It’s hard to believe all that’s transpired over the course of a little more than a year.
Not so very long ago, the New England Patriots were Super Bowl champions. They had defied the odds all year, turning in a relatively modest season by their own impossibly high standards (11-5) that culminated in a dramatic AFC Championship upset road win over Patrick Mahomes’ Kansas City Chiefs and then a Super Bowl LIII victory over Sean McVay’s Los Angeles Rams.
The end result was Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, Julian Edelman, Rob Gronkowski, and all the other usual suspects passing around the Lombardi Trophy in February 2019.