Hello, my name is Tim, and I'm a Patriots fan.
"Hi, Tim! Fuck you and every one of your ancestors dating back to the Neanderthal!"
This little scene never happened but would if there was some kind of Patriots Fan Anonymous group where the 12 steps included inoculating yourself from the abuse you get from the rest of America and anywhere else people watch the NFL. I'm not sure why that would be a thing, but I thought it was funny to think about.
I came by my Patriots fandom relatively honestly. I was not born in the New England area, but many of my previously mentioned post-Neanderthal ancestors were. I did not really follow the NFL closely until I was nine. Previous to that, I was a die-hard Mets fans during the summer, and I sometimes watched Jets games in the fall and winter with my dad and brother Mike, but neither of them were strong partisans. We all liked Joe Namath, who was constantly on the back page of the New York Daily News my dad would bring home when he arrived from work every evening (with the entries from Aqueduct and Belmont heavily annotated, but that's another story). Namath's knees gave out and he became washed up when I was eight, and was traded to the San Francisco 49ers, who might as well have been on the moon as far as I was concerned.
Then, the most catastrophic thing that ever happened to me happened in August of my 10th year. Mike was killed when a fire started in his room after he came home from a night of carousing at the county fair. Two of my sisters and I were in the room across the hall and witnessed the whole thing. Of course, it was devastating and brutal and horrible and my family descended into a pit of despair and grief that touches us to this day. We were uprooted, first to a motel and then to a drafty rental house a few miles away with not much but our sorrow and whatever toys and trinkets our homeowners insurance would pay for. We were all grieving, bewildered, missing our brother and son, and looking for any solace. Mine was the New England Patriots.
The other kids in my class were starting to adopt NFL teams about that time, and I wanted as much as ever to fit in, especially after what had happened. Many picked the multiple Super Bowl champion Steelers, or their hated rivals the Cowboys, or the Raiders or Dolphins, perennial winners all. Nobody, and I mean nobody, and this is to their credit really, picked the Jets, Giants or Bills. These were three beyond moribund franchises who had done absolutely nothing to earn anyone's loyalty for years and just because we lived in their TV market was no excuse for anyone to root for them.
I fancied myself as clever, and I wanted to set myself apart but still root for a good team that I had at least some passing connection with and could watch on TV at least occasionally. The Patriots were the perfect match. I knew that my dad's side of the family was from Massachusetts going back hundreds of years, and my older brother Joe had just moved to Cape Cod to take an air-traffic controller job. I also knew that my Catholic school's sports nickname was "Patriots," and that the Patriots played the Jets and Bills twice each year, and we would get those games on our local TV channels. I liked the fact that the team was named after a whole region and not just one city. It appealed to the geography nerd in me. I liked that they played in a small town, about the size of the town I lived in, in a stadium nestled among ancient deciduous trees whose leaves were turning color during the season. I liked the logo of the minuteman snapping a football and the red, white and blue color scheme. Finally, I saw Steve Grogan play and that sealed it. Grogan had just been named the full-time starter that September after the fire, replacing the traded Heisman Trophy winner Jim Plunkett. His ability to make something out of nothing with his legs and his strong arm, the way he flung the ball around with abandon, his toughness and his fiery on-field demeanor and competitiveness made me completely forget Broadway Joe. I begged my mom to help me order his poster from the back of Sports Illustrated, and since I was getting away with everything at that point, she relented. The poster went on the wall, and it was official. I was a Pats fan.
It started out as great as I could have ever imagined. The Patriots dominated that year. Their roster was considered the best in football. Grogan, Sam "Bam" Cunningham, Darryl Stingley, "All-World" tight end Russ Francis (no less than Howard Cosell himself called him that), John "Hog" Hannah, Leon Gray, Mike Haynes, Tim Fox, and Steve Nelson were all considered to be top players at their positions. Haynes, Francis, and Gray made the Pro Bowl. Grogan had terrible numbers, but the team was a winner and he was the unquestioned leader. At 11-3, they barely missed winning the AFC East on tie-breakers with the Baltimore Colts, but got into the post-season as a Wild Card, playing at Oakland in the first round. This was the John Madden Raiders at the height of their success. They only lost one game that season, to the Patriots in Foxboro, 48-17. I knew it would be a tough game, with the Raiders and their dirty players ready for revenge for their only loss. The Pats had the lead with a few minutes left in the game, and on a third and long, Kenny Stabler threw an incompletion down the sidelines, making it desperation time for the Raiders. Then, I was first introduced to what being a Pats fan at that particular moment in history was really all about.
Let's back up. My 9-year-old brain did not have access to Wikipedia, Google or anything but newspapers and magazines and books, and I failed to do my due diligence when choosing the Patriots because it was too much work. The franchise came into existence in 1960 as the Boston Patriots when the AFL was formed. Billy Sullivan bought the team with all the money he had in the world and scraped together a franchise on a day-to-day basis for years. They played in many different stadia with few fans and little press coverage and barely had enough cash to stay in business. When the NFL-AFL merger happened in 1966, Sullivan reaped a windfall, but still managed to keep his team in the bottom of the league through all kinds of bad decisions and worse luck. Kicked out of the city of Boston, the team settled in a small stadium in a tiny village called Foxboro and changed their name to the New England Patriots in 1970. More bad decisions followed until in 1973, they hired Chuck Fairbanks as the head coach. Fairbanks had just left his job with Oklahoma, where he had great success, leading the Sooners to three Big Eight titles. Fairbanks immediately drafted Cunningham, Stingley, Hannah, and Ray "Sugar Bear" Hamilton in the first year, and Grogan in 1975, after a couple of bumpy years because of various labor disputes and more Sullivan meddling, the team was ready to contend. I came in at that point, and to my naive sensibilities, all was going swimmingly.
Back to the Raiders playoff game. Just as Stabler was releasing the pass, Sugar Bear, playing defensive end, struck the arm, shoulder and yes, the helmet, of the Raider QB. Referee Ben Dreith inexplicably called roughing the passer, even though the rule at the time did not address a blow to the helmet and only covered hitting the QB late after the pass had been thrown, which Sugar Bear most definitely did not do. First and ten Raiders. They went on to score the winning touchdown with seconds remaining and won the game. They would then go on to beat the Vikings in Super Bowl XI for Madden's only title.
It was my second sports disappointment, after the Mets losing the World Series in 1973 to another Oakland team, the A's. This one hurt worse, because I was still mourning my late brother, and because the Pats had been robbed by the refs. Looking back, I should have known that the Patriots were never going to get the benefit of any doubt based on their checkered history and their perennial doormat status up to that point. In subsequent years, the backstory and the bad karma began to fill itself in. 1978 was another brutal year. The Pats won the AFC East for the first time since the merger, and hosted a playoff game in Foxboro for the first time ever. Unfortunately, Fairbanks had had it with Billy and his even more cheapskate son Chuck Sullivan and news leaked late in the season that he had signed to coach the University of Colorado Buffaloes the next fall. The Sullivans were livid and suspended Fairbanks for the final regular season game, which was co-head-coached by Ron Erhardt and Hank Bullough. Fairbanks was allowed to coach the playoff game, but after all the turmoil, the team collapsed and lost to Houston 31-14. There would not be another playoff game in Foxboro until 1996.
The rest of the 70's and early 80's were a blur. The most memorable part of that time for me was when Howard Cosell announced the murder of John Lennon during a Dolphins-Patriots Monday Night Football game in 1980. The Pats made the expanded playoffs in the 1982 strike year, losing in the first round. Those were the infamous Ron Meyer years, when everyone on the team hated the head coach and the head coach pretty much hated all his players. Meyer was canned and replaced by Colts legend Raymond Berry, another great hire by the Sullivans that almost worked. Berry led the team to their first Super Bowl appearance. Unfortunately, it seemed as though the Pats really just drew the short straw because no one else wanted to face the terrifying Chicago Bears. I remember getting excited when the Pats took an early 3-0 lead, and then watched the Bears score 46 straight points. This kind of thing was now becoming routine in my Pats experience.
Berry had a couple of decent years after that but the team declined under his leadership and he was fired and another rebuilding cycle started. The early 90's were the absolute nadir. The Sullivans finally found a buyer for the team in Remington shaver CEO Victor Kiam in 1989, and he brought in Rod Rust, who was in over his head, for the miserable 1990 season. Grogan led the team to his last win as a Patriot and the team's only win that year. The franchise hit rock-bottom off the field that year as well when Lisa Olson, a Boston reporter, was sexually harassed by numerous players and called a "classic bitch" by Kiam. I was out of college and living in Illinois at the time, and this was before NFL Sunday Ticket. I rarely watched any Patriots games, and if I did, it was just to peek in on the train wreck. Unlike the Mets, though, who I abandoned during this time because it's really hard to root for a baseball team you can't watch or listen to every day, I stuck with the Pats, mostly because of the good will engendered by Grogan.
Kiam, looking to sell after the disaster of the Lisa Olson incident, hired former rah-rah Syracuse head coach Dick MacPherson, who led the club to two increasingly embarrassing seasons. In 1993, Kiam offloaded the team to James Orthwein, an heir to the Anheuser-Busch fortune from St. Louis. The franchise was in complete tumult at this point. They were lousy on the field and the ownership was unstable. It looked like Orthwein might move the team to St. Louis, which had been abandoned by Bill Bidwell and the Cardinals. "Oh, well," I thought, "I'll have to get a new team." I think I might have considered the Houston Oilers for a brief second, since I was now living near Houston. It boggles the mind.
I didn't live in Boston, so I really had no clue what was going on around this time behind the scenes. A Patriots season ticket holder and business owner from Foxboro by the name of Bob Kraft had quietly bought up the land around Sullivan Stadium (as it was then called), and then he bought the stadium itself and the lease to the team though 2001. When Orthwein came in and bought the team, he didn't quite realize what he was getting. He finally discovered that Kiam didn't own the stadium or the lease, and when he couldn't convince Kraft to break the stadium lease, his only option was to sell the team to Kraft. Kraft didn't really have that kind of money, but he somehow made it happen.You know the rest of it.
It started slowly after Kraft came in, but built steadily. Drew Bledsoe, a classic pocket passer from Washington State, had been drafted by the previous regime but became the starter under new Head Coach Bill Parcells during Orthwein's only full year as owner. Parcells was a Super Bowl winner with the Giants and had some history as a Patriots assistant. The 1993 season was another rebuilding year, but starting in 1994, the Patriots were mostly good again. They endured another close playoff loss that year to Parcells' former defensive coordinator, a guy named Bill Belichick, and the Cleveland Browns. A down year in 1995 was followed the most successful season in the history of the franchise to that point in 1996. You could feel a complete turnaround in the team by this time. It was exciting to look forward to the season to see what Parcells and Bledsoe could do. I got DirecTV that year and bought NFL Sunday Ticket for the first time. I was at a conference in Boston in August of 1996, and the Patriots were having a pre-season team dinner in the hotel. I thought about hanging around and getting autographs but I decided against it. The 1996 season was electric, capped off by the Divisional playoffs and AFC Championship Game, both in Foxboro, where the Pats stomped on the hated Steelers and the second-year Jacksonville Jaguars to go to the Super Bowl. I really felt like this was finally it, the culmination of all of the misery. Bledsoe was the team savior, and Curtis Martin was his right-hand man, and Parcells had all the answers. It reminded me of the '86 Mets. They just wouldn't lose.
I watched Super Bowl XXXI at my boss's house with a bunch of co-workers. The accountant at the plant where I worked "borrowed" a projector from a conference room and we projected the game on the wall. The game was back-and-forth, with Brett Favre definitely having the upper hand and Bledsoe struggling but still making plays. The Pats were down 13 in the 3rd quarter but got to within 6 on a pretty Curtis Martin TD run. Ok, one stop, get the ball back, and let's get the lead. But then, Desmond Howard happened and they turned into the same old Pats again. Howard returned the kickoff for a 99 yard TD and the Pats pretty much folded the tent. Man.
Parcells quit after the game, blaming Kraft for not letting him "buy the groceries," especially with regard to 1996 draft pick Terry Glenn, whom Parcells referred to as "she," and the Pete Carroll era began. Again, as I look back, this should have worked. Kraft took a lot of time to choose Carroll, and Carroll is clearly a good coach. I'm not sure why he thrived in Seattle but not in New England. But he definitely did not thrive. The team declined each of the three years he was there. In year three, 1999, I attended a depressing Pats loss at Veterans Stadium against the Eagles and yelled at him as he left the field, "Hey, Pete, the Big Dig is hiring!"
Then came the day that changed everything. January 4, 2000. My 33rd birthday, of all days. The earth shook, the heaven parted, angels sang. No, none of that happened, but you have to gild the lily. Parcells decided to retire as the Jets head coach after a mostly successful run and hand the reins to his assistant, Belichick. Belichick had been secretly in talks with Kraft but was contracted to stay with the Jets. Kraft was unhappy with Carroll and wanted to fire him, but not without a plan. The season ended on January 2nd, and Parcells retired on January 3rd. The following day, Belichick called a surprise press conference. Nobody in the New York media knew what was about to hit them. Holding a napkin that he had written on for the purpose, Belichick stepped to the podium and said, "Due to the various uncertainties surrounding my position as it relates to the team's new ownership, I've decided to resign as the head coach of the New York Jets." 29 words that doomed one franchise to hopelessness and raised another to unforeseen heights of greatness. It was stunning. The Jets didn't accept the resignation and held Belichick to his contract. He sued for anti-trust violations, and finally, Kraft and Parcells worked out a deal to send Belichick to the Patriots for draft picks.
I was completely bewildered. At first, it wasn't clear that Belichick was going to end up with the Patriots, but that was the rampant speculation as soon as the press conference was over. I was skeptical that this was a good move. Belichick was not successful in Cleveland as a Head Coach and it seemed his best role was defensive coordinator. The first year under BB was a continuation of the decline that started under Carroll. The Pats seemed rudderless again. I was growing more and more hopeless. I honestly didn't think I'd ever see a Patriots Super Bowl win in my lifetime. It seemed millions of light years away.
The 2001 season started with Bledsoe resorting to his old habits of patting the ball a few too many times and taking sacks, and the team not moving the ball and making too many mistakes in losses to Cincinnati and the Jets. The Jets game was not broadcast locally in the Philly area where I was now living, and I saw the hit Bledsoe took from Mo Lewis in replays. It really didn't look that bad, but they were saying he might have ruptured his spleen. They carted him off the field, and inserted a QB I had never heard of, Tom Brady. It was hard to follow the Pats at that point because our house in the Philly suburbs had a huge tree right in line with the DirecTV satellite and I had to give up Sunday Ticket. I really wasn't keeping up on all the draft choices and the depth chart. I heard that Brady came in, didn't do much, and they lost. I figured they would go find a QB off the waiver wire until Bledsoe was healthy. I was pretty despondent. I went on the Patriots.com web site and logged into the chat board. I wrote something to the effect that maybe it was time to give up on "Bellyache" and find a young coach like Andy Reid. I think I got several positive replies.
The very next week, Brady led the team to a 44-13 blowout of a Colts team led by Peyton Manning. I was shocked. The game was a regional game in our area and I was able to watch, and I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I knew about Manning and figured he'd destroy this other kid nobody ever heard of. Neither Manning nor Brady played that well, and the Pats defense did most of the work, returning two interceptions for TDs. You could see, though, that something special was happening. Where Bledsoe was tentative, Brady was calm and decisive. Where Bledsoe would pat and pat and pat the ball and take a hit, Brady had that Dan Marino-like quick release and could get rid of the ball before he got hit.
The next game was against the Dolphins in Miami, and Brady struggled, as he always seems to in that stadium. I was used to the Patriots taking this week to party on South Beach, so I wasn't too worried, and the Dolphins were the division favorites. I think it was the next week, at home vs. San Diego, that we saw what Brady could be. Down 7 with 2:10 on the clock and one timeout, Brady went 5 for 8 and hit Jermaine Wiggins from three yards out to tie it with 40 seconds left. The Chargers missed a 59 yard FG attempt at the gun, which could have been a crippling blow to that season had it gone through. After losing the toss, the Pats defense held and Brady put Adam Vinatieri in position for a game-winning FG. The record was 2-3.
Another beating of the Colts was followed by a loss in Denver, wins over Atlanta and Buffalo, and a loss to the Rams. The record sat at 5-5, and people were arguing that Brady was not the answer and that Bledsoe should get his job back. I may have been one of them. I am an idiot. They didn't lose another game until September 2002.
My wife saved the Philadelphia Inquirer and cut out the front of the sports page with the photo of Vinatieri jumping for joy on it. She bought a frame and mounted it and I have it hung in my man cave. I'm looking at it right now. I can't believe that happened. My only memories of the Super Bowl run are the Tuck Rule game, which I watched with my fingers covering my face for most of, Drew Bledsoe coming off the bench in the Championship Game in Heinz Field to throw a TD pass, and John Madden saying that 1:21 wasn't enough time to win the game. For Tom Brady. Yeah, sure.
Thus, the misery ended, over 25 years after it had begun. I graduated Catholic school, graduated high school, watched the Mets win the World Series, graduated college, got a job and moved to Illinois, moved to Houston, got married, and moved to Pennsylvania all in that time. In retrospect, 25 years isn't that long to wait, when I think of Jets fans, Dolphins fans, and Bills fans (4 straight Super Bowl losses and still no wins!), and that's just in the AFC East. Arizona Cardinals fans have seen their team move from Chicago to St. Louis to Phoenix all without a title since 1947. Even on that frigid day in 2002, I was lucky. And, thanks to Thomas Edward Patrick Brady and William Stephen Belichick, I've been lucky to this moment.
I have no memory of the 2002 season. I was still in shock. I know they missed the playoffs, but I can't recall a turning point or one particular game where I realized they wouldn't be going back to the Super Bowl. I just didn't care at that point. I still didn't have DirecTV so I must have not watched many of the games. I remember two things about the 2003 regular season. The Pats lost 31-0 in Buffalo after Belichick had cut Lawyer Milloy right after the last preseason game. Molloy was pissed and took out his anger on Brady and the Pats receivers that afternoon. I was pretty furious at Belichick for letting a player like Molloy go to a rival right before they were supposed to play them. Of course, the Pats righted the ship and went on a glorious run after that, winning 14 and losing only one other game. The final game occurred while I was at Epcot with my family. I had to break away and duck into the ESPNZone to check out the final score. Pats 31, Bills 0. A perfect book-end to the season. I remember the Super Bowl being a crazy shootout between Brady and Jake Delhomme of the Panthers, with Vinatieri once again splitting the uprights to seal it. Two rings! A dynasty! Huh? This team? The PATRIOTS?
It got even better the next year. The Pats went 14-2 again, losing a heartbreaker to the Dolphins in Miami (as usual) to lose the #1 seed to Pittsburgh. That only made it sweeter when, after a 20-3 blowout of Peyton Manning and the Colts in the Divisional Round, they trounced Ben Roethlisberger and the Steelers 41-27 at Heinz Field to go to their third Super Bowl in four years. I watched this Super Bowl at the home of the head of the organization my wife and I volunteered for. They were all Eagles fans and I was the only Pats fan. I wore an Eagles sweatshirt under my Brady jersey, just in case. Thanks to Andy Reid's poor clock management and Donovan McNabb's stomach, the Pats hung on 24-21 and it wasn't needed. Three. One fewer than the Steelers in the 70's, but still a legitimate claim on all-time greatness.
The dynasty seemed to end the following year. I've already posted my experience sitting in my wife's Subaru and listening to the playoff loss to the Broncos because the power was out in my neighborhood. They made it back to the playoffs in 2006, and took a 21-6 halftime lead over the Colts while I was en route to Hawaii with my wife for a business trip, then lost after we landed. Belichick was being criticized heavily during this period for being a terrible GM and not getting the right complementary pieces around Brady. Well, in 2007, he acquired Randy Moss.
I got to watch the Steelers game that year in person. The company we were doing a project with, and for whom I now work, was conveniently based in Foxboro, and they let us occupy the company box at Gillette. The fact that I was a longtime customer of this company was a happy accident that started back before Kraft bought the team, and the fact that I work for them now is probably no accident at all. I'm a pretty committed fan, right down to my livelihood. In any case, that game has to be the highlight of this whole run personally. The box had an attendant who would fill up your glass as soon as it was empty, and there was unlimited food. It was amazing. They treated us like kings. On the field, Brady baffled the Steelers secondary all game long, capped off by a stunning flea flicker to Jabar Gaffney that made even the fancy seats shake. The final was 34-13 and it wasn't that close. It was great fun hearing the Patriots fans serenade the few Steelers fans who showed up as we got into our van back to the hotel. That win put the record at 13-0. I was back in Foxboro in January and bought an upper deck ticket to the Divisional win over the Jaguars. 16-0. They just might do it!
I was in Hawaii again when David Tyree happened. I honestly couldn't believe what I was seeing. To go 18-0 and then lose the Super Bowl to yet another Manning brother was simply inconceivable (if Archie and Olivia Manning had stopped after Cooper, Brady might be going for his 11th Super Bowl win). I did get to console myself by going to the Pro Bowl in person the next week. Brady, of course, begged off as he usually does.
I booked a pair of tickets to the final game of a Rangers/Red Sox series in Arlington for the first Sunday in September, 2008. My wife and I wanted to spend a long weekend in Dallas and see some tourist sights. I wasn't really paying attention that the NFL season was starting that day, and it didn't look like much of a challenge. The Chiefs were coming off a 4-12 season (and were headed to a 2-14 season) and the Pats were at home, so I figured I wouldn't miss much. I think it was in the 6th or 7th inning or so when they played the NFL highlights on the Jumbotron. "Tom Brady was carted off the field in the first quarter against the Chiefs with what appears to be a serious knee injury and is out for the game." Oh, crap.
The rest of 2008 was very weird. The Pats without Brady. I kept writing off the season, and Matt Cassell kept dragging me in. Finally, it ended when the Dolphins beat the Jets in Week 17 even though the Pats ended the season with four straight wins. This was probably the best 11-5 team with a backup quarterback that never made the playoffs, which is a small comfort.
I'll compress the next few years. 2009: Ray Rice goes the distance on the opening play of the Wild Card playoffs, one and done. 2010: Mark Sanchez (!) ends the Pats season in the AFC Championship game. 2011: A really weak Pats team sneaks into the Super Bowl by beating the Ravens on a last-second pass defense by Sterling Moore and a missed field goal by Billy Cundiff. Eli beats them again in the Super Bowl, this time because "My husband cannot fucking throw the ball and catch the ball at the same time" Gisele Bundchen famously says. 2012: The Ravens get revenge, beating the Pats at home after the Pats had a 4th Quarter lead for the first time ever at Gillette. 2013: Peyton re-takes over the Manning dominance over Brady, this time in the AFC Championship, as the Broncos win 26-16. 2014: The Malcolm Butler game. Should have handed it to Marshawn, Pete! 2015: Peyton again, this time a little closer, 20-18. 2016: 28-3! 2017: Philly, special. That brings us to today.
This season started out with Julian Edelman suspended, Gronk hobbling, no real identity on defense after last year's debacle in the Super Bowl, and Sony Michel, a rookie, as the featured back. They snuck by the Texans in Week 1, and then lost two, one a humbling loss to Detroit, before bouncing back to win six straight including a 43-40 win over the Chiefs on a late Gostkowski field goal. I was thinking this season could be special, but then they dropped another clunker, this time to the mediocre Titans. After a couple of grinding wins over the Jets and Vikings, the record was 9-3, two games back of the Chiefs. The Pats usually don't win the Super Bowl or even get in if they don't get the #1 seed, so I was not very optimistic at this stage. Then came the dreadful Miami Miracle. After decades of not even showing up for the game in Miami, they finally played really well and had a 6-point lead with under 30 seconds left. For some reason, they put Gronk, who could barely run at this point, on the field for what they thought would be a Hail Mary. The Dolphins were way too far back for that, though, and ran a Stanford Band play, which only worked because Gronk was the last line of meager defense. Touchdown, and 9-4. No shot now. The next game was at Pittsburgh, and Brady could never get going, throwing a terrible interception in the Red Zone en route to another loss. 9-5. It's over. Done. Maybe a Wild Card win at best. They won the final two at home vs. the horrible Bills and Jets, and because of the Antonio Brown-fueled collapse of the Steelers and the win in Week 1 against the Texans, they got the bye and the #2 seed. Lucky.
I became slightly more enthused as I watched the Wild Card weekend and saw that they were going to draw the Chargers instead of the Ravens. They've always owned Philip Rivers, and every game against the Ravens was a struggle, and forcing LA to travel across the country twice in two weeks was a bit much. Sure enough, Rivers had a terrible game and the Pats won easily. On to Kansas City to face the Chiefs in Arrowhead. I did not like their chances. The 43-40 game was in Gillette and another shootout would be less likely in a playoff game against what seemed to be a stouter Chiefs defense than earlier in the season. The Pats took a 14-0 lead at halftime on a beautiful catch by Philip Dorsett, of all people, and I still thought it was only a slight problem for Pat Mahomes. I was right of course. KC made up the 14 points quickly and even took the lead with 2:03 to go, forcing Brady to score a TD. I thought they had lost the game at least three times, especially when Dee Ford was called for lining up in the neutral zone, nullifying a game-ending interception. Finally, Rex Burkhead plunged in with the go-ahead TD, but there was 40 seconds left, way too much time for the NFL MVP. The Chiefs had a shot at a winning TD, but opted for the tying FG instead, one of many odd calls by Andy Reid in the game. Matthew Slater called heads in the overtime coin toss, as he always does, and heads it was. Brady did the rest, converting three 3rd-and-10s before handing it to Burkhead again for the winner and Super Bowl number nine for Brady and Belichick.
I can't fathom that. NINE Super Bowl appearances. I think of me sitting pathetically in Herkimer or Potsdam, NY, trying to watch any Patriots game I could and usually watching them lose in some depressingly bleak manner. I'd then have to face the jeers of my high school or college friends, all of whom were rooting for the Steelers, Cowboys, Redskins, Raiders, or some other team that had actually won something. There were decades of watching the playoffs and the Super Bowl with no rooting interest and wondering what it would be like for the Pats to have a real shot at the title. And then a grumpy journeyman coach resigns on a napkin and this gangly kid from California and Michigan shows up, and all the tragi-comedy turns to magic, all the losing to winning.
Whatever happens Sunday, I'm ready. I have a spot for a sixth Super Bowl patch on my Patriots banner in my man cave. That spot may never be filled in within my lifetime, or it might be filled in next week. It really doesn't matter. The Patriots have won enough for several lifetimes already.
Go Pats!
The very next week, Brady led the team to a 44-13 blowout of a Colts team led by Peyton Manning. I was shocked. The game was a regional game in our area and I was able to watch, and I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I knew about Manning and figured he'd destroy this other kid nobody ever heard of. Neither Manning nor Brady played that well, and the Pats defense did most of the work, returning two interceptions for TDs. You could see, though, that something special was happening. Where Bledsoe was tentative, Brady was calm and decisive. Where Bledsoe would pat and pat and pat the ball and take a hit, Brady had that Dan Marino-like quick release and could get rid of the ball before he got hit.
The next game was against the Dolphins in Miami, and Brady struggled, as he always seems to in that stadium. I was used to the Patriots taking this week to party on South Beach, so I wasn't too worried, and the Dolphins were the division favorites. I think it was the next week, at home vs. San Diego, that we saw what Brady could be. Down 7 with 2:10 on the clock and one timeout, Brady went 5 for 8 and hit Jermaine Wiggins from three yards out to tie it with 40 seconds left. The Chargers missed a 59 yard FG attempt at the gun, which could have been a crippling blow to that season had it gone through. After losing the toss, the Pats defense held and Brady put Adam Vinatieri in position for a game-winning FG. The record was 2-3.
Another beating of the Colts was followed by a loss in Denver, wins over Atlanta and Buffalo, and a loss to the Rams. The record sat at 5-5, and people were arguing that Brady was not the answer and that Bledsoe should get his job back. I may have been one of them. I am an idiot. They didn't lose another game until September 2002.
My wife saved the Philadelphia Inquirer and cut out the front of the sports page with the photo of Vinatieri jumping for joy on it. She bought a frame and mounted it and I have it hung in my man cave. I'm looking at it right now. I can't believe that happened. My only memories of the Super Bowl run are the Tuck Rule game, which I watched with my fingers covering my face for most of, Drew Bledsoe coming off the bench in the Championship Game in Heinz Field to throw a TD pass, and John Madden saying that 1:21 wasn't enough time to win the game. For Tom Brady. Yeah, sure.
Thus, the misery ended, over 25 years after it had begun. I graduated Catholic school, graduated high school, watched the Mets win the World Series, graduated college, got a job and moved to Illinois, moved to Houston, got married, and moved to Pennsylvania all in that time. In retrospect, 25 years isn't that long to wait, when I think of Jets fans, Dolphins fans, and Bills fans (4 straight Super Bowl losses and still no wins!), and that's just in the AFC East. Arizona Cardinals fans have seen their team move from Chicago to St. Louis to Phoenix all without a title since 1947. Even on that frigid day in 2002, I was lucky. And, thanks to Thomas Edward Patrick Brady and William Stephen Belichick, I've been lucky to this moment.
I have no memory of the 2002 season. I was still in shock. I know they missed the playoffs, but I can't recall a turning point or one particular game where I realized they wouldn't be going back to the Super Bowl. I just didn't care at that point. I still didn't have DirecTV so I must have not watched many of the games. I remember two things about the 2003 regular season. The Pats lost 31-0 in Buffalo after Belichick had cut Lawyer Milloy right after the last preseason game. Molloy was pissed and took out his anger on Brady and the Pats receivers that afternoon. I was pretty furious at Belichick for letting a player like Molloy go to a rival right before they were supposed to play them. Of course, the Pats righted the ship and went on a glorious run after that, winning 14 and losing only one other game. The final game occurred while I was at Epcot with my family. I had to break away and duck into the ESPNZone to check out the final score. Pats 31, Bills 0. A perfect book-end to the season. I remember the Super Bowl being a crazy shootout between Brady and Jake Delhomme of the Panthers, with Vinatieri once again splitting the uprights to seal it. Two rings! A dynasty! Huh? This team? The PATRIOTS?
It got even better the next year. The Pats went 14-2 again, losing a heartbreaker to the Dolphins in Miami (as usual) to lose the #1 seed to Pittsburgh. That only made it sweeter when, after a 20-3 blowout of Peyton Manning and the Colts in the Divisional Round, they trounced Ben Roethlisberger and the Steelers 41-27 at Heinz Field to go to their third Super Bowl in four years. I watched this Super Bowl at the home of the head of the organization my wife and I volunteered for. They were all Eagles fans and I was the only Pats fan. I wore an Eagles sweatshirt under my Brady jersey, just in case. Thanks to Andy Reid's poor clock management and Donovan McNabb's stomach, the Pats hung on 24-21 and it wasn't needed. Three. One fewer than the Steelers in the 70's, but still a legitimate claim on all-time greatness.
The dynasty seemed to end the following year. I've already posted my experience sitting in my wife's Subaru and listening to the playoff loss to the Broncos because the power was out in my neighborhood. They made it back to the playoffs in 2006, and took a 21-6 halftime lead over the Colts while I was en route to Hawaii with my wife for a business trip, then lost after we landed. Belichick was being criticized heavily during this period for being a terrible GM and not getting the right complementary pieces around Brady. Well, in 2007, he acquired Randy Moss.
I got to watch the Steelers game that year in person. The company we were doing a project with, and for whom I now work, was conveniently based in Foxboro, and they let us occupy the company box at Gillette. The fact that I was a longtime customer of this company was a happy accident that started back before Kraft bought the team, and the fact that I work for them now is probably no accident at all. I'm a pretty committed fan, right down to my livelihood. In any case, that game has to be the highlight of this whole run personally. The box had an attendant who would fill up your glass as soon as it was empty, and there was unlimited food. It was amazing. They treated us like kings. On the field, Brady baffled the Steelers secondary all game long, capped off by a stunning flea flicker to Jabar Gaffney that made even the fancy seats shake. The final was 34-13 and it wasn't that close. It was great fun hearing the Patriots fans serenade the few Steelers fans who showed up as we got into our van back to the hotel. That win put the record at 13-0. I was back in Foxboro in January and bought an upper deck ticket to the Divisional win over the Jaguars. 16-0. They just might do it!
I was in Hawaii again when David Tyree happened. I honestly couldn't believe what I was seeing. To go 18-0 and then lose the Super Bowl to yet another Manning brother was simply inconceivable (if Archie and Olivia Manning had stopped after Cooper, Brady might be going for his 11th Super Bowl win). I did get to console myself by going to the Pro Bowl in person the next week. Brady, of course, begged off as he usually does.
I booked a pair of tickets to the final game of a Rangers/Red Sox series in Arlington for the first Sunday in September, 2008. My wife and I wanted to spend a long weekend in Dallas and see some tourist sights. I wasn't really paying attention that the NFL season was starting that day, and it didn't look like much of a challenge. The Chiefs were coming off a 4-12 season (and were headed to a 2-14 season) and the Pats were at home, so I figured I wouldn't miss much. I think it was in the 6th or 7th inning or so when they played the NFL highlights on the Jumbotron. "Tom Brady was carted off the field in the first quarter against the Chiefs with what appears to be a serious knee injury and is out for the game." Oh, crap.
The rest of 2008 was very weird. The Pats without Brady. I kept writing off the season, and Matt Cassell kept dragging me in. Finally, it ended when the Dolphins beat the Jets in Week 17 even though the Pats ended the season with four straight wins. This was probably the best 11-5 team with a backup quarterback that never made the playoffs, which is a small comfort.
I'll compress the next few years. 2009: Ray Rice goes the distance on the opening play of the Wild Card playoffs, one and done. 2010: Mark Sanchez (!) ends the Pats season in the AFC Championship game. 2011: A really weak Pats team sneaks into the Super Bowl by beating the Ravens on a last-second pass defense by Sterling Moore and a missed field goal by Billy Cundiff. Eli beats them again in the Super Bowl, this time because "My husband cannot fucking throw the ball and catch the ball at the same time" Gisele Bundchen famously says. 2012: The Ravens get revenge, beating the Pats at home after the Pats had a 4th Quarter lead for the first time ever at Gillette. 2013: Peyton re-takes over the Manning dominance over Brady, this time in the AFC Championship, as the Broncos win 26-16. 2014: The Malcolm Butler game. Should have handed it to Marshawn, Pete! 2015: Peyton again, this time a little closer, 20-18. 2016: 28-3! 2017: Philly, special. That brings us to today.
This season started out with Julian Edelman suspended, Gronk hobbling, no real identity on defense after last year's debacle in the Super Bowl, and Sony Michel, a rookie, as the featured back. They snuck by the Texans in Week 1, and then lost two, one a humbling loss to Detroit, before bouncing back to win six straight including a 43-40 win over the Chiefs on a late Gostkowski field goal. I was thinking this season could be special, but then they dropped another clunker, this time to the mediocre Titans. After a couple of grinding wins over the Jets and Vikings, the record was 9-3, two games back of the Chiefs. The Pats usually don't win the Super Bowl or even get in if they don't get the #1 seed, so I was not very optimistic at this stage. Then came the dreadful Miami Miracle. After decades of not even showing up for the game in Miami, they finally played really well and had a 6-point lead with under 30 seconds left. For some reason, they put Gronk, who could barely run at this point, on the field for what they thought would be a Hail Mary. The Dolphins were way too far back for that, though, and ran a Stanford Band play, which only worked because Gronk was the last line of meager defense. Touchdown, and 9-4. No shot now. The next game was at Pittsburgh, and Brady could never get going, throwing a terrible interception in the Red Zone en route to another loss. 9-5. It's over. Done. Maybe a Wild Card win at best. They won the final two at home vs. the horrible Bills and Jets, and because of the Antonio Brown-fueled collapse of the Steelers and the win in Week 1 against the Texans, they got the bye and the #2 seed. Lucky.
I became slightly more enthused as I watched the Wild Card weekend and saw that they were going to draw the Chargers instead of the Ravens. They've always owned Philip Rivers, and every game against the Ravens was a struggle, and forcing LA to travel across the country twice in two weeks was a bit much. Sure enough, Rivers had a terrible game and the Pats won easily. On to Kansas City to face the Chiefs in Arrowhead. I did not like their chances. The 43-40 game was in Gillette and another shootout would be less likely in a playoff game against what seemed to be a stouter Chiefs defense than earlier in the season. The Pats took a 14-0 lead at halftime on a beautiful catch by Philip Dorsett, of all people, and I still thought it was only a slight problem for Pat Mahomes. I was right of course. KC made up the 14 points quickly and even took the lead with 2:03 to go, forcing Brady to score a TD. I thought they had lost the game at least three times, especially when Dee Ford was called for lining up in the neutral zone, nullifying a game-ending interception. Finally, Rex Burkhead plunged in with the go-ahead TD, but there was 40 seconds left, way too much time for the NFL MVP. The Chiefs had a shot at a winning TD, but opted for the tying FG instead, one of many odd calls by Andy Reid in the game. Matthew Slater called heads in the overtime coin toss, as he always does, and heads it was. Brady did the rest, converting three 3rd-and-10s before handing it to Burkhead again for the winner and Super Bowl number nine for Brady and Belichick.
I can't fathom that. NINE Super Bowl appearances. I think of me sitting pathetically in Herkimer or Potsdam, NY, trying to watch any Patriots game I could and usually watching them lose in some depressingly bleak manner. I'd then have to face the jeers of my high school or college friends, all of whom were rooting for the Steelers, Cowboys, Redskins, Raiders, or some other team that had actually won something. There were decades of watching the playoffs and the Super Bowl with no rooting interest and wondering what it would be like for the Pats to have a real shot at the title. And then a grumpy journeyman coach resigns on a napkin and this gangly kid from California and Michigan shows up, and all the tragi-comedy turns to magic, all the losing to winning.
Whatever happens Sunday, I'm ready. I have a spot for a sixth Super Bowl patch on my Patriots banner in my man cave. That spot may never be filled in within my lifetime, or it might be filled in next week. It really doesn't matter. The Patriots have won enough for several lifetimes already.
Go Pats!