Five Rings

by Jerry Thornton

  Back then, as I do now, I was writing draft previews for Barstool and paid extra attention to the tight end spot. I wrote that there was one versatile, traditional type of tight end who could block as well as run and catch with the potential to be better than anyone in the 2010 class, six-foot-six, 265-pound Rob Gronkowski out of the University of Arizona. His only issue was his health. He had chronic back problems that required surgery and cost him a good chunk of his college career.

  Another, smaller, less traditional, more hybrid, tight end/big wide receiver was Aaron Hernandez from the U of Florida. I really liked him. As a matter of fact, I called him “The Perfect Patriot.” He was quick. He grasped complex offenses like theirs. He was a matchup nightmare for defenses. And while not the blocker Gronkowski was, he was adequate. Besides, he had played for Belichick’s coaching pal Urban Meyer for the Gators. Even though Jackson didn’t work out, it didn’t mean Meyer would steer anyone wrong.

  There was one tiny issue with Hernandez, one nagging little doubt that gave some teams pause about taking him. He had flunked several drug tests at school, testing positive for marijuana. To review: We were talking about a college kid. Smoking pot. If that’s the worst they had on him, then to me that was all the more reason to grab him.

  With their first pick, the Patriots moved back twice, adding mid-round picks each time. First they traded the pick to Denver, who used it on big-bodied receiver Demaryius Thomas. Then they traded again to Dallas, who used it on big-bodied receiver Dez Bryant. Then with the 27th pick they drafted cornerback Devin McCourty out of Rutgers. McCourty, we were told, was a quality all-around defender who could also tackle. As we found out later, Belichick—probably referring to Asante Samuel—warned McCourty at the Combine, “We don’t have cover corners. If you come here, you’re going to tackle.” McCourty was all for it. One of the selling points on him as well was that McCourty was a “four down” player, meaning he played on all the special-teams units.

  None of this placated the Boston media, who badly wanted another wideout to join Randy Moss and Wes Welker, to give Brady more “weapons.” Especially vocal against the pick was WEEI’s Gerry Callahan, who used the Stupid Boston Fanboy Voice that every talk show host in the market has to imitate fans who don’t agree with him. “Yeeeah, that’s what they need. A gunnah! McCourty’s a gunnah! That’s why they haven’t won in six yeeeahs. They need more gunnahs!” And it didn’t satisfy anyone to hear that McCourty had played for yet another coaching pal of Belichick’s, Greg Schiano, given that Rutgers wasn’t considered much of a football factory and this felt to most more like doing an old friend a favor.

  But the Patriots won the hearts and minds of the region when they moved up, ahead of the Ravens, and took Gronkowski with their next pick. Even the majority who didn’t know about him or his injury history were instantly on board. When his name was called in Round 2, Gronkowski ran to the stage wearing a Patriots hat and somehow, mysteriously, carrying a Patriots helmet. In short order, he returned to his entourage, which consisted of a bunch of frat bros who looked just like him. He threw the helmet on and danced with his tongue hanging out while they formed a circle and chanted, “Gronk! Gronk! Gronk!” To the surprise of no one, those bros were his brothers. You couldn’t invent this kind of star power. If this kid could play, he was destined for social media greatness.

  Then my wish, and prediction, came true, and they selected Aaron Hernandez, in the fourth round, with the 113th overall pick. It seemed like a tremendous steal. Hernandez’s stock had dropped only because of the positive drug tests. I publicly declared that the unsung hero of this draft was whichever kid at Florida had passed him that bong. It helped immensely that Gronk wouldn’t even turn 21 until May, and Hernandez not until November. The Patriots were collecting the essential parts to transform their offense into the tight end–centric attack they’d been trying to develop since Belichick had arrived.

  In between, the team took two of Hernandez’s Florida teammates, defensive end Jermaine Cunningham and inside linebacker Brandon Spikes. Spikes was another guy I had predicted they’d take. He was a strong, downhill, run-stuffing tackler to complement Jerod Mayo in the middle of the defense. But weeks after they selected him, Spikes had an issue of his own, the kind that football teams weren’t used to dealing with. Going back to the days of leather helmets and the single-win offense, players had the sorts of off-the-field issues that any collection of athletic, handsome, alpha males would have. Arrests. Drunk and disorderlies. Gambling. Violent crimes. As far as anyone knows, the Patriots were the first team to ever have to deal with a rookie whose porn video went viral.

  The site WorldStarHipHop had gotten hold of a video of Spikes on the webcam site Chatroulette. The 11-minute video proved two things. The first was that when you’re a star linebacker in the SEC, you don’t have problems meeting really great women. And the second was that Spikes has the kind of impressive measurables they don’t keep track of at the Draft Combine. The Patriots declined to comment. Probably behind closed doors they hoped that weed and porn would be the worst things that their U of Florida players would ever get involved with.

  There were the usual contract negotiations going on, some nastier than others. Vince Wilfork’s extension was a bit of a struggle before he signed the much-coveted second contract that made him the highest paid interior defensive lineman in the league. Guard Logan Mankins had to work hard for his as well. He was not the least bit shy about saying he’d been lied to and would hold out for as long as it took to be paid what he felt he was owed. Then, after missing several games, he ended up signing a deal that made him the highest paid interior offensive lineman.

  Less lucky than either of them was Randy Moss. As the team was transitioning itself from a receiver-based offense to one built around the rookie tight ends, Moss was feeling marginalized. His contract was up at the end of the year, and he understood that if his production suffered, his earning power would suffer with it; it was also a matter of pride. He had been one of the elite offensive forces in the game since he was a rookie. Now he was seeing his production being phased out for two guys barely out of their teens, like he was the youngest sibling on a family sitcom that had to write a little cousin into the show because he’s not so cute anymore. He was being replaced. And he knew it.

  Moss was liked and appreciated around the team. Smart. Hardworking. A great teammate. Coaches loved him too. As did the fans. But he was also always a bit nuts, in that “harmless crackpot” kind of way. In New England, he had always kept the cap screwed down tight on the carbonated beverage that was his brand of crazy—until the beginning of the 2010 season. Then the bottle had finally been shaken up too much, the cap popped off, and the nuttiness sprayed the room.

  The Patriots played a good game to open the season, a 38–24 thrashing of the Bengals. Brady completed only two passes to his new tight ends but five to Moss and eight to Welker, who was back from his knee surgery.

  Welker was the guy everyone most wanted to hear from in the postgame. Watching him go down at the end of last season, I had him penciled in as the Comeback Player of the Year. For 2011. Having him come back this soon without even missing a game seemed like a minor miracle, the kind of healing you only see at a revival meeting where a sleazy preacher asks for your tax-free contribution. But here he was, the leading receiver already, and we wanted to know how he felt.

  Moss had other plans. He took the podium and went on an extended, emotional rant in which he said, “I love being here, but from a business standpoint, this will probably be my last year as a Patriot, and I’m not retiring. If you do a good job and think you are doing a good job, you want to be appreciated,” he continued. “I really don’t think that me personally, that I’m appreciated.” It was heartfelt. It was raw, honest, and unfiltered. But it was also tone-deaf—exactly the kind of thing no one wants to hear, especially right after a big win. It doesn’t mean Moss wasn’t justified in wanting a long-term deal to stay in New England, but coming off the questio
nable attitude of the team the year before, plus seeing the Pats lose all these gamers who never put themselves ahead of the team, no one was in any mood for this “What about Me?” talk. The Boston Herald reported that after the game, Moss demanded a trade.

  The situation was in a holding pattern until the week 4 game against the Dolphins at Miami on Monday Night Football. A 7–6 game at the half, the Patriots blew it open with a 21-point quarter thanks to an interception return for a touchdown, a BenJarvus Green-Ellis rushing TD, and a pass caught by new folk hero Danny Woodhead, the Hobbit-sized all-purpose back who had been cut by the Jets.

  The final was 41–14 New England. Most notably, they put up all those points despite the fact that Moss was targeted just once, with no receptions. If they could score 41 on the road with slot receivers, undrafted free agents, and 21-year-olds, the thinking went, there didn’t seem much point in keeping a disgruntled deep threat around. They could just try to win with more gruntled players.

  Two days later, Moss was traded to the team that drafted him, the Minnesota Vikings, for a mid-round pick. A few days after that, the Patriots brought back Deion Branch, whose production in a much different scheme in Seattle was nothing close to what it had been in New England. And in short order, something unexpected happened. The offense got better.

  In his first game back, against Baltimore, Branch had no problems reconnecting all the synapses in the brain he and Brady had once shared. He hauled in nine passes for 98 yards and a touchdown on the way to an overtime win. Eventually, he’d add a 113-yard, two-touchdown game against Detroit and a 151-yarder with one score against Chicago. Just as importantly, he didn’t hold weirdo press conferences, because he never had. Even when his own talks were going badly on his first tour of duty in New England, Branch went out of his way to not make it personal and stayed on great terms with his coach. Now it was paying off.

  But the oddest part of the whole saga came, like it was scripted, on Halloween day, when the Vikings came to Gillette. That’s when Moss went completely off the rails.

  This was during the late, “Who does he play for again?” stage of Brett Favre’s career. By this time he was quarterbacking for the Vikings. On this day, he was apparently in no mood to throw passes Moss’s way, possibly because Moss wasn’t exactly ingratiating himself to anyone in the Vikings’ locker room. Reports had come out that on the Friday of that weekend, the caterers the team had hired were putting out a spread for the players when Moss came up to the buffet line, complaining. Here’s a little piece of life advice: When you’re trying to make a good impression on your new job, greeting the free food they give you by screaming, “What the fuck is this? I wouldn’t feed this shit to my fucking dog!” is not the best way.

  So Moss took the field and went way out of his way to hug Robert Kraft. Then after the 28–18 Patriots win, he sought out Belichick and Brady. And in between, he caught one pass for 8 yards. But it was in his postgame press conference that the real fun began. He called out Minnesota head coach Brad Childress for his terrible game plan and then turned his attention to the team he wanted no part of just weeks before.

  He actually declared he didn’t want to take questions from reporters, so he asked and answered his own questions, in a sort of Gollum/Sméagol thing. “I miss them guys, man. I miss the team. . . . I miss the hell out of them, every last helmet in that locker room, man,” Moss said. “Coach Belichick gave me a chance to be a part of something special, and I take that to heart. . . . I’m gonna leave the New England Patriots, Coach Belichick with a salute, man. I love you guys. I miss you. I’m out.”

  The Vikings cut him within hours. By the end of the season, he was on the Tennessee Titans, barely seeing any playing time. The next year he was a backup for the 49ers before ending his career for good. The Patriots had gotten out of that investment at exactly the right time.

  As the season rolled on and the offense found itself, the Patriots had one inexcusable glitch at Cleveland, where they got blown out 34–14 by a terrible Browns team, now coached by Eric Mangini, in a game that made no sense on any level. An obscure running back named Peyton Hillis ran for 184 yards on them and added 36 more receiving. Eventually, that game and a few others earned him the immortality of being featured on a Madden cover, followed by the immortality that comes from being part of the Madden Cover Jinx, since his career went bust right after.

  The game ended with the ultimate indignity for Belichick, watching Fredo Mangini get a Gatorade shower from his team. The win made them 3–5. On the way to a 5–11 season. So maybe the indignity was really a self-inflicted wound.

  Through it all, with Branch back sparking the offense, Welker back to full health, and the rookie tight ends learning their role, the one constant in the season was Brady. He was better than great. He was transcendent. The case was being made that he was actually better in 2010 than he had been in 2007 when he set records. The advanced statistics website Football Outsiders said as much and declared that on the whole the Patriots’ offense was better than it had been four years earlier.

  Brady finished with 36 touchdown passes compared to 50 in ’07, but only threw four picks, a TD/interception ratio of 9 to 1 that is superhuman. He went a record 335 consecutive attempts without an interception. The team only gave the ball away 10 times all season, and went seven straight games without a turnover, also NFL records. Brady once again won the league MVP award, only this time by a unanimous vote. He was the first player to ever do it.

  Without a doubt, the highlight of the season was a win over the Jets in week 13. It was about as close to a perfect game as you can play. Tom Brady put Rex Ryan’s defense in a body bag with 21 for 29 passing with 326 yards, four touchdowns, and no turnovers. He connected with Danny Woodhead on a 50-yarder, 104 yards on the night. And Mark Sanchez was just horrendous, with no touchdowns and three interceptions. The final was 45–3, and it wasn’t really that close.

  Afterward, Ryan looked like a broken man, and he sounded like one. “I came here to kick Belichick’s ass,” he said. “But he kicked mine.” The Jets had come into Foxboro the winners of four straight, with a record of 9–2 and making a playoff run. But this seemed to have knocked the will right out of them. They looked finished. Even more so when they lost again the next week to Miami.

  They finished at 11–5, made the playoffs, and then in a rematch of the AFC title game the year before, beat the Colts at Indy, holding Peyton Manning’s offense to just 16 points. They would be coming to Foxboro for the divisional game. Given the results of the last time the two teams had met, getting the Jets again promised an entertainment level nothing else could match. All right, almost nothing.

  A couple of weeks earlier, the Gods of Entertainment had handed us a gift that was too good to be true, especially if your part-time job was covering sports, R-rated comedy, celebrity gossip, and Rex Ryan.

  They all came together in a perfect four-layer dip of blogging gold when a tape hit the Internet of a very attractive 50-ish woman with her feet out a car window. Titled “Hot Mature Sexy Feet” and posted by a user named ihaveprettyfeet, the woman in the car is approached by a guy holding a point-of-view camera and saying, “Uh, excuse me, ma’am. Can I help you with anything?” The woman says she’s fine and after a brief exchange, it takes a sharp turn into Fetishville.

  “You have really beautiful feet,” the voice says. “Mind if I, uh, touch them?” And not long after it escalates to, “Can I smell them?” And not long after, “A lot of men would like to do a lot of things with those feet.”

  The voice sounded exactly like Rex Ryan, and ihaveprettyfeet was a dead ringer for his wife, Michelle.

  I’m not judging. I’m not aware of anything in the Bible that says a happily married man can’t appreciate all parts of his lovely wife’s body. I’m a little fuzzy on what The Good Book says about putting a profile of ihaveprettyfeet in the Foot Fetish thread on the swingers website Alt.com that promotes itself as the place for “BDSM and Alternative Lifestyle Personals.” In no
time, someone found it. And ihaveprettyfeet listed her hometown as Ellicott City, Maryland, where the Ryans lived. Again, there is no shame in being attracted to your wife’s feet, or in sharing them with other consenting adults. But asking the Internet not to think it’s funny is like asking a 12-year-old not to laugh at farts. Ryan neither confirmed nor denied that it was him and the Mrs., and understandably, no reporter wanted to press him on the issue because this was his wife we were talking about. So needless to say, the issue was pretty much kept a safe distance from the game coverage. For as long as it took Wes Welker to get involved.

  At his press availability, Welker put on an exhibition of foot puns unrivaled in the history of wordplay. It was nothing short of ingenious. The game was going to be about everyone “putting their best foot forward.” Because “you can’t just stick your toe in the water.” Darrelle Revis? “He’s got great feet.” The Patriots have had some young players “really step up.” His team was “being good little foot soldiers.” And on and on, 11 times in all.

  It was like that part in Super Troopers where the cops make a traffic stop and try to see how many times they can say “Meow” to Jim Gaffigan, but with foot references. Welker’s delivery was so perfectly deadpan, never cracking a smile or breaking character, some people weren’t really sure if he was doing it on purpose.