Five Rings

by Jerry Thornton

  The news outlet Al Jazeera was doing an undercover investigation into performance-enhancing drugs in sports. The investigation led them to the Guyer Institute of Molecular Medicine, an anti-aging clinic in Indianapolis, and they did a hidden camera interview with an employee there with the Dickensian name of Charlie Sly. On the tape, Sly mentions a list of athletes Guyer had supplied human growth hormones to, including Manning, by mailing the drugs to Manning’s wife, Ashley. Suddenly, that miraculous comeback Peyton had made and all those records he had set in his late 30s thanks to all that overseas medical care he’d received was seen in a whole different light.

  Until it wasn’t. This report, that should have shook the pro football world to its foundations, barely moved the needle for anyone. Manning quickly denied the allegation, and the world was A-OK with that. Virtually every football panel discussion show on cable was unanimous in saying words to the effect of “Well, Peyton says there’s nothing to this and I believe him,” while viewers all across New England spat Dunkin’ Donuts all over their “Free Brady” shirts.

  The hypocrisy of this was off the charts. Manning declared his innocence and got phrases like “benefit of the doubt” and “innocent until proven guilty.” Brady declared his and got “more probable than not” and “you’re in big fucking trouble.”

  There were no tears streaming down Mark Brunell’s cheeks. Not even when follow-up reports said two men hired by the Manning family showed up at the door of Charlie Sly’s family, giving his elderly parents the impression they were police. The NFL would wait until after the season and then quietly announce there was nothing to see here, telling the citizens to go back home and get some sleep. Because in Roger Goodell logic, the air pressure in footballs is just like PEDs, but actual PEDs are not.

  So while the Broncos weren’t getting much production out of their quarterback position, they were still a threat, especially when you consider that this wasn’t the Patriots team that had been steamrolling the league at the beginning of the season, either. That Denver defense was facing a Pats offense that had been winning a war of attrition, and the losses were taking a toll.

  Gone from this game were the team’s top three wideouts, Julian Edelman, Danny Amendola, and Aaron Dobson, as well as all-purpose running back Dion Lewis. And the offensive line was a shell of its former self. Right tackle Sebastian Vollmer was playing left tackle, backup Marcus Cannon was at right tackle, and rookie guard Shaq Mason was forced into duty. By week 10 they had already used almost more line combinations than they had in team history. It was beginning to look like the losing army at the end of a long war, with teenage boys and old men handed uniforms that don’t fit them and rifles they can barely carry.

  And it only got worse when Rob Gronkowski, by far Tom Brady’s best remaining weapon, went out with a knee injury. Gronk, who had six catches for 88 yards and a touchdown on the day, got submarined by safety Darian Stewart and was helped off the field. In what was becoming a growing set of special rules that seemed to apply only when covering Gronkowski, the play wasn’t considered dirty by most because “that’s the only way you can tackle Gronk.” You heard it from everywhere. I guess the logic was that if the only way you could bring him down is with a tranquillizer dart in his haunch, then by all means, let’s let defenders carry blowguns. As with Tonya Harding, if a pipe to Nancy Kerrigan’s knee was the only way to get to the Olympics, then all is forgiven.

  Nevertheless, the Patriots were still winning comfortably in this one—until the Denver factor took over. As I’ve pointed out before, there’s always been something about playing at Mile High Stadium that messes with the Patriots in ways no other venue does. Some kind of weird, temporal anomaly that makes unexplained phenomena happen.

  On the first play of the fourth quarter, Brady managed to find a healthy target in backup running back Brandon Bolden and hit him for a 68-yard touchdown that gave New England a 21–7 lead. The subsequent Denver drive stalled and they punted. But Chris Harper, taking over the punt return duties from both Edelman and Amendola, muffed it. Denver recovered at the Patriots’ 36. Four plays later, they were in the end zone to make it a one-score game.

  The Broncos managed to come back all the way and win it in overtime, giving them a tiebreaker that would mean everything come playoff time. Chris Harper was a rookie receiver, appearing in just his third game for the Patriots. The entire run of the championship era–Patriots is loaded with obscure players no one had ever heard of making huge plays for them in critical moments: Fred Coleman catching a 46-yard pass from Brady in 2001 on his way to career totals of two catches for 50 yards, Antwan Harris returning Troy Brown’s lateral on a blocked field goal in the AFC championship game for a touchdown, and dozens of others. This time, football karma took one back. And it was costly.

  The Patriots limped into the 2015 playoffs as the No. 2 seed behind the Broncos, who weren’t really feeling Osweiler and had Manning back under center, but had still managed to take the top spot thanks to that win over New England and the Pats losing to both the Jets and the Dolphins to close out the season.

  After the playoff bye week, the Patriots had their receiving corps back to face a Kansas City Chiefs team that was solid, but not great. An 11–5 Wild Card team with a quality defense led by All-Pro safety Eric Berry, they were pedestrian on offense and not the kind of matchup that triggered the Patriots’ stress eating very often.

  What made this game so memorable was what happened well before the kickoff. The previous Sunday was about as bitter cold as you might expect in New England, and all was quiet in the Foxboro Public Safety Building that houses the town fire, police, and ambulance services. Until a six-foot-five, 265-pound man came walking in, shirtless and barefoot. It was Pats’ defensive end and former top draft pick Chandler Jones. Disoriented but by no means hostile, he said he needed help, and they transported him to the hospital.

  Credible reports said he had a bad reaction to Spice, the synthetic marijuana that you can buy along with a bag of Funyuns and a 5-Hour Energy in any gas station store, the reason being that it’s like incense or something and not meant to be smoked. If it were, the warning label would say, “Side effects may include disorientation, paranoia, mildly psychotic episodes, and walking half naked to your local police station in the freezing cold. Don’t bother consulting anyone; your doctor doesn’t want you on this shit.” I spoke to an EMT who said Spice is legal, but so is Drano, and you shouldn’t put that in your body. It was a terrible look for Jones, playoff bye week or no playoff bye week.

  But the NFL had an even worse look the day of the Kansas City game, a look that made Chandler Jones’s look like Washington Crossing the Delaware. The game’s officiating crew came down to Gillette Stadium from the Boston hotel they’d stayed at and realized they’d left the kicking balls back in one of their hotel rooms. With the pressure gauges. They literally had to call the manager and have him send a concierge into the room to retrieve the balls and taxi them to the stadium.

  These were playoff footballs. By now, tens of millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours had been invested in the fact that Walt Anderson had lost visual contact on playoff footballs just one year earlier. Hell, Brady v. NFL was still in federal court. And these guys had left them behind like a phone charger. I think most Patriots fans read that and thought it was from a fake Twitter account or a satire site like The Onion. But it happened.

  And this is as good a time as any to mention that the NFL had declared they were diligently testing game balls to make sure they conform and as a deterrent to any team wanting to try any of their shenanigans like those 2014 Patriots. But they would not release their findings. Never. No matter how many times Goodell used forms of the word “transparent” in his speeches. All we could do was ask what they’d do with those psi figures if they disproved Mona Lisa Belichick and his simple, eighth-grade science.

  Anyway, the Patriots beat the Chiefs 27–20 and headed for one final showdown between Brady and Manning, at Denver. I use the w
ord “final” because even though nothing had been announced officially, there was no way Manning was coming back after this season. His health was shot. He couldn’t move in the pocket. There was no power behind his throws. He was getting by on his mastery of the offense; talented receivers like Demaryius Thomas, Emmanuel Sanders, and Justin Thomas; and a world-class defense capable of carrying him in the state he was in.

  For the rest of the world, there was no doubt who the hero and the villain of this little morality play were. You had America’s most beloved self-deprecating, pizza-selling regular vs. the cheating, phone-destroying pretty boy. Everyone in 44 states wanted to see Manning go out on top and Brady finally pay for his sins. I mentioned the Patriots’ new role as the NFL’s wrestling heel. Well, there hasn’t been a more clearly drawn Good vs. Evil story line in the WWE since Sgt. Slaughter was fighting Communists and terrorists in the 80s.

  Just as we had in 2013, Patriots fans had hung their hopes on the small coat hook that the weather would cooperate and be bad enough that Manning’s surgically repaired (and not at all HGH-assisted) body wouldn’t be able to handle the conditions and he’d wilt. And again, the Earth’s atmosphere did us no favors. It was mild and sunny.

  On Denver’s first possession, the weather didn’t cause Manning to make the mistakes we were hoping for, and neither did the Patriots’ defense. He missed throws, but never committed the major screwup we were counting on. He hit Owen Daniels, the 33-year-old slow-footed tight end who had given them so many problems with red zone catches when he was with Baltimore. But this time he had no problem getting free of freakishly athletic Jamie Collins in the open field for a 21-yard touchdown. It was not a promising start.

  The Pats did catch a break of their own creation when Manning was hit and the ball hit the ground. It was ruled an incomplete pass, but after Belichick challenged it, the play was ruled a fumble, Patriots’ ball on the Denver 22. It took all of two plays for them to punch it in. But the score didn’t tie the game up because Stephen Gostkowski missed the extra point.

  It was 7–6, and yet another example of stranger things happening in the Upside Down that is Mile High. This one put that bitter, coppery taste in your mouth because this was the season the NFL Rules Committee had finally agreed with Belichick after years of him lobbying them to move the extra point line of scrimmage back a few yards to make it a slightly competitive play. And it had backfired.

  Now, you might say it’s just one point and accuse me of Drama Queenism (right, as if a Patriots game could ever make me overly dramatic), but I and I’m sure the vast majority of New Englanders found myself doing the Scooby-Doo “Ruh-roh!” You could see how this was going to unfold like it had already happened and you were watching it again on DVR. It would come down to the final second, and that point would cost them.

  Being right all the time isn’t easy.

  The more the game went on, the more Brady was under duress. Behind Dave DeGuglielmo’s slapped-together and improvised offensive line, he simply had no time to throw. Thanks to Denver’s secondary, led still by Aqib Talib, he had no one to throw to. Talib had developed this nasty habit of screwing them in conference championship games, no matter whether he was playing for Denver or the Patriots. It hurt extra because the cornerback who made Talib expendable was now cashing huge checks in New York and Talib was still here making plays against the Patriots.

  But the unquestioned standout of this game was Broncos defensive end Von Miller. Lined up mainly against Marcus Cannon, but really anywhere he felt like it, he was virtually unblockable, getting off the line quickly, anticipating Brady’s snap count so he was by the blockers before they could react. The pass protection was worse even than either of the Giants Super Bowls, a claim I don’t make lightly. The people who get paid to quantify such things said Brady faced the most intense pass rush in terms of pressures, hurries, knockdowns, and, of course, sacks of any QB in the last 30-something years. He also threw two interceptions, the result of having to get the ball out and rushing throws before routes could develop.

  The Patriots were also getting crushed in the battle of special teams, starting one third-quarter drive on their 8 and the next on their 4. They were trailing 20–12, thanks to Owen Daniels burning Jamie Collins for a score yet again. But they took over at their 20 and began finally to move the ball. They put together an 11-play drive in the fourth that got them inside the Denver red zone, and faced a tough decision. Needing eight points to tie and facing a fourth down at the 16 with 6:03 left in the game, they could’ve gone for the field goal and hoped for a touchdown drive later on. But this was the first sustained offense they’d managed all game, and they decided to try for the end zone instead. They failed to convert and turned it over on downs.

  Then they got the ball back after just 2 minutes had come off the clock and put together another semi-improbable drive. With bodies flying at Brady from all directions like he was living a game of Frogger, he hit James White for 15 yards and Gronk for 28 yards, until eventually they faced another fourth down in the red zone, with 2:25 left. Because they didn’t take the field goal last time, it made this decision a no-brainer. With so little time left, and still down by eight, they had to play for the touchdown and two-point conversion. The pass was incomplete to Gronk, defended by Talib.

  It felt, to borrow a phrase from the Super Bowl official on Wes Welker’s drop, like that was the game. But they’d have one last try. The Broncos played ultra-conservative, trying to bleed the clock. The 2-minute warning plus two New England time-outs meant the Patriots got the ball back at the 50 with 1:52 left. Three incompletions set up a fourth and 10 with everything riding on it. Somehow Brady connected with Gronk for 40 yards. Hustling up to the ball to preserve their last time-out, an incompletion stopped the clock. A completion to Edelman got it down to the 4 on fourth down. After using their final time-out, Brady found Gronk with bodies draped all over him to make it 20–18.

  It did all come down to that extra point. Convert and they were going to overtime. Fail and Denver was going to the Super Bowl, with the added extra kick in the groin of knowing it would make Brady 2–2 in postseason games against Peyton Manning, and 2–4 against the Manning family.

  And then, the doomsday scenario. The two-point conversion failed. Brady forced it in to Edelman, who was covered, missing Gronk in the deep corner of the end zone, miraculously unaccounted for.

  That was a tough one to choke down, especially because it was one of the few times in the 2000s we’d ever seen them break down and play worse as the season went on. To say the injuries finally just piled too high for them to climb over the stack of bodies is either an explanation or an excuse. Where you came down on it depended on your perspective.

  What was not in dispute was that in their final meeting, Peyton Manning outplayed Tom Brady, something that was immediately made clear to me by my buddy Davo, who texted me within a minute to say, “Brady sucked! You better own up to it on the radio tomorrow! Don’t make excuses!” I texted back, “All that might be true. But then I don’t remember hearing from you 50 weeks ago when he put up 14 points in the fourth quarter and won the MVP.” Then I reminded him that he’s the same kid who followed me home from school when the Red Sox lost a one-game playoff to the Yankees on Bucky Dent’s home run, yelling at me about what chokers they were, and how our relationship has really evolved over our lifetimes. Then I thought maybe I wouldn’t mind showing my private texts to Ted Wells. Maybe he could make more sense of my lifelong friendships than I could.

  So it was a bad time all around. The Broncos and Peyton Manning were headed to the Super Bowl, and Brady was headed back to court—but not before a visit to the Bay Area, the site of Super Bowl 50 and his ancestral homeland. The NFL had invited all living Super Bowl MVPs (I’m not sure why the word “living” is necessary in that sentence, but that’s how it was phrased at the time) to be introduced as part of the Golden Anniversary celebration. When Brady’s name was called he was booed like he had just come out and used
the American flag as a snot rag. It was painful to witness, but that’s the world Roger Goodell had created.

  And it’s how the 2016 off-season began for us, followed by the sight of Peyton winning his second Super Bowl. After the trophy presentation, this everyman, this humble, “Aw shucks,” regular guy who eats in diners and hums insurance company jingles to himself just like the rest of us, immediately hugged the most important person in his life: the owner of the pizza chain he shills for. Just doing his part to keep America constipated. Then he gave an interview on live TV where he worked in plugs for that shitty pizza and a beer company like a true NASCAR pro. A genuine, heartfelt way to cap off a career.

  But I’m not bitter.

  34

  Like Some Teenage Goth Girl

  So Brady was facing more months of court hearings on the appeal of the appeal of the appeal of his suspension. Because the issue was now one level of the federal justice system away from going to the Supreme Court. So we were that close to having the same august body that decided Marbury v. Madison and Brown v. Board of Education hearing NFL v. Tom Brady, The Deflator and Dorito Dink Over Some Air in Footballs.

  For the rest of us, that meant another spring and summer of attorneys speaking legalese in Latin and me having to ask them to please dumb it down and don’t be afraid to talk to me like I’m a four-year-old. Plus speculation about what the judges will do, and assessments of how well the lawyers are doing. All brought to us through the excitement of courtroom sketches that look like they were slapped on a cave wall with berry juice and animal blood. You know, everything that makes sports worthwhile.

  There weren’t major changes to be made on the roster. Actually, the best acquisition they made was along the embattled offensive line, and it was a guy in his 70s: Bill Belichick talked Dante Scarnecchia out of retirement. Perhaps he missed the camaraderie, the challenge and the spirit of competition that comes from coaching, or maybe he was one of those millions of men who leave the workplace only to retire to the horrors of their wives’ daily “Honey Do” list, I can only speculate. But the line was a shambles by the end of the year, and he was the best position coach in all of football, so he was brought back to clean up the mess.