Four reasons why the Pats demise has been greatly exaggerated

You can't count out the Patriots as long as Tom Brady and Bill Belichick are there. Heinz Kluetmeier/SI Don Banks's Mailbag Submit a comment or question to Don Banks. Name: Email: Hometown: Question: SEND Follow Don Banks on Twitter

Stop me if you've heard this one before, but the New England Patriots could be in trouble. At least that was the conventional wisdom circulating around the league last week, with some speculating that we had just witnessed the eve of destruction for this decade's only NFL dynasty.

I can understand the sky-is-falling sentiment to a degree. Scott Pioli finally spread his wings and left the mother ship for Kansas City's general manager job. Offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels parlayed his successful Patriots tenure into the Broncos head coaching position, at the tender age of 32. Longtime New England special teams coach Brad Seely left to become Eric Mangini's new assistant head coach/special teams coordinator in Cleveland, and just Monday the brain drain continued when Dom Capers, who served as the Patriots special assistant/secondary, signed on as Green Bay's defensive coordinator.

Granted that's a lot of expertise that just left the building in Foxboro, but we're not quite at the stage where the last guy out of New England should hit the lights. At some point you have to assume a tipping point will be reached in terms of the loss of talent dragging the Patriots down into the middle of the NFL pack. But before unadulterated hope starts springing in the hearts of AFC opponents everywhere, let's all take a cold-eyed look at the team formerly known as the Beast of the East. Here are four reasons why I believe the Patriots' demise could once again be greatly exaggerated:

1) We've seen this movie before. Nobody -- and we mean nobody -- adapts to defections and departures like New England. The whole next-man-up thing isn't just a pithy slogan, it's a organizational-wide mindset. And the reality is there always does seem to be somebody locked and loaded in the pipeline, ready to take over. In fact, they don't even let you into the door in New England unless you have some potential to take the ball and run with it when your turn comes.

When veteran coordinators Romeo Crennel and Charlie Weis both took off for head coaching jobs after the Patriots' third Super Bowl win in early 2005, there was plenty of concern about how New England would ever replace their experience and acumen. But Mangini and then Dean Pees emerged to successfully coordinate the defense, and after a year of transition on offense, McDaniels developed into coordinator material on that side of the ball.

Once again, Belichick is expected to promote from within his own staff, elevating either receivers coach Bill O'Brien or tight ends coach Pete Mangurian (would that make him the Mangurian candidate?) to offensive coordinator. Being steeped in the Patriots Way seems to be the key component that Belichick prioritizes, above and beyond the typical notion of prior coordinating experience. As in the case of Mangini and McDaniels, it's an approach that has certainly paid dividends in the past.

The same next-man-up scenario has played out all decade in terms of on-field talent, thanks in large part, of course, to Pioli's skill in evaluation and scouting. When Tom Brady went down, Matt Cassel stepped forward. When Adam Vinatieri left, Stephen Gostkowski filled the void quite capably. When key veterans such as Lawyer Milloy, Deion Branch, Willie McGinest, Corey Dillon, David Givens, Damien Woody and Asante Samuel went elsewhere, there was always somebody there who helped keep the train rolling. Only the Colts have a longer streak of double-digit win seasons than New England's six.

Former Patriots director of college scouting and current Atlanta Falcons general manager Thomas Dimitroff knows the drill in New England. It's not easy when the Pats lose a Pioli or a McDaniels, but so far it has never been devastating.

"Bill Belichick and the Kraft family, whether it's on the players side, the coaching side or the management side, they do a special job of having people waiting in the wings and training people in the way of the Patriot paradigm,'' Dimitroff said late Monday night, from the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala. "There's a tacit understanding throughout the organization that you better be ready when you're number is called. Because if it's called, and you're not ready, you won't be called upon again by Bill Belichick to be a contributor.

"With all due respect to any of us who have left New England, there's usually somebody there ready to step up and deliver once we're gone. I think it's going to be a challenge, for sure, to replace the people they've lost. But we've seen it year in and year out. You know the idea of putting your fist in the bucket of water, and then pulling it out and the water goes back together? That's kind of what it's like in New England.''

2) With apologies to Tennessee, Baltimore, Pittsburgh and San Diego, the AFC has no obvious ascending superpower at the moment. And don't forget that the conference's coaching ranks just lost Tony Dungy in Indianapolis and Mike Shanahan in Denver, the two guys who, this decade, have given Belichick and his Patriots the most trouble. That's a win-win situation for New England, where Belichick is now the AFC's second-most tenured head coach behind Tennessee's Jeff Fisher.

The competition is no doubt tougher in the AFC East these days, but the Patriots still can look at their division and see the rival Jets starting over to a degree with a new head coach (Rex Ryan) and a new quarterback (likely no Brett Favre). Miami is a force to be respected and reckoned with again, but you have to think the Dolphins won't be slipping up on anyone in 2009, and thus their 11-5 record of this season might not be easily matched. And in Buffalo, the disappointing Bills can't seem to break out of their 7-9 funk. The days of 2007-level domination might be over in New England, but this isn't a division or a conference that has left the Patriots behind.

3) The Patriots still have the game's best player in Tom Brady. I know lots of people have found reasons to get panicky about No. 12 since that fateful day his knee buckled last September. (Come to think of it, how will Pioli introduce himself to Chiefs safety Bernard Pollard?) But I'm just not a member of the doomsday club. I really believe Brady's going to come back and be Brady again. If not immediately, then very, very soon. In plenty of time for the 2009 Patriots to be OK.

I don't buy that Cincinnati's Carson Palmer has never been the same after his January 2006 knee injury, which he returned from a scant eight months later, far quicker than the 12 months between meaningful snaps that Brady will face. Palmer, in 2006, threw for more than 4,000 yards, had 28 touchdown passes and wound up going to the Pro Bowl, where he won the game's MVP award.

As long as the Patriots have Brady, they've got a great jump start to a 10-win season, and a shot at the playoffs. It's still a quarterbacks league, and when we last saw him, Brady was the reigning MVP of the NFL, and at the top of his game. ACL injuries aren't career ending for quarterbacks.

And in some ways, the Patriots, remarkably enough, are even better off for Brady going down. With Matt Cassel developing into a quarterback worthy of being slapped with New England's franchise tag, the Patriots are in position to auction him off in trade if they so deem, likely bringing much needed help for the defensive secondary.

4) The Patriots still have Belichick. That means they still have at their disposal the league's best all-in-one package of coaching skill and personnel evaluation. The loss of Pioli weakens the Patriots, but that's not to say it leaves them weak. It's possible that Belichick might be stretched too thin without his longtime right-hand man, and that cracks in the Patriots way of doing things will reveal themselves in time because of it.

But I think it's more likely that Belichick has groomed someone to carry on in Pioli's pivotal role, identifying the type of players who work best in New England's system, and finding creative ways to both acquire them and fit them into the team's value-based financial framework.

From all indications, director of player personnel Nick Caserio, who has been with the organization since starting as a personnel assistant in the scouting department in 2001, will be Pioli's replacement. While he can't be expected to immediately perform so many key functions as well as Pioli, who oversaw the team's salary cap, contract negotiations and coordinated the scouting and personnel departments, Caserio is thought of as a quick study who will grow into the job at the pace that's both expected and demanded in New England.

It's unreasonable to project the Patriots and Belichick won't miss Pioli's expertise. But will they miss it to the degree that it creates an immediately noticeable drop-off in the team's personnel level and performance? I'm not convinced that we'll see such a scenario play out in 2009.

"I think Scott [Pioli] was a huge part of working with Bill to build that team,'' Dimitroff said. "But Bill stresses adaptability in every situation, and no one is going to sit there in New England and wallow in the idea of their demise. That's just not the makeup there, and it never has been. Even when key players have gone down over the years. It's never a woe-is-us type of situation. They lost Tommy Brady, and they still won.

"There's very little patience for complacency or a sense of entitlement in that organization. Bill Belichick has preached this is a team game on so many different levels, not just with the players. That team idea permeates everything they do. Even on my middle management level, I knew they'd skip right along after I left. There have been some incredibly talented people who have gone through there and then left. But even so, they won't stop showing up for work every day in Foxboro. I promise you that.''