How Brady, Moss, and Belichick went 16-0 — and what happened on February 3, 2008
In the summer of 2007, the New England Patriots were already one of the most successful franchises of their generation — three Super Bowls in four years, a head coach who had become the most respected football mind of his era, and a quarterback who had just entered his prime. Then they signed Randy Moss. What followed was the most dominant regular season in the history of professional football.
Randy Moss had spent the previous two seasons in Oakland, effectively exiled from the highest levels of football after a series of public conflicts with coaches in Minnesota. He had recorded just 60 receptions in two seasons combined. The consensus was that he was done as an elite receiver — that the attitude problems and the lack of effort had finally caught up with him.
Bill Belichick traded a fourth-round draft pick for him anyway.
The reasoning was simple: Moss, even at reduced effort, was a better player than almost anyone available. In a system built on precise timing and route running, with a quarterback as accurate as Tom Brady, Moss's ceiling was theoretically limitless. What nobody could have predicted — even Belichick — was just how fully Moss would embrace what New England was building.
Moss reported to training camp in shape. He ran routes. He studied film. He showed the concentration and commitment that had been intermittently absent for three years. His explanation was direct: "I finally found a quarterback who can get me the ball."
Those numbers require context to appreciate. Tom Brady's 50 touchdown passes broke Peyton Manning's record of 49, set just two years earlier. Randy Moss's 23 receiving touchdowns broke Jerry Rice's record of 22, set in 1987. Wes Welker added 112 receptions for 1,175 yards — a receiver who had never previously topped 67 catches in a season. The team's point total of 589 was the highest in NFL history.
The defense, often overlooked in retrospectives about this team, was equally formidable. Adalius Thomas was a versatile linebacker who had been signed specifically for his ability to match up with tight ends — a position that was just beginning to emerge as a strategic threat. Vince Wilfork anchored the interior of a defensive line that had eight players capable of starting for other teams. The team's point differential of +315 remains one of the largest in NFL history.
Week 1 vs. New York Jets (38-14) — Moss caught two touchdowns on his Patriots debut. The signal was clear immediately: this would be a different kind of Patriots offense than the one that had won three Super Bowls with efficiency and ball control. This one could simply score more than you.
Week 9 vs. Indianapolis Colts (24-20) — The Colts were defending Super Bowl champions. They were the Patriots' primary rivals for AFC supremacy. New England trailed in the fourth quarter before Brady engineered a comeback that ended with the Patriots escaping with a four-point win. It was the closest any team would come to beating them until February.
Week 17 vs. New York Giants (38-35) — Belichick faced a decision in Week 17 with the Patriots already locked into the AFC's top seed: rest his starters and arrive in the playoffs fresh, or play for history. He chose history. Brady played the entire game. Moss caught two long touchdowns. New England won, 38-35, to complete the first 16-0 regular season in the Super Bowl era. Belichick was seen embracing Brady on the sideline in a moment of genuine emotion that had become rare in his public persona.
The Patriots' path through the playoffs looked like a formality. They demolished the Jacksonville Jaguars 31-20 in the divisional round, then handled the San Diego Chargers 21-12 in the AFC Championship — a game in which LaDainian Tomlinson watched from the sideline with a knee injury while the Patriots completed their most clinical performance of the season.
They entered Super Bowl XLII as 12-point favorites against a New York Giants team that had finished 10-6 and had barely survived a wild card game two weeks earlier. The Giants had beaten the Patriots in Week 17 — before New England pulled Brady and Moss in the second half — but a rematch on this stage felt different. No team had ever entered a Super Bowl so overwhelmingly favored to win.
What happened on February 3, 2008 in Glendale, Arizona remains the most shocking result in Super Bowl history. The Giants played the game of their lives. Eli Manning, who had been benched earlier in the season and written off by national media as the family's lesser quarterback talent, was magnificent under pressure. David Tyree made a catch — pinning the ball to his helmet during a scramble with 1:15 remaining — that has been replayed more than any single play in Super Bowl history.
Manning found Plaxico Burress in the end zone with 35 seconds remaining. The Giants won, 17-14. The Patriots' bid to become the first team since the 1972 Miami Dolphins to finish a season undefeated ended in the final minute of the final game.
Brady completed 29 of 48 passes for 266 yards and two touchdowns. Moss caught five passes for 62 yards but was effectively taken away in the second half by an aggressive Giants coverage scheme. The defense, which had held opponents to under 25 points in every game all season, was good but not perfect — and against this Giants team on this night, good was not enough.
The conventional sports narrative suggests that losing diminishes achievement — that the 2007 Patriots, because they didn't win the Super Bowl, are somehow less than the 1972 Dolphins who did. This framing misses the point. The Dolphins went 17-0 in a 14-game season against a competitive but far less sophisticated version of professional football. The 2007 Patriots won 18 games against the most athletically advanced, strategically complex version of the NFL that had ever existed. They broke records that had stood for decades. They produced the most statistically dominant regular season in league history.
The loss to the Giants is a reminder that in professional football, a 60-minute game between two NFL teams can always go either way. But it doesn't erase sixteen weeks of what those Patriots showed was possible: that a single roster, assembled correctly, with the right quarterback, the right weapons, and the right coach, could achieve something that looked impossible.
They were 17 wins away from perfection. They made it to 18-0 before the final gun. For a sport that punishes perfection with an infinite number of chances for it to unravel, that's as close as anyone has come since 1972.
Draft Brady, Moss, Welker, and the rest — or build your own all-time team from every era of NFL history. Simulate 17 games and find out if you can do what the '07 Patriots almost did.
Play 17-0 Free →