FOXBOROUGH – We’ve said it quite a bit the last few years, ‘the dynasty is officially dead.’

But, there was still always a piece or two still remaining. That is, until Tuesday afternoon.

The longest tenured Patriot, long snapper Joe Cardona, was officially released by the team. Cardona has spent his entire 10-year NFL career with the Patriots and had widely been recognized as one of the best, most consistent special teams’ guys in the league.

Cardona was a fifth-round draft pick (166th) coming out of Navy in the 2015 NFL Draft and played in 160 regular season games along with 13 postseason games. Cardona won two Super Bowls during his time in Fixborough. Last season, Cardona snapped in 16 of the 17 games.

While it’s truly the ‘official’ end to the past era, this one was pretty easy to see coming. On Saturday, New England drafted long snapper Julian Ashby out of Vanderbilt to basically take his place. Mike Vrabel, Eliot Wolf and Ryan Cowden have completely flipped the building over, and Vrabel’s willingness to get rid of previous captains or long-standing members of the organization is a necessary evil when trying to get thing back to the way they once were.

Cardona is now 33, so age was a big factor too as the league gets faster and faster by the minute. A true professional in every sense of the word and a stand up Navy guy, Cardona should always be remembered fondly for going about his business the right way all the time for a decade, even when things got messy around him.