This thorough and gorgeously illustrated history of the New England Patriots profiles the top players, memorable moments, and thrilling victories from more than 50 seasons of Patriots football.

Released in conjunction with the franchise’s 50th anniversary, this fully illustrated history of the New England Patriots celebrates the team from its origins in 1960 through its dynastic success in the new millenium. The book highlights the great players, coaches, teams, and moments that have made the Patriots one of the most successful franchises in NFL history. With chapters organized by era and articles profiling the top players and characters, New England Patriots: The Complete Illustrated History explores every aspect of Patriots history and traditions. Includes stats and some 200 photos.

"The definitive inside story of the New England Patriots dynasty"--

Over two unbelievable decades, the New England Patriots were not only the NFL’s most dominant team, but also—and by far—the most secretive. How did they achieve and sustain greatness—and what were the costs? In It’s Better to Be Feared, Seth Wickersham, one of the nation’s finest investigative sportswriters, presents the definitive account of the New England Patriots dynasty, capturing the brilliance, ambition, and ruthlessness that powered it. Having covered the team since Tom Brady took over as starting quarterback in 2001, Wickersham draws on an immense range of sources, including previously confidential game plans, scouting reports, and internal studies as well as hundreds of interviews gathered over two decades—with Brady, Bill Belichick, and other players, coaches, and front office personnel—to offer a behind-the-scenes chronicle of the dynasty’s three acts: the initial burst of Super Bowls from 2001 to 2005; the plateau period, 2006 to 2014, stalked by scandal, injury, and near-misses; and the second three Super Bowl victories between 2015 and 2019, which allowed the Patriots to make their claim upon history. At every step, Wickersham demonstrates just how Belichick and Brady shaped the Patriots and reshaped the entire NFL. We are taken deep into Belichick’s tactical mind, odd work habits, and strained relationships, including his sincere but unspoken love for the players and a near fistfight with a former assistant coach. It is an illuminating depiction of a mastermind, and an organization, dedicated not only to winning but to breaking a league designed to prevent the emergence of a single, unbeatable team. Yet it is in Wickersham’s portrait of Brady—from his childhood in northern California to his challenging years at the University of Michigan to his astonishing early superstardom in the NFL—that the source of the Patriots’ sheer endurance comes into focus. Even as he navigated an improbable rise to fame, Brady was driven by a totalizing ambition to be great, not as an endpoint, but as an ever-unfolding process. Sustaining greatness, however, came with a price. Wickersham reveals, to an extent no other journalist has, the clashes among the coach, the quarterback, and the owner, Robert Kraft—conflicts that resulted in the team’s best performances but also, eventually, the dissolution of the dynasty itself. Raucous, unvarnished, and propulsive, It’s Better to Be Feared is an instant classic of American sportswriting, and an unforgettable study of what it takes to reach, and remain at, the summit of human achievement.

Volume 2 explains how Bill Belichick's New England Patriots have won three Super Bowls in four seasons, and includes quotations from Patriots players, coaches, owners, and executives as they describe the team's success factors.

Long before the Patriots took the 21st century by storm and became the most dominant team in NFL history, pro football was something entirely different in New England, something comically atrocious and riddled with heartbreak. Before those juggernaut years of Bill Belichick, Tom Brady, and sold-out crowds at Gillette Stadium came a hapless franchise that managed only a single playoff victory in a quarter century and spent its entire first decade of existence just trying to establish a permanent home field (and even when they did, none of the toilets worked). In From Darkness to Dynasty, bestselling author Jerry Thornton irreverently chronicles those easily glossed-over, downtrodden decades--years when the team claimed more headlines for lawsuits, arrests, power struggles, drug problems, and inept, bizarre, behavior from players, coaches, and owners than for anything they accomplished on the field. Relive the behind-the-scenes dysfunction, the turmoil of prolonged irrelevance, and the improbable way the Patriots finally ascended to greatness. By turns hilarious and eye-opening, this is an essential history for fans and disparagers alike, and a pointed reminder that the best stories of triumph start with humble beginnings.

DIVSince the dawn of the millennium, no football team has enjoyed greater success than the New England Patriots, with 12 straight winning seasons, 10 playoff appearances, 5 Super Bowl trips, and 3 championship titles. Under coach Bill Belichick, the Patriots and quarterback Tom Brady have been a dominant force on the gridiron, a veritable dynasty in an era of NFL parity. But the history of this team, beginning long before the arrival of Belichick and Brady, includes more than 50 years of memorable games, all-star characters, and plenty of winning and losing moments./divDIV/divDIVRevised and updated to include the most recent NFL seasons, New England Patriots: The Complete Illustrated History immerses fans in the history of this beloved franchise through fascinating stories and hundreds of images. Award-winning sportswriter Christopher Price explores every era of Patriots football and introduces—or reintroduces—readers to all the team’s legendary players: from Gino Cappelletti and Babe Parelli in the early years to John Hannah and Mike Haynes in the 1970s; the surprise Super Bowl squad of Steve Grogan, Stanley Morgan, and Andre Tippett; the 1990s resurgence under coach Bill Parcells with Pro Bowlers Bruce Armstrong and Ben Coates; and up through the recent heroes like Wes Welker, Troy Brown, Mike Vrabel, Tedy Bruschi, Ty Law, and Brady./divDIV/divDIVFeaturing tons of glorious photos of these and many other Patriot icons, images of memorabilia spanning the team’s entire history, and an appendix of individual stats and team records, New England Patriots: The Complete Illustrated History is the ultimate celebration of an incomparable football franchise./div