Five Rings

by Jerry Thornton

  What he said about the Patriots leading up to the game didn’t have anyone laughing.

  In an interview with ESPN’s Dan Patrick, Mitchell was asked about the cornerbacks who would be covering him. He responded that he had no idea what their names even were, just their numbers. Then he singled out Harrison, warning that he had “something” for him.

  Although that wasn’t the kind of thing you hear Super Bowl week, it really wasn’t much. But it didn’t take much for the Pats to process it into a pure, uncut narcotic of anger, with a street value in the millions.

  Harrison played the “these kids nowadays” card. “You have so many young guys nowadays, so many young guys that don’t have respect for the game,” he said. “Some people are just immature. Some people really haven’t experienced certain things.

  “Maybe he was drinking before he started talking,” he continued, “because that was clearly a mistake. No one in this league would attack somebody a week before the Super Bowl. I’m not really surprised because you’re always going to find one jerk out of the bunch, just like Vanderjagt. You’re always going to find one guy like that who wants some attention and wants to do something to try and stir up the emotions of the game. I don’t need any extra motivation; I need something to calm me down.”

  Willie McGinest went with a theme of team unity, bordering on the core beliefs of a 60s hippie cult. “We’re all one,” he said. “If you’re calling out one guy, you’re calling out our entire team. What (Mitchell) doesn’t get is, Rodney is me . . . is Bruschi . . . is Vrabel . . . is Seymour . . . is everybody on our entire team. He called out everybody. It upset us.”

  Asked to respond, Mitchell just doubled down. “I was joking. I don’t care. It’ll all be solved on Sunday,” he said. But the damage was done. And it wasn’t the last bulletin board material the Pats would be handed.

  But before we get into that, during this same time reports were coming back from the Boston media and Patriots fans who were down in Jacksonville about Eagles fans running wild through the place. Granted, you’re always going to hear something along those lines from competing fan bases, and you can almost always just shrug it off as anecdotal.

  But these stories were steady and consistent. Just nonstop first-person accounts of people from Philadelphia outnumbering New Englanders five to one. Drunk guys in green Donovan McNabb jerseys screaming F-bombs in the faces of little kids in Patriots gear. An epidemic of restaurants seeing tables full of Eagles fans skipping out on their checks, which, in Weymouth, Massachusetts, we liked to call chewin’ and screwin’. Basically, a small city without a huge entertainment district was trying hard to be a good host to a major event, only to find a horde descend upon them, showing all the gratitude Genghis Khan’s army used to show to Chinese city-states.

  Not that any of that meant anything to the Patriots as they were getting ready for the game. What did affect them was word that the city of Philadelphia was getting ready for a victory parade. Like the ’01 Steelers’ luggage or the Colts’ ticket request, it was probably something that teams did all the time. And like those examples, that didn’t matter to the Patriots. They treated it as yet more disrespect thanks to some of the best psychological warfare of Belichick’s career.

  In the hotel conference room before leaving for the stadium, Belichick gave a pregame speech that was a master class in sarcasm. In a total deadpan, he read to his players the plans Philadelphia had made for the Eagles’ celebration parade scheduled for Tuesday, though it was almost hard to hear over the sound of his condescending eye rolls. “It’s 11 o’clock, in case any of you want to attend that,” he began. But he was just getting warmed up. He continued that it would go from Broad Street to Washington Avenue, past City Hall and then “down Benjamin Franklin Parkway and will end up at the art museum. Schools will be closed, OK? And the Eagles will be in double-decker buses.” He read on. “The Will Grove Naval Air Station is gonna fly over with their jets, in case you’re interested in that . . .”

  You could have a convention of British aristocrats, comic book store owners, theater critics, and pretty, popular high school girls and together they couldn’t come close to achieving the level of sardonic contempt that Belichick produced all by himself. Then he told his team what was expected of them. Mostly sticking with his usual theme of . . . wait for it . . . Do. Your. Job.

  One of your all-time great tropes is the stereotype of the genius who can figure out anything, but messes up some simple task—the absentminded professor. Take the social awkwardness of the guys on The Big Bang Theory. Or the old The Far Side cartoon where the nerd kid is pushing against the front door of The Midvale School for the Gifted that’s marked “PULL.” Or the NASA probe that crashed into the surface of Mars because someone programmed in a calculation in feet that was supposed to be in meters. It’s funny every time. Well, except for the NASA thing. And I’m pretty sure some of them on The Big Bang Theory are autistic.

  But whatever. I bring this up because after leading his team back to the Super Bowl, after all the preparation and the planning and the passive-aggressive pep talks, Bill Belichick jogged out to the wrong sideline. Personally, if I saw him standing there surrounded by 100 or so Eagles players, coaches, and assistants plus all their equipment, I’d definitely assume he was right and they were wrong. But he ran back over to the Patriots side anyway, the first mistake of the day not costing his team anything.

  Right from the start of the game, a few things were established. The first was that Terrell Owens was playing. The second, he was going to play well. He caught a Donovan McNabb pass for 7 yards on Philly’s second play of the game and was showing no signs of having just crawled his way off the inactives list.

  Next, the Patriots’ defense established from the outset that they were in total attack mode. To mess up Eagles coach Andy Reid’s preparation, they came out in a 4–3 defense instead of their base 3–4 and blitzed more than they had all year. They had McNabb fighting off pass rushers coming from all directions like Uma Thurman against the Crazy 88s in Kill Bill I. The Pats defenders were feeling it; Philly had a signature end zone celebration where they’d flap their arms like eagle’s wings. When Mike Vrabel sacked McNabb in New England’s red zone, he and Rosevelt Colvin did the flappy wings thing.

  It was the Patriots second sack in only three Philadelphia possessions, and an obviously rattled McNabb threw an interception on the next play, but it was called back on a defensive penalty. But McNabb was determined and, clearly undaunted, he managed to throw another interception, to Rodney Harrison. This one stood.

  Still, there were positives from the Philly side after that drive. They’d had the ball for 10 plays and moved it 55 yards. Plus, both sides realized that Terrell Owens had shown up to ball out. He caught a 30-yard deep cross on that possession and was going to have to be stopped if New England was going to win.

  The next thing established in the early going was that the Patriots’ offense would do what they’d done in the last two Super Bowls right out of the gate, which is suck. Badly, in this case. Once again they went scoreless in the first quarter, which was beginning to become their thing. Their first four possessions netted a total of one first down. The fifth drive ended with a strip-sack fumble by Brady, recovered by the Eagles. This time, though, the defense held and forced another punt.

  Eventually, with the Eagles having taken a 7–0 lead and just over 4 minutes to go in the half, the Patriots began to move the ball. A couple of completions to Deion Branch were followed by a diving catch by Troy Brown for 12 yards. On second and goal from the Philadelphia 4-yard line, the Pats ran a play designed for tight end Christian Fauria at the goal line in the middle of the field. But he slipped on the turf and his feet came out from under him. Brady looked at the backside of the play for Branch, but he was double covered. So he looked to his right and found David Givens open in the end zone, right at the boundary. Givens made the catch with both feet in bounds, celebrating with the wing flaps as well. Clearly it was someth
ing they had talked about going into the game. It was 7–7, and still one of the rare times a Super Bowl has ever gone into the half tied.

  The halftime show was exponentially less controversial than the previous year’s, and that was by design. The headliner was Paul McCartney, with the NFL’s wisdom apparently being that a man in his 60s who’s been knighted by the Queen of England is not likely to tear open his shirt and shock the world with a giant nipple medallion on his boob. The plan worked to perfection. The sensibilities of everyone were spared. We could all move on with our lives, thanks to God and the NFL.

  The Patriots got the ball to start the second half and kept up the momentum from their last possession. Deion Branch was Brady’s primary weapon, catching passes of 8, 27, 15, and 21 yards to set up a first and goal. Again, Mike Vrabel lined up as tight end. Again, Brady spotted him open in the end zone, and even though he bobbled the ball, again Vrabel had a touchdown catch, his second in back-to-back Super Bowls. It was the fifth catch of his career, all for TDs. And while we were all rolling on the couch at my friend’s laughing our asses off at the audacity of throwing to a linebacker in a tied Super Bowl game, you began to wonder if anyone, ever, would decide to cover the man. It’s an old cliché to describe a great player as “a threat to score every time he touches the ball,” but in Vrabel’s case it was literally true.

  And of course, Vrabel finished it off by flapping his eagle wings. Eventually, though, all that flapping of wings turned into too much flapping of gums, with players on both sides yapping at each other more than Belichick could stand. He stood in front of his bench and put his players on blast, telling them, “Just focus on doing your job and stop jawing after every play!”

  The Eagles were anything but intimidated. Their offense hung in. McNabb made some incredible throws, not the least of which he made while fading backwards to avoid the rush and delivering a bullet through a space between two defenders that was not so much a window as it was a porthole. He then hit Brian Westbrook for a 10-yard touchdown that made it 14–14 as the final quarter began, the only time in Super Bowl history a game was tied going into the fourth.

  The one thing established more than anything else was that the Patriots were in yet another tight Super Bowl with zero margin for error. I was starting to get the feeling that if they were in a hundred Super Bowls, every one of them would be decided on the final play of the game.

  The Pats answered that touchdown back with a long drive built around screen passes and misdirections, finished off by a Corey Dillon 2-yard run to give New England the 21–14 lead. A 3 & out by Philly gave the Pats the ball at midfield and a short kick by Adam Vinatieri made it 24–14 with 8½ minutes to go.

  It’s worth noting that no team in Super Bowl history had ever blown a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter to lose the game. File that one away for future reference.

  A major reason it was still a game was Terrell Owens. He was arguably the best player on the field for either side up to that point in the game. And he kept fighting. He caught a pass, put on a spin move to shed a tackle, and raced 37 yards. Then he added a diving catch at the sidelines for a first down. For all the negativity about the guy, his ego, and the distractions he always brought to a team, he came up huge while hobbling around on a foot that was half robot parts.

  But Owens wasn’t the story of the Eagles’ effort to come back in the game. The story was the Eagles’ effort to come back. Or better yet, the complete lack thereof. Rather than go no-huddle with time running out, they slowed down. They were deliberate to the point where it looked like they were trying to kill the clock rather than preserve it. When they should have been in the left lane, high-beaming cars to get them to move over and standing on the gas, they were in the right one, keeping it in first gear and getting off at every exit for a pee break.

  It was bizarre. One of the most inexplicable things anyone had ever witnessed. Belichick certainly couldn’t explain it. His football buddy Andy Reid was managing the game like he was trying to preserve a lead, not launch a comeback. He actually got on his headset to the other coaches to make sure he wasn’t the crazy one. “Just so I’ve got this right,” he asked. “Are we leading by 10?”

  The reports after the game were that the Eagles had to take it slow because Donovan McNabb was dry heaving in the huddle. Others were that he actually puked. Given that Joe Montana was hyperventilating in a similar situation and dozens of champions faint in the middle of the National Spelling Bee every year, there’s no shame in it. Regardless, the Patriots were only too happy to stand around watching the clock run down while Reid’s offense held committee meetings in the huddle. They were seconds for yards, and that was fine with them.

  McNabb finally did engineer a touchdown drive out of it, on a pass to Greg Lewis after the 2-minute warning. The onside kick attempt failed when the ball was fielded by Christian Fauria. The three runs by the Patriots were followed by three Philly time-outs until a New England punt backed the Eagles up on their own 4 with 0:46 to play. For reasons that make no sense, McNabb then completed a 1-yard pass that only left enough time on the clock for him to throw his third interception of the game, this one again to Rodney Harrison. Naturally, Harrison came up flapping his eagle’s wings. Game. Over.

  If I haven’t mentioned Freddie Mitchell, it’s because there was no reason to. The “something” he intended to show Harrison was apparently his one catch for 11 yards nobody remembers, which was actually one fewer catch than Harrison, who picked off McNabb twice. Mitchell, of course, was contrite and accountable and put his failures completely on his own shoulders.

  Just kidding. He put on an Excuse Making clinic. “T.O., he came and did an excellent job . . . but that really took away from my play time and my opportunities,” he said. “I couldn’t shut a lot of people up that I wanted to shut up. That really hurt the situation.”

  The T.O. he was referring to, Terrell Owens, was Mitchell’s exact opposite. The Eagles lost in spite of his performance, not because of it. He finished with nine catches for 122 yards. There was even some buzz immediately after the game that he might be the rare guy on the losing side to get the MVP award. But anyone who argued for Owens clearly didn’t see the stat sheet. Or the game, for that matter.

  The best player on the field for Super Bowl XXXIX was Deion Branch, and he got the MVP he probably could’ve gotten the year before. He was unstoppable with 11 receptions for 133 yards on 12 targets, which accounted for more than half the Patriots’ passing yards.

  Much, much more importantly, the Patriots had won yet another Super Bowl. Again, by three points. And in doing so, capped off the best back-to-back seasons in NFL history. Since the shocking move to cut Lawyer Milloy, they’d done nothing less than win 34 games while losing only four. They shattered the win streak record by three games. They became the first team to win consecutive Super Bowls since the 1997–98 Denver Broncos, and they joined the Cowboys of the early 90s as the only teams of the Super Bowl era to win three titles in four years.

  By any pro football definition, they were now a dynasty. And just in case there was anyone interested in denying the fact, the players stood on the field, confetti raining down on their heads, holding up the front cover of Patriots Football Weekly, the official team newspaper, with its one-word headline “DYNASTY” hanging above three Lombardi trophies.

  On the sidelines, Bill Belichick, Charlie Weis, and Romeo Crennel embraced—not the casual embrace of three guys who feel weird about being that close to another man’s head, but a full-on, cheek-to-cheek-times-three man hug of buddies who’ve been through a lot together and know that this moment, great as it is, will never come again.

  A short time later, Belichick had one arm behind his father Steve, the old equipment guy for the Detroit Lions who became their fullback. The man who got a job as the defensive coordinator at the Naval Academy and refused all other job offers so that he could give his wife and son a stable life. The man who, in fact, became a tenured professor just so he’d never have
to move the family. Who had his kid breaking down game film before he could ride a bike.

  It was a moving and emotional scene. Right until Tedy Bruschi dumped a bucket of ice on it. Mostly on the Coach Belichick the Younger. He wasn’t out to put lives at risk.

  Actually, that was still a moving and emotional scene, as Bruschi and his cold, wet coach hugged it out. It was a peak moment of this newest NFL dynasty. But then real life, as it has a nasty habit of doing, stepped in to dump ice water on the fantasy in just a matter of days.

  18

  One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

  By now, New England in general and the city of Boston in particular had gotten good at the whole championship celebration thing. Practice makes perfect and all that. This time, they followed the template the Red Sox had established the previous October, with a rolling rally that just kept moving the duck boats through the city. No huge gathering spot. No speeches. Just riding through town holding up the now three Lombardi trophies, and then after the procession went by, everyone would go back in the bar to get warm and celebrate with some serious day drinking. It was becoming a habit.

  It didn’t take long for the party to end with a slap in the face from reality. Just over a week, in fact.

  To the victors go the spoils, which in the Pats’ case meant that six of them were invited to that celebration of unwatchably fake football, the Pro Bowl in Hawaii. Tom Brady and Corey Dillon represented the offense, Adam Vinatieri and Larry Izzo were the special-teamers, and representing the defense were Richard Seymour and Tedy Bruschi. To a guy like Brady, the Pro Bowl was something no longer worth attending, like your wife’s office’s holiday party, but with fat, middle-aged TV guys in aloha shirts. However, this was Bruschi’s first invitation, and he was not about to pass it up.