by Ian O'Connor
Every NFL team employs security officials to identify potential problems with players and to head them off before trouble with the law and embarrassing news media coverage damage the brand. These security officials are charged with maintaining strong relationships with local and state law enforcement and nightclub owners for access to reliable information on players who might be behaving recklessly. Mark Briggs, the Brit who was head of Patriots security, had been in place for years. He would’ve been a complete incompetent if he didn’t have some information suggesting Hernandez was careening down a path of self-destruction. So maybe the Patriots were merely hoping against hope that they wouldn’t get the phone call they got on June 17, informing them that a man named Odin Lloyd had been executed in an industrial park about half a mile from Hernandez’s mansion and that the cops thought the tight end might have been involved.
Lloyd was a semipro football player who had been dating the sister of Hernandez’s fiancée, and two nights earlier Hernandez had gotten into a dispute with him over people Lloyd had been talking to inside a Boston club. Hernandez and two associates, including Wallace, had picked up Lloyd in the early-morning hours of the 17th, and in his final four texts to his sister, between 3:07 and 3:23 a.m., the victim wrote, “U saw who I’m with?” . . . “hello” . . . “Nfl” . . . “just so you know.” At 3:25 a.m., Lloyd was executed by a cold-blooded killer who pumped six .45-caliber bullets into his body. The victim had keys in his pocket that belonged to a car rented by Hernandez.
Kraft and Belichick decided that if Hernandez were arrested for any charge in the murder case, even for obstruction of justice, he would have to be cut. Soon enough, the evidence started piling up against the tight end, and Gillette Stadium became the scene of a news media stakeout. On June 19, with reporters in the parking lot and news helicopters circling above, Kraft entered the facility and headed to the weight room to meet with Hernandez. Belichick was out of the country, so the owner had to take the lead on a situation that was spiraling out of control. Kraft took Hernandez into the office of assistant strength-and-conditioning coach Moses Cabrera and asked the man who had donated $50,000 to his wife’s memory to look him in the eye and tell him if he had anything to do with Lloyd’s murder.
“He said he was not involved, that he was innocent,” Kraft would later testify in court, “and that he hoped that the time of the murder incident came out because I believe he said he was in a club.” That revelation was not going to help Hernandez: How would he know the time of the murder unless he had been present when it was committed?
Owner and player spoke for five or ten minutes before Hernandez hugged and kissed Kraft and thanked him for his concern. The tight end had always hugged and kissed Kraft when they crossed paths. He didn’t hug and kiss Briggs, the security chief, who also met with Hernandez and told him he’d tried to reach him three or four times on his cell phone before receiving a message that the player’s voicemail box was full. Hernandez responded that the police had confiscated his phone and repeated that he had nothing to do with Lloyd’s death. “He swore on his baby’s life that he was telling the truth,” Briggs said.
Hernandez told the security official that Lloyd was “like family.” The player spoke to Briggs for five minutes, and Hernandez ultimately left the building and waited as his mother, Terri, drove over from Bristol to give him a ride home. Three years after Aaron’s father, Dennis, had suddenly died from complications following what was supposed to be routine hernia surgery, Terri had married an ex-con named Jeffrey Cummings, who had been married to Dennis’s niece. Cummings would later assault and slash Terri with a large kitchen knife and return to prison, and Terri divorced him.
The next day, June 20, Aaron Hernandez returned to Gillette Stadium and had another five-minute conversation with Briggs that wasn’t as cordial as the first one. Briggs told the tight end that his presence was “bad for business” and asked him to leave the building. Hernandez finished up a phone call, shook Briggs’s hand, and then left the stadium for the last time. On June 26, police showed up at Hernandez’s North Attleborough home and found him wearing a white T-shirt and red gym shorts. They handcuffed him behind his back and walked him to a waiting car as his empty sleeves dangled in the breeze. Some 90 minutes later, the Patriots fired him. Two days after that, the team announced that any fan with Hernandez’s No. 81 jersey could exchange it for a different New England jersey.
Meanwhile, investigators were working to connect Hernandez to the double murder in South Boston the previous July, and they were looking to revisit the circumstances of the 2007 shooting of two men in Gainesville, Florida. The Patriots thought they had drafted an uncommon talent, and it appeared they had drafted a common killer instead.
Years earlier, after the Patriots acquired Randy Moss, Kraft had promised that a player’s character would remain an important factor in how the roster was assembled. But New England had taken on more and more character risks in recent seasons, on the assumption that the Belichick culture would have the conforming effect it had on Corey Dillon and, for the most part, on Moss. Not that the culture had changed them all. In 2006, the Patriots took a chance by drafting Baylor’s Willie Andrews, who had once pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor gun charge. Two years into his employment, following an arrest on marijuana possession, Andrews was arrested again after allegedly pointing a gun at his girlfriend’s head. He was cut the following day.
The Patriots seemed to take more risks as the non-championship seasons started to pile up. The team signed defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth, a two-time Pro Bowler who had been indicted on a misdemeanor sex abuse charge and had been suspended by Washington coach Mike Shanahan for insubordination, on the same day in July 2011 that it traded for high-maintenance receiver Chad Ochocinco, who would catch a grand total of 15 passes as a Patriot. New England released Haynesworth in November after he had a sideline confrontation with assistant coach Pepper Johnson. The following year, the Patriots acquired Aqib Talib, who had multiple run-ins with the law and had been indicted on a charge of firing a gun at his sister’s boyfriend. (The charges were later dropped.) In 2012, New England reacquired Donté Stallworth, who had been suspended by the league for the entire 2009 season after going to jail for DUI manslaughter. In the 2012 draft, New England used its seventh-round pick on Nebraska’s Alfonzo Dennard, who had been arrested for felony assault of a police officer and would later be convicted. Dennard also violated his probation when he was arrested for suspicion of DUI in the summer of 2013.
None of those cases could compare to the profound tragedy that was unfolding around the star tight end. Chris Simms, coaching assistant, had received a text message from Hernandez just before his arrest, asking for help contacting a trainer and muscle specialist. Simms couldn’t believe it when he heard there was a warrant out for Hernandez. “I was like ‘Man, I know he didn’t pull the trigger’ . . . I kept trying to tell myself all these things.”
One high-ranking Patriots official thought that, in retrospect, Hernandez was the last prospect in America who should’ve been drafted by his hometown team. “When you think back on it,” he said, “part of the reason he went to Florida was to kinda get away. Him going to Foxborough was maybe not an ideal location for him . . . He would’ve been better off in Seattle.”
Chances are he would’ve found trouble in Seattle, too. An executive with another NFL team who had been warned by Urban Meyer to stay clear of his player in the draft said he wasn’t at all surprised by the Hernandez crash and burn. “When I saw some of the shit he was able to get away with [at Florida],” the executive said, “we weren’t taking him. He actually thought he was going to get away with murder. He always thought he could beat the system, and when he got arrested I thought, Well, the system finally caught up with him.”
On July 8, a dozen days after Hernandez was hauled out of his home, New England’s owner finally made himself available to answer some hard, necessary questions about the alleged murderer he’d employed. Kraft had been vac
ationing in Europe and Israel, and instead of subjecting himself to a televised interrogation in a news conference, he invited some Boston writers into his Gillette Stadium office.
“If this stuff is true,” Kraft said, “then I’ve been duped and our whole organization has been duped.” The owner claimed that Hernandez was always polite and respectful at the facility, that he wanted to be a role model for the Hispanic community, and that the Patriots hadn’t known what was going on in his life after he climbed into his car and left for the night. “We don’t put private eyes on people,” said Kraft, who conceded that Hernandez was immature. The owner said that the team would now have to reevaluate how it vetted players. Privately, Kraft told associates he didn’t believe his head coach had given him a full accounting of Hernandez’s behavior in college.
Sixteen days after the owner fielded questions, and five weeks after Odin Lloyd was shot dead, Belichick at last conducted a press conference, held before the start of training camp. He walked to a podium wearing a blue Patriots pullover. He had his omnipresent pencil tucked behind his right ear and was carrying the sheets of paper that contained the thoughts he planned to convey. He adjusted his microphone and said, “OK, going to address the situation involving Aaron Hernandez today. I felt that it was important enough to do that prior to the start of camp. It’s a sad day. It’s really a sad day on so many levels. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family of the victim, and I extend my sympathy really to everyone who’s been impacted. A young man lost his life, and his family’s suffered a tragic loss, and there’s no way to understate that.”
Belichick said he had been out of the country when he learned about the murder investigation. He referred to his notes as he somberly delivered an opening statement that lasted seven minutes and five seconds. On this day, he knew he couldn’t assume the role of the news conference character he’d created at the media’s expense. He knew he had to be human for this one. He took questions after completing his statement, though he warned reporters that he wouldn’t be able to discuss specifics about the case or the player involved in it. The first time Belichick said the name Aaron Hernandez, in his opening remarks, was also the last time he said it.
The coach maintained that the team had “acted swiftly and decisively” in cutting Hernandez and took seriously the goal of making the Patriots “a pillar in the community.” Belichick said that for 14 years in New England, he’d emphasized the need for his players to conduct themselves appropriately on and off the field. He said that he would examine the way the Patriots picked players but that he didn’t expect substantive changes to the process. “Nobody knows better than you guys that all sources are not equal,” Belichick told reporters. “You guys know that better than I do. So when you get information, you take information and you evaluate it and you do the best you can with it.”
Belichick said he was “proud of the hundreds of players that have come through this program,” though he acknowledged that he was personally hurt by the Hernandez arrest. He admitted that he’d made “plenty” of personnel mistakes over the years and promised that the Patriots would “learn from this terrible experience.” Belichick answered a final question about his relationship with Kraft by saying that it had always been strong and was getting stronger by the year.
With that, he grabbed his papers and exited stage right to prepare for another camp and another season. The Hernandez case would haunt New England for a while, but once it became about football again, Belichick was back in control. He still had his system, and, more than anything, he still had his quarterback. Nobody had a winner at the game’s most critical position like Belichick had. It seemed Tom Brady was the most reliable and authentic superstar in sports.
Until people started seeing evidence that he wasn’t.
17
Deflation and Elation
Tom Brady was already worried about his job before he took the field in Kansas City for a Monday Night Football game in Week 4 of the 2014 season. He was telling confidants he felt that if he did not improve his play, Bill Belichick would not wait long before turning to the quarterback he had just drafted in the spring, a prospect from Eastern Illinois named Jimmy Garoppolo.
Maybe this was just Brady being Brady—still worrying unnecessarily that Drew Henson could walk through the door any day in Foxborough. Or maybe this was Brady expressing legitimate concern that Belichick was looking for an opportunity to do to him what he had done to decorated Patriots the likes of Lawyer Milloy, Ty Law, Adam Vinatieri, Willie McGinest, Deion Branch, Richard Seymour, Wes Welker, and, most recently, six-time Pro Bowl guard Logan Mankins: let them go while they were still productive and before they either declined or made too much money against the salary cap, or both.
Either way, Brady had been uneasy about his place in the Patriots’ universe since Belichick used the 62nd overall pick to select Garoppolo. Jimmy’s coach at Eastern Illinois, Dino Babers, raved about his accuracy and thought his prospect had the second-fastest release he’d ever seen, just a tick slower than Dan Marino’s. When Belichick drafted Garoppolo, he announced that New England needed to address the quarterback situation for the future and that he wanted to be “early rather than late at that position.” The Patriots had other holes on the roster to fill, but with his franchise quarterback turning 37 before the season started, the coach figured Brady would be creating the most conspicuous hole sooner rather than later.
“We know what Tom’s age and contract situation is,” Belichick said, a somewhat shocking remark from a man who almost never revealed anything of substance for public consumption.
Most great quarterbacks were battered shells of their former selves by their late thirties, though there had been exceptions like Brett Favre and Warren Moon. Brady wasn’t shy about stating his desire to play into his forties, but his numbers had plunged in 2013, alarming those who wondered how long his Methuselah act could really last. Brady had thrown 25 touchdown passes, his lowest total in a full season since 2006, and had averaged 6.9 yards gained per attempt, also his lowest number since 2006. Brady had been sacked 40 times for the first time since he was dropped 41 times in 2001, and his passer rating (87.3) was his worst since 2003. If it wasn’t yet time for Belichick to apply his year-too-early-rather-than-a-year-too-late dogma to the player who won him three Super Bowls, Brady’s slippage surely put that thought in the back of the coach’s mind.
Prior to 2014, Belichick had drafted half a dozen quarterbacks in the Brady era, none considered serious challengers to the throne. Garoppolo represented a radically different approach. He wasn’t brought in to support Brady. He was brought in to someday replace him.
Was that someday suddenly closing on Brady like a freight train?
For a few years, Patriots coaches had noticed a dropoff in Brady’s arm strength and velocity. In 2012, he averaged a full yard less per attempt (7.6) than in 2011, and his completion percentage, touchdown totals, and passer rating started to dip. In December of that year, Brady completed only 58.5 percent of his passes and averaged only seven yards per pass before following a strong playoff performance against Houston with a disastrous one against Baltimore in the AFC Championship Game, where he completed 53.7 percent of his passes, threw two interceptions, and averaged 5.9 yards per attempt in a 28–13 defeat.
The following season, when his numbers took a serious plunge, Brady averaged 1.7 fewer yards per attempt than he had in 2011. Sometimes in practice, frustrated coaches would shake their heads when Brady ignored open receivers downfield and threw short instead. “We all talked about that,” one assistant said. “It was ‘How can we get Tom to throw the go route?’ He wasn’t confident he could complete it . . . He was getting a little insecure about that. Bill would say, ‘Hey, Tom, keep throwing deep. Keep working on it.’”
The assistant thought that after Aaron Hernandez’s arrest, Belichick kept focusing on short- and mid-range options—Rob Gronkowski and Welker’s replacement in the slot, Julian Edelman—in part because he didn’t think
Brady would or could consistently throw to an outside burner going deep. As a rule, New England coaches had tremendous respect for the quarterback’s work ethic, consistency, and willingness to leave millions at the negotiating table in accepting team-friendly deals that made him the most underpaid franchise player in sports. And yet they were more willing than the general public might’ve suspected to break down Brady’s game in critical ways behind closed doors.
Fairly or unfairly, a number of coaches thought Belichick’s system elevated Brady, not the other way around. The general feeling among staff members, said one assistant, wasn’t that the Patriot Way would make Super Bowl quarterbacks out of all 32 starters. “But if you gave us any of the top 15, we could do it,” he said. “I don’t think the coaches view Tom as special as everyone else in football does. Mr. Kraft thinks Tom is the greatest gift ever, but the coaches don’t.”
The assistant said that Belichick viewed Ben Roethlisberger and Joe Flacco as quarterbacks who could’ve had Brady’s level of success in his system, and that he had a special place in his heart for Peyton Manning and Aaron Rodgers. “He’s in awe of what they can do,” the assistant said.
One Patriots staffer said that coaches scoffed when a personnel man who ranked the NFL starters from 1 to 32 slotted Brady at No. 1. “Tom’s awesome, and I think he has better physical ability than he’s given credit for,” the staffer said. “In his prime, he had a special arm, even without the athleticism . . . But Aaron Rodgers may be the most physically gifted quarterback in the history of football. It’s drop back for him, dance around, make seven guys miss me because my receivers and linemen suck, and then throw a 40-yard missile. Brady sees the first guy open and throws it right away.”
