Odds stacked against Patriots

Belichick and company know what it takes to repeat, but defending a championship is a daunting challenge.​

Bill Belichick has coached the New England Patriots to four Super Bowl titles in the last 14 seasons, and a key to their success is that he demands they forget about it.

Once the last game is over, it no longer matters. Only the next game. “Moving on to (fill in the next opponent)” is Belichick’s mantra.

The Patriots, who defeated the Seattle Seahawks to win Super Bowl XLIX, are moving on to facing the Pittsburgh Steelers in the NFL’s kickoff game Sept. 10. And if any team is up to defending a Super Bowl title, it likely is the Patriots, even with the cloud of Deflategate hanging over them.

But that doesn’t mean it will be easy.

Since the Denver Broncos won back-to-back-championships in 1997 and ’98, only one team has repeated – the Patriots in 2003 and ’04. Willie McGinest was on those New England teams and also was a member of the Patriots’ 2001 champions, who promptly failed to make the playoffs the following season.

“I think that was the thing that really let us know that, regardless of what happens the year prior, you have to hit the reset button,” says McGinest, a former defensive end-linebacker who is an analyst on the NFL Network. “You have to start all over. You can’t just show up and win Super Bowls. It takes a lot of hard work. It takes a lot of offseason preparation.

“The other things, there’s free agency, try to keep the nucleus, try to keep the foundation together. Today’s game, it’s tough, because (when) the players have success, they want to be paid accordingly. So there are a lot of things that factor in.”

Attempting – and failing – to repeat is a theme that has become more common across all sports. While the NBA has seen two repeat champions (the Los Angeles Lakers and the Miami Heat) since 2009, winning back-to-back titles has generally proved to be an often insurmountable task. There hasn’t been one in Major League Baseball or the National Hockey League since the New York Yankees in 1999 and 2000.

David Ortiz’s Boston Red Sox have attempted to repeat as World Series champions three times since 2004. After the first title, they were swept by the Chicago White Sox in the first round of the playoffs. The second time, they lost in seven games in the 2008 American League Championship Series. And most recently they finished last in the AL East in 2014.

“Well, you got to remember that every team every year gets stronger, especially after the experience from the year before,” Ortiz says. “So it’s extremely tough to repeat.”

Basketball Hall of Famer Charles Barkley, who never won a championship in his 16-season career, knew his Phoenix Suns could not get back to the NBA Finals after losing to the Chicago Bulls in 1993.

“You have to have a team that’s totally dedicated to winning,” Barkley told The Sporting News. “You can’t have a team that has a personal agenda. I knew after my first year that we would never make it to the Finals again. Because the guys changed. Guys started complaining about playing time. My first year in Phoenix, I sat them down and said, ‘We’re going to the Finals, we are going to play the Bulls and we have got to be all in.’

“But when I got back that second year, guys started with, ‘This guy makes more money than me. I should be making more than this guy. I should be playing more than this guy.’ I knew then in the back of my mind — I didn’t want to admit it — but I knew my second year in Phoenix, we were not going to get back to the Finals. Because guys change, man.”

Roadblocks to repeats

While there are obvious differences among the sports, there are some common themes with which every team in every sport must contend.

Of course, luck is always a factor. What if Malcolm Butler had not intercepted Russell Wilson’s pass in the end zone in the Super Bowl in February? The talk this offseason likely would have been of the Seahawks’ back-to-back wins – and whether Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady could still lead a team.

But, there are other factors, too.

• The length of the professional season, no matter what the sport, plus the added rigors of the playoffs can wear players down.

• Some players spend more time enjoying the spoils of their championships – appearing on late-night talk shows, doing advertisements, going to glitzy parties – than preparing for the next season.

• Defending champions become bull’s-eyes as opponents target those games on their schedules.

• Parity in the major sports, especially in the NFL, has made it difficult for teams to separate themselves from the pack.

• NFL teams have to deal with roster turnover, players leaving in free agency and salary caps.

With three World Series titles in the last five years, including 2014, the San Francisco Giants have had more experience attempting to repeat than any other Major League Baseball team. But, as successful as the Giants have been, they have not pulled off a repeat. One of the factors no doubt is the extra wear and tear.

“It’s different for every person,” Giants catcher Buster Posey says. “Fortunately for me, I have had three short offseasons now. I have tried to learn from the previous two on better ways to help me recover.

“Managing the amount of downtime I have (is important) – mentally, really making sure that you have to turn it on a little quicker.”

The Patriots insist that conditioning hasn’t been a problem for them this offseason.

“I don’t know anything about that stuff,” offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels says. “All I know is what I see in our offseason program and our work that we put in in the offseason. And then you come and you see 90 guys as prepared for training camp as our guys were.”

Even after all the celebrating that follows a Super Bowl victory.

In the span of a few months Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski sang with Ortiz about their mutual love of iced coffee. He rapped with a Georgia band about hot chicks and crocodiles – or something like that. He partied in Las Vegas. He went to the Kentucky Derby, was a visitor to late-night TV shows and appeared in a WWE promo. He picked up his first Super Bowl championship ring. And he wrote a book titled – what else?—It’s Good to be Gronk.

“You just got to put football first, whatever you do,” he said after he reported to training camp. “You’ve got to make sure you work out, run, get with the quarterbacks, throw in the offseason, before you do anything else. You’ve got to put your football mentality first, get ready for camp and, when camp starts, just put everything focused all on football – in the meetings, out on the field – and put all the hard work in.”

Wide receiver Torrey Smith remembers talking to Warren Sapp, an all-pro defensive tackle who won a Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers following the 2002 season, about repeating after Smith’s Baltimore Ravens became the 2012 champions.

Smith, now with the San Francisco 49ers, said Sapp told him about the added pressure of having a target on his back. Smith realized Sapp was right when he talked to opponents in the next offseason.

“People really do use that as fuel, but I feel like, who cares? What you did last year doesn’t matter,” Smith says. “We all know changes happen within teams, but I guess other people really do…use (that) to motivate themselves. So it’s true – there’s a lot more pressure.

“People are looking at you because people (realize) you don’t do anything different than (they) do. What did you do different to get there?”

That’s where parity comes in. It has been a central them in the NFL for years, and with all of the improvements in analytics and technology, players in other sports know there’s not a whole lot to separate most teams – both in the standings and in their minds.

While baseball is the only sport that does not have to contend with a salary cap, there still are financial constraints -- for some teams more than others.

“Economics rule the game,” said Brian Sabean, who was the longest-tenured general manager in baseball, at 18 years, when the Giants promoted him to executive vice president of baseball operations this spring.

“First and foremost, there are payroll-factor considerations in some ways that can drive the makeup of the roster, how you go forth from year to year, let alone coming off a World Series.”

Ray Shero, now the general manager of the New Jersey Devils, won the Stanley Cup with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2009. In 2010 the Penguins lost to the Montreal Canadiens in the conference semifinals.

“The salary cap,” is a common theme between the NHL and NFL Shero said. “Both the NHL and NFL need to make decisions on both popular and productive players due to cap considerations.”

Which can result in roster turnover almost immediately after celebrating a championship.

“This is a big component,” Shero said. “The cap and free agency as soon as a player turns 25 pushes teams to sign their core players earlier and for longer term. Identifying and locking up top players leaves the middle- and lower-salaried players taking less or having to leave a winning team voluntarily or through trades.

“The big difference between the NFL and NHL is non-guaranteed contracts in football and guaranteed contracts in the NHL. The only way out of a bad contract is to buy the player out at one-third or two-thirds of his remaining contract, depending on the age, and that is spread over twice the remaining term of the remaining contract. And it counts against your salary cap. They don't ‘go away.’”

The NHL has not had a repeat champion since the Detroit Red Wings in 1997 and ‘98.

“For many years, teams only had to win eight playoff games to win the Cup,” Boston Globe hockey analyst and Hall of Fame writer Kevin Paul Dupont says. “Today it’s 16, so it’s twice as hard, just in sheer number of victories. After an 82-game regular season, followed by four more rounds of best-of-seven series it’s just grueling.

“Hand in hand, is the expansion to 30 teams. Talent thins out across the platform, with 30 teams selecting from the annual amateur draft. It plays to parity.”

Unlike the other major sports, championship repeats are fairly common in the NBA.

In the last 17 seasons, only seven teams have won championships, led by the Los Angeles Lakers and San Antonio Spurs with five apiece. In that time, the Lakers won consecutive titles in 2000, ’01 and ’02 and 2009 and ’10, and the Miami Heat won in 2012 and’13.

That’s not to say it’s easy.

“You can play as many as 28 games in the NBA playoffs,” says Sean Deveney, NBA analyst for The Sporting News. “That is an extra third of a season. That's like running a marathon and when you get to the finish after 26 miles, someone tells you, 'You know what? Go another nine miles.' The teams that repeat often do so because they understand how to handle themselves over that long grind.”

And that is what Belichick will be asking of his team. While the NFL has a 16-game season, the physical toll on a player is arguably the worst among the major sports. Then teams must win at least three postseason games.

Deflategate distractions

The Patriots also have added potential distractions. Deflategate, the NFL’s investigation and independent investigator Ted Wells’ report have been some of them. So have Brady’s subsequent four-game suspension, his appeal of that suspension and Commissioner Roger Goodell’s protracted decision on the appeal.

A lot to deal with in one offseason. But if we’ve learned just one thing since Brady became the Patriots’ full-time quarterback in 2001, it should be this: never count him out.

Since being drafted in the sixth round with the 199th overall pick out of Michigan in 2000 – the seventh quarterback taken that year, ahead of just five other quarterbacks – Brady has made a career of comeback victories. If he can convert this one, it will be yet another addition to his list of Hall of Fame credentials.

Brady’s come-from-behind win in Super Bowl XLIX, with two fourth-quarter touchdowns to beat the Seahawks, 28-24, with questions of the Deflategate controversy already swirling around him, was just the most recent example of his ability to perform under pressure.

But the Deflategate pressure kept inflating, and even when Brady’s suspension was announced May 11 (the Patriots also were hit with a $1 million fine and the loss of two draft picks), he wouldn't talk with the media about it.

The only time he addressed it publicly, he gave it cursory treatment at a paid appearance at Salem State University the day after the NFL released the Wells Report.

When Goodell upheld the original four-game suspension in July, citing the fact that Brady had an assistant destroy his cellphone, thereby obstructing the investigation, Brady issued a statement on Facebook denying such actions. He is challenging the ruling in court.

He hasn’t backed down, however, when asked if the controversy tainted the Super Bowl win.

“Absolutely not,” he said. “We earned and achieved everything we got (last) year as a team. I’m very proud of that.”

Backup quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo did get a good deal of time working with the top offensive unit while Brady worked with other players this preseason. Garoppolo also spent time working out in California with Gronkowski and wide receiver Julian Edelman, among others. The pair are two of Brady’s favorite targets.

If Brady’s suspension is upheld, perhaps there could be a silver lining for the Patriots. Perhaps Brady, 38, will be more rested at the end of the year, healthier for a potential run at a Super Bowl repeat. Perhaps he will return from his exile with a vengeance and a giant chip on his shoulder.

“You don’t take him for granted because of the way he works,” Gronkowski told the Boston Herald. “He is a leading example of how to work and how to come out and prepare every single day as a true professional.”