I wasn't really aware at the time so I didn't notice anything but how White were the early 2000s Patriots ? I can't recall any good white skill position player before Welker
I was around 16 years old when Brady/Belichick won their first Superbowl. I was "counting" white players back then, but didn't become aware of the Caste System until a few years later.
Anyway, during their first Superbowl year (2001-2002), their offense generally consisted of Brady, 3 whites on the OL (Light, Compton, Andruzzi), and FB Marc Edwards. Defensively, it was usually Vrabel, Bruschi, and Ted Johnson also rotated in. Their starting RB's (Smith, Faulk, Redmond), WR's (Patten, Brown) and TE's (Wiggins, Rutledge) were all black. Vrabel was sometimes used as a TE and even scored a TD in the Superbowl (1:42 mark in this video)...
As the seasons passed in the pre-Welker era (2001-2007), the OL became 100% white and the first white WR to receive meaningful touches was aging speedster, Tim Dwight, who had a nice season in 2005. The TE position was always coal black (Jermaine Wiggins, Ben Watson, Daniel Graham), with part-Polynesian Christian Fauria mixed in. None of them were prominent pass-catchers. Before Gronk, talented white TE's like David Thomas and Garrett Mills served infinite "racial apprenticeships." RB Kyle Eckel was tortured, too.
As we all know, when Wes arrived in 2007, their entire offensive philosophy changed. The uncoverable "Patriot Missile" became an instant superstar and had every NFL team looking for the "next Welker." The OL remained lily-white, Edelman was drafted as a "slash" player two years later, and they drafted countless Negro busts on defense. Woodhead and Gronkowski were added in 2010 and the offense frequently started 9-10 whites. There was a span of several seasons when the Pats didn't have a single non-white offensive lineman.
Since 2010, other white WR's were added (Jeremy Ebert, Austin Collie, Danny Amendola, Chris Hogan) as their OL became slightly darker (Brian Waters, Marcus Cannon) and their defense added a few whites (Steve Gregory, Trevor Scott, Nate Ebner, Dane Fletcher, Chris White), but only Gregory was a full-time starter.
For this year's Superbowl, they should start 6-8 whites on offense (Brady, Edelman, Hogan, Solder, Andrews, Thuney, and possibly Develin and Amendola) and 2 whites on defense (Ninkovich and McClellin). Their current starting lineup would look much better had RT Sebastian Vollmer and TE Rob Gronkowski not landed on IR.