The last time this happened ...

Bill Belichick and Pete Carroll both got the ax as head coaches this year.

I promise, at some point I will offer some reflections on the recent departure of Patriots' head coach Bill Belichick, the hiring of Jerod Mayo to replace him, and the ongoing problems Belichick has had in trying to find another job. I've just been too busy.

But in perusing some old stories earlier today, I came upon this column I wrote the last time the Patriots had such a tectonic shift in the coaching office. I had to chuckle ... not at the circumstances of Pete Carroll's final days as the Patriots' head coach, but in that I was so willing to go out on a limb in print with my well-researched and accurate observations. That was my nature, however. I suspect that if I was still on the Patriots' beat over the last few months, I would have been every bit as pointed in my commentary about the end of the Belichick Era.

Here, in its entirety, is a column that ran on Dec. 29, 1999. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did in re-reading it after 24 years and change.

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Carroll twists in the wind in Foxboro

Contrary to popular belief, I do have a heart. Also contrary to popular belief, I am not enjoying the spectacle going on at Foxboro Stadium these days.

It is no fun to see a man in the last days of his employment, trying to explain himself or rationalize what happened to cause this impending doom.

No, I am not dancing on Pete Carroll's grave. Far from it, in fact.

This is excruciating -- far more so than in the cases of the other seven coaches of the New England Patriots whom I've seen come and go.

There have been some highly dramatic moments among those farewells.

Chuck Fairbanks never said goodbye to anyone, bolting for the University of Colorado amid a firestorm of controversy that culminated in a disappointing playoff loss.

Ron Erhardt learned in just time for the Christmas holiday that he was being let go because, as team owner Billy Sullivan said at the press conference of his firing, "he was just too nice a guy.''

Ron Meyer offered his mea culpas not in the surroundings of the Stadium Club, but in the middle of the football field on the grounds of the Foxborough State Hospital, a former mental institution -- only fitting, many believed.

Raymond Berry, after almost six seasons as the lonesome cowboy of Foxboro, picked an urban setting -- a Boston hotel ballroom -- to offer his side of his release.

Rod Rust went as he arrived -- quietly and dutifully, despite the chaos that reigned supreme around him during his one-year tenure at the helm.

Dick MacPherson had been robbed of his characteristic feistiness by a case of diverticulitis during his second year as head coach, but he regained quite a bit of it in the parking lot of the stadium where he and I chatted for nearly a half-hour after his farewell press conference. The object of most of Mac's scorn, former team VP Sam Jankovich, would be gone a couple of days later.

Bill Parcells, of course, joined team owner Robert Kraft in living a lie during the week before Super Bowl XXXI. Their joint press conference in New Orleans, intended to deny the rift that had already cemented their parting of the ways, was one of the most reprehensible and embarrassing examples of disinformation I've seen in three decades of professional journalism.

But of course, Parcells' official departure on the Friday after the Super Bowl gave us the immortal line, "If you want someone to cook the dinner, you've got to let him shop for the groceries.''

In some instances, there was little doubt the coaches in question would be let go. In others, it came suddenly and shockingly.

Carroll's enthusiasm waned at the end.

Carroll's situation is different, however.

He clearly knows he is going to be fired. He speaks to reporters in the past tense, thanks radio personalities and their crews for working with him over the past three years, and holds super-secret meetings with his players to let them know he's toast.

Reportedly, he has contacted a high-powered agent to start putting out feelers for other jobs. If you don't believe that, remember, you didn't believe during Super Bowl Week three years ago that an internet-based news service could pinpoint Carroll as the next coach of the Patriots before the major media outlets did.

In the meantime, however, Kraft has said nothing publicly.

That's nothing new for the reclusive owner of the Patriots, who has gone full circle in the media spotlight. Once a fellow who never met a television camera he didn't like, Kraft now avoids publicity like the plague -- whether about the stadium he plans to build in Foxboro, or about the football team he has allowed to go to hell in a handbasket during his all-consuming pursuit of the former.

Indeed, aside from Carroll's broadly dropped hints, there has been no definitive statement from ownership about the coach's future. Nor has there been any statement about the future of vice president Bobby Grier, who must share mightily in the culpability for the team's on-field failings.

In much happier times.

Watching Carroll take the fall for a team-wide failure is painful even to those of us who called for his head long before.

It was clear to me from the beginning that Carroll was not the right man to take over for Parcells. He was too friendly, too rah-rah, too disorganized, and too trusting of his players to be able to crack the whip on them when they needed it.

And make no mistake, they needed it.

This team overachieved to get to a Super Bowl, and that put the idea into some of the players' heads that they were mature enough and self-motivated enough to trade in a taskmaster of a coach for a lighter disciplinary touch.

How wrong they were.

As we've seen on countless occasions over the past three years, a goodly number of Patriots aren't disciplined enough either on or off the field to maintain a high level of achievement. The players who wanted to ``take ownership'' of their futures, and abused the good nature of Pete Carroll in their quest for an easy ride, let him down in the worst way.

Carroll was also let down by his bosses. Grier, presented with a bonanza of draft choices from the New York Jets in return for Parcells and, later, free-agent defection Curtis Martin, got nothing in return.

About the only real contributors from that plethora of picks were Robert Edwards, whose career was tragically cut short by a freak knee injury, and linebacker Andy Katzenmoyer, for whom the jury is still out. The rest are either producing little or out of the NFL altogether.

Grier's failure extends also to the free-agency or salary-cap losses of players such as Martin, Sam Gash, Dave Wohlabaugh, Willie Clay and Todd Collins -- oh, yes, and Pro Bowl punter Tom Tupa. He and financial guru Andy Wasynczuk also threw big money at the wrong people, including members of an offensive like that will allow Drew Bledsoe to be sacked as many times or more than Hugh Millen was, back in the bad old days.

No, what's wrong with the Patriots isn't entirely Carroll's fault. He will have to answer for the failure, though, because it's doubtful Kraft has the gumption or the football acumen to clean house totally and effectively, as he should.

But the owner has no trouble enjoying a vacation in Puerto Rico while his football coach swings in the wind, forced to endure a public humiliation because several parts of the organization failed him.

I feel badly for Pete Carroll. Not too badly, mind you, because he was well-compensated for his troubles -- but no one, regardless of how badly he has performed in his job, deserves a two-week public flogging such as the one Carroll has endured.

A wonderful Christmas present from the Kraft family, wouldn't you say?

MARK FARINELLA is Weekend Sports Editor of The Sun Chronicle. Respond by e-mail at mfarinel@thesunchronicle.com

(Editor's note: That email address is no longer valid, of course.)