2000 New England Patriots season

| AP All-pros = None The 2000 season was the New England Patriots' 31st in the National Football League (NFL) and their 41st overall. They finished with a 5–11 record and in last place in the division. It would be the first season the franchise would have involving quarterback Tom Brady (although he would not start any games until the following season). He would play 20 seasons as a Patriot, a franchise record. However, he wasn't given the starting job until next season. This was Tom Brady's only season on a team with a losing record until 2022, and the only time that his team lost twice to the same AFC East team during the regular season.

Following the firing of three-year head coach Pete Carroll in January, Patriots owner Bob Kraft pursued Jets assistant head coach Bill Belichick for the Patriots' head coaching vacancy. Belichick, who had been an assistant coach under Bill Parcells with the Patriots in 1996, followed Parcells to the Jets after that season and was contractually named Parcells' successor. A day after the 1999 season, Parcells resigned as head coach of the Jets and made his second retirement from NFL coaching. Belichick, who had been assistant head coach of the Jets, became the Jets' next head coach. The following day, at a press conference for his hiring, Belichick wrote a resignation note on a sheet of loose-leaf paper ("I resign as HC of the NYJ."), and proceeded to give a half-hour resignation speech to the press. Despite rumors that he had been offered the Patriots' vacant head coaching position, Belichick cited the Jets' uncertain ownership situation following the death of owner Leon Hess earlier that year as the reason for his resignation. The Jets denied Belichick permission to speak with other teams, and as had happened in 1997 with Parcells, the NFL upheld Belichick's contractual obligations to the Jets. Belichick then filed an antitrust lawsuit against the NFL in federal court. After, Parcells and Kraft, talking for the first time since Parcells' resignation from the Patriots, agreed to settle their differences, the Patriots and Jets agreed to a compensation package to allow Belichick to become the Patriots' head coach. With the deal, the Patriots sent their first-round pick in the 2000 NFL draft and fourth and seventh-round picks in the 2001 NFL draft to the Jets, while also receiving the Jets' fifth-round selection in 2001 and seventh-round pick in the 2002 NFL draft.

Belichick restructured the team's personnel department in the offseason, and later proclaimed that the team "could not win with 40 good players while the other team has 53," after a number of players showed up out of shape for the start of training camp. The Patriots went on to finish the season 5–11, finishing last in the AFC East and missing the playoffs for the second straight season.

The 2000 Pro Football Hall of Fame Game vs the San Francisco 49ers, a 20–0 victory for the Patriots, would be the first game of third-string rookie Tom Brady's exalted 20-year career with the Patriots, playing his final three seasons with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers afterward. Their first year in New England would be the only season from 1996 to 2019 where the Patriots finished with a losing record. Brady would retire in 2023, which would also mark Belichick's last season with the Patriots after leading New England to a cumulative 266–121–0 regular season record, 30–12 playoffs record, 17 division titles, 9 AFC conference championships and a record 6 Super Bowl victories as head coach (and record 8 total Super Bowl victories, including assistant coaching experience with the Giants.) After the season, Bruce Armstrong retired.

This was the last time the Patriots finished last in the AFC East until the 2023 season.