all-time, hands down" and scoffed than anybody would dare think otherwise.
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| US Presswire | |
| Receivers Terrell Owens and Randy Moss may both end up in Canton one day, but neither cracked ESPN.com's all-decade team. |
Keep him away from computers for a while.
ESPN.com unveiled it's all decade-offense, and Moss wasn't on it. Neither was Buffalo Bills receiver Terrell Owens.
The selections at receiver -- with input from NFL general managers, scouts, coaches and players -- were Marvin Harrison and Torry Holt instead. As AFC West blogger Bill Williamson explained in the story, criteria included stats, championships and Pro Bowls. ESPN.com's all-decade defense was announced Monday.
Moss, of course, is missing a Super Bowl ring. But he was a four-time Pro Bowler this decade. He has averaged 77 catches for 1,164 yards and 12 touchdowns the past nine years.
"I don't really like to judge people or other athletes," Moss told me in a telephone interview. "I know what I'm able to do on the field, but the things I'm able to do to dictate how a defense plays the game, I don't think there's no other receiver but myself and Jerry Rice to be able to do that."
In the same interview, Moss also struck a more modest tone when talking about his elusive title.
"I don't really know where I rank at, but as long as I get a Super Bowl ring before I leave this game, I think my life and my goal would be complete in the NFL," Moss said.
Owens can say the same. Owens, like Moss, has played in one Super Bowl and lost but owns some gaudy career numbers. Both are headed for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Do you think there are other AFC East omissions?
Curtis Martin and Ricky Williams might come to mind, but there's no way either should supplant LaDainian Tomlinson.
One obvious name to consider is center Kevin Mawae. In his six seasons this decade with the Jets, he was selected for five Pro Bowls. Selected instead was Chicago Bears center Olin Kreutz.
Buffalo guard Ruben Brown, a perennial Pro Bowler who played four seasons with Kreutz in Chicago, told me one entertaining night at the Big Tree Inn in Orchard Park, N.Y., that Kreutz could be the greatest center in NFL history.
Did Zach Thomas deserve all-decade honor?
DAVIE, Fla. -- Two Miami Dolphins were selected for ESPN.com's all-decade defense.
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| Gregory Shamus/Getty Images | |
| Jason Taylor, left, was disappointed former Dolphins teammate Zach Thomas, right, did not make ESPN.com's all-decade defense. |
Taylor, an easy selection for defensive end, was disappointed to learn Zach Thomas didn't make the cut at linebacker in the honorary squad's 4-3 setup.
"Obviously, I'm biased, but I think Zach is a guy that never got the respect he should've had but was as good as or better than anybody out there," Taylor said after a recent minicamp practice.
Taylor is married to Thomas' sister. They played 10 years together, combining for 12 Pro Bowl selections.
Thomas was voted to seven Pro Bowls. He was a five-time All-Pro. He led the Dolphins in tackles 10 times in his dozen seasons with them.
But Thomas was against formidable competition on the all-decade team, chosen with input from an assembly of NFL general managers, coaches, scouts and players. Derrick Brooks, Ray Lewis and Brian Urlacher boxed Thomas out.
"It's always a disappointing thing when I don't see his name associated with guys like these," Taylor said. "Not to take anything away from these guys, but I just know who Zach was and what kind of guy he was."
Former Dolphins and Buffalo Bills defensive back Troy Vincent made the all-decade team. Also from the AFC East was defensive tackle Kris Jenkins, who joined the New York Jets last year after seven with the Carolina Panthers.
As for his inclusion on the all-decade team, Taylor didn't want to get too excited.
This is a legacy-oriented honor, and a player rarely admits to considering his place in history before he has played his final down. Randy Moss, of course, is an exception.
"I'm flattered, but you don't play the game for things like this," Taylor said. "They're the byproduct of trying to do things the right way and play your [expletive] off for years. It's a great thing, but I never think about it.
"I've always shied away from people talking about things like that or the Hall of Fame because I think those things will just happen. If you talk about them ... maybe I'm superstitious. I just don't want to be jinxed. I haven't rolled up the extension cord yet. I'm still going."
Every day this week at ESPN.com, we will be unveiling our all-decade selections.
NFC West blogger Mike Sando kicked off the series Monday morning with the all-decade defense.
My story on the team, coach and player of the 20-aughts is coming Thursday. I also managed the selections for quarterback and running back on the all-decade offense. That story, written by AFC West blogger Bill Williamson, will be posted Tuesday.
ESPN.com polled NFL general managers, coaches, scouts and players to determine who made the cut.
But I'm asking you to assemble the definitive AFC East all-decade squad right here.
We're going to run traditional systems. On offense, please include one fullback, one tight end and two receivers. We'll run a 4-3 defense. I realize three of the four teams run a 3-4 today, but the New York Jets used four linemen until 2007, and the Miami Dolphins officially switched last year.
Submit your ballots in the comments section below or in the AFC East mailbag. I'll compile your votes and announce the results on Friday.
ABOUT THIS BLOG
James Walker
Walker joined ESPN.com in 2008 after four seasons covering the NFL and NBA for the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch. He's a Temple graduate and Hyattsville, Md. native who lives in Miami.
