12

by Casey Sherman

  Copyright © 2018 by Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge

  Cover design by Mario J. Pulice

  Cover photograph by Maddie Meyer / Getty Images Sport

  Cover copyright © 2018 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

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  First ebook edition: July 2018

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  ISBN 978-0-316-41640-5

  E3-20180613-DANF

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue: San Francisco, California

  Part I Chapter One: A Cold Rain

  Chapter Two: Storm Fronts

  Chapter Three: Pressure

  Chapter Four: The Ultimate Fan

  Chapter Five: The Underdog

  Chapter Six: Game Changers

  Part II Chapter Seven: Learning Curve

  Chapter Eight: Taking Hits

  Chapter Nine: It’s Good!

  Part III Chapter Ten: Legendary Status

  Chapter Eleven: “It’s About Honor. It’s About Respect.”

  Chapter Twelve: Brady’s New Team

  Chapter Thirteen: Power Play

  Chapter Fourteen: Kraft’s Counterattack

  Chapter Fifteen: Tom Brady vs. the NFL

  Chapter Sixteen: Highs and Lows

  Chapter Seventeen: Isolation

  Part IV Chapter Eighteen: The Return

  Chapter Nineteen: Rolling

  Chapter Twenty: Freight Train

  Chapter Twenty-one: The Ties That Bind

  Part V Chapter Twenty-two: The Locker Room

  Chapter Twenty-three: Fire and Ice

  Chapter Twenty-four: They Will Fight Their Asses Off!

  Chapter Twenty-five: No Room for Error

  Chapter Twenty-six: Unsung Heroes

  Chapter Twenty-seven: The Steep Climb

  Chapter Twenty-eight: You Gotta Believe

  Chapter Twenty-nine: Redemption

  Epilogue: Not Done

  Acknowledgments

  Notes

  Select Bibliography

  About the Authors

  Also by the Authors

  Photographs

  Newsletter

  For Kristin. You have my love for always.

  And for my uncle Jim Sherman, one of the greatest sportsmen I’ve ever known.

  —Casey Sherman

  For Dad. Thank you for making me love football, the fall, and snow games.

  —Dave Wedge

  Prologue

  San Francisco,

  California

  May 19, 2015

  New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft strode to the podium dressed smartly in a blue suit, blue dress shirt with contrasting white collar, and a red tie. It was a look fans had become accustomed to. In fact, Kraft had worn the attire for his nearly two decades sitting in the owner’s box at Gillette Stadium and other modern-day coliseums while watching his team evolve into the greatest sports dynasty of the twenty-first century.

  On May 19, 2015, Kraft had joined his fellow NFL owners at the San Francisco Ritz-Carlton for their spring meetings to discuss, among other things, the league’s potential return to Los Angeles for the first time in twenty-one years. The owners—nineteen billionaires, including Kraft—sat through updates on competing stadium proposals, and while this topic was of interest to sports reporters in L.A., San Diego, and even St. Louis, the real focus of attention centered on the eroding relationship between Robert Kraft and Roger Goodell, commissioner of the National Football League. Ever since the league had accused New England of deliberately deflating footballs during the AFC championship game against the Indianapolis Colts, the two men had been locked in a bitter battle over the future of Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.

  When Kraft arrived in the city two days earlier, the normally affable owner politely stiff-armed Boston reporters who were seeking any new nugget of information about the feud. The next day, he went on the record with Sports Illustrated columnist Pete King, calling the league’s treatment of Brady unfounded and unfair. When asked whether he’d sue the league in an effort to save his quarterback’s reputation, Kraft wouldn’t confirm or deny taking such drastic action. The media prepared for a thermonuclear showdown between two of the most powerful men in the most popular sport in America.

  But on the morning of May 19, ESPN reporter and respected league insider Adam Schefter turned the doomsday narrative on its head in a tweet that read, Roger Goodell and Patriots owner Robert Kraft already have met, spoke and even hugged, per an industry source who witnessed it. The headline was re-tweeted 738 times along with comments comparing their embrace to Michael Corleone’s kiss of death planted on the lips of his traitor brother Fredo in The Godfather Part II. Was this Kraft’s strategy? To keep his friends close but his enemies closer?

  Moments later, Schefter added that the two perceived enemies had attended a sixtieth-birthday party for Sean McManus, chairman of CBS Sports, in New York City that past weekend and that Kraft and Goodell were “spotted on a couch, talking by themselves for quite a long time.”

  Schefter’s tweets immediately transformed the lobby of the Ritz into a land of confusion as veteran reporters scratched their heads and texted their editors about this potential thaw in the NFL’s most recent cold war.

  A few hours later, their suspicions were confirmed when Kraft walked out to face a media ravenous for information. The owner shifted his feet and stared down at his prepared comments. He began the news conference by acknowledging the emotionally charged statements made in recent weeks by both Patriots fans and those who openly called for the proud franchise’s painful demise. Kraft then complained about the “ongoing rhetoric that continues to galvanize both camps.” It appeared as if the NFL had been split up into blue and red states, with partisans on both sides holding their ground and their grudges.

  “I have two options,” Kraft said about his war against the NFL. “I can either end it or extend it.”

  The Patriots owner paused before describing the goose bumps he felt being welcomed into “the room” by other owners after purchasing the team. Kraft expressed his allegiance to his fellow owners and their ultra-exclusive club he called the “full thirty-two.”

  “So in that spirit, I don’t want to continue the rhetoric that’s gone on for the last four months,” he told reporters. “I’m going to accept, reluctantly, what he [Goodell] has given us, and not to continue this dialogue and rhetoric, and we won’t appeal.”

  Kraft’s star quarterback Tom Brady watched the news conference along with millions of others on television. He was devastated and angry. Brady grabbed his cell phone and punched in the contact number for DeMaurice Smith,
executive director of the National Football League Players Association.

  “What the fuck?” Brady shouted over the phone. “Why am I not getting the support I deserve on this thing?”

  Smith tried to console his client and friend.

  “No matter what Kraft says, it has no bearing on our appeal of the four-game suspension,” he told Brady. “We’ll be ready for that. Trust me.”1

  In a moment, the man hailed as arguably the greatest quarterback ever to play the game had to put his faith in another team, one of battle-tested attorneys in a war against, perhaps, the most formidable opponent of his life: the NFL.

  Part I

  Chapter One

  A Cold Rain

  January 18, 2015

  Indianapolis sports columnist Bob Kravitz squinted wearily through the frames of his prescription eyeglasses and ran his fingers through the gray whiskers that covered his chin. Something’s weird, he thought to himself.2 It had indeed been a strange game for fans of the Indianapolis Colts to watch thus far. On the drenched Gillette Stadium turf, the Colts, playing behind third-year quarterback Andrew Luck, were committing countless mistakes, and their opponent, the New England Patriots, had made them pay dearly. Early on, Colts punt returner Josh Cribbs mishandled a kick that hit him flush on his face mask before the football tumbled to the field, where it was scooped up and recovered by Patriots linebacker Darius Fleming.

  New England’s offense then took over. It was the second possession of the game for Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, and he fed the ball to running back LeGarrette Blount, who chewed up yard after yard before stampeding into the end zone for the first score of the AFC championship game. Seemingly unimpressed with his team’s fast start, head coach Bill Belichick brooded on the sideline, his trademark navy blue hoodie surprisingly dry considering the weather.

  That night, the temperature hovered just above freezing, bringing with it dense fog and a cold rain, instead of the light snow that had fallen in Foxborough, Massachusetts, during previous midwinter matchups between these storied rivals. But much had changed within the Colts organization since those epic and unforgettable snow bowls. Gone was legendary quarterback Peyton Manning, the proverbial face of the franchise and poster boy for the scorn of Patriots fans from Caribou, Maine, to Cumberland, Rhode Island. Manning had been vanquished and replaced by the first pick in the 2012 NFL draft, Andrew Luck, who had since broken Manning’s franchise record for passing yards in a single season and had most recently beaten the Manning-led Denver Broncos in the divisional round of the playoffs. The outward identity of the Colts had also changed. They were no longer considered, as the Patriots were, perennial conference favorites destined to wreak havoc throughout the AFC. The Colts were now playing the role of the underdog behind a talented and modestly likable quarterback. Without Peyton Manning behind center, most Patriots fans no longer recoiled at the mere sight of the horseshoe-bedecked helmets. The intensity and excitement over the rivalry had waned in New England. But that sentiment was not shared by those toiling inside the Indiana Farm Bureau Football Center, the Indianapolis headquarters of the Colts.

  The team had been taught to despise the Patriots. This was a deeper hatred than is normally found among business competitors. This was loathing on the level of rival nation-states with opposing ideologies. Colts owner Jim Irsay, the silver-haired, goateed man-child who had inherited the team from his father, Robert, viewed the Patriots the way Ronald Reagan once regarded the Soviet Union: they simply were not to be trusted. Irsay himself, however, had his own problems. In 2014, he had been arrested for drunk driving and felony drug possession, which probably didn’t ease his decade-old grudge against the Patriots. The bad blood went all the way back to a regular-season showdown in 2003, when the Colts accused Patriots linebacker Willie McGinest of faking an injury during a critical fourth-quarter play to stop the clock, the Patriots eventually going on to pull out the victory in typical Tom Brady fashion. Irsay’s suspicions about the deceptive culture of the Patriots, however, were proven correct in 2007, when Coach Belichick was caught videotaping play calls and signals of opposing coaches in a scandal that would come to be known as Spygate.

  Bob Kravitz looked at the scoreboard late in the second quarter of the AFC championship game and saw that the Colts were down ten points to the Patriots. The score was 17–7, but the game did not appear that competitive. New England had complete control over Indianapolis, the Colts weren’t exactly playing perfect football, and no sports reporter, let alone Kravitz, had any reason to believe that the Patriots were practicing any illegal sleight of hand. But as the halftime whistle blew, Kravitz noticed Colts general manager Ryan Grigson leave his seat in the press box, walk over to the team’s designated PR spot, and reach for the phone. Grigson began talking excitedly to someone on the other end of the line. Kravitz, however, could not imagine what the conversation was about. The columnist simply rubbed his chin and thought the exchange was, in his words, “weird.”

  Kravitz watched the Patriots increase their dominance over the Colts in the second half. Through a driving rain, Tom Brady drove the offense down the field early in the third quarter and lobbed a pass to hulking left tackle Nate Solder, who steamrolled into the end zone, where he was flanked by the other beefy offensive linemen in raucous celebration. As sometimes seems to be the case for Brady, the game was proving to be easy.

  Less than seven minutes later, he struck again, this time it was a touchdown pass to his all-world tight end Rob Gronkowski. With the extra point, the score was now 31–7. Coach Belichick and Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels could have taken their foot off the gas pedal at this point, but it wasn’t their style. As the New England defense and its mercenary leader, cornerback Darrelle Revis, continued to confuse Andrew Luck and keep the Colts out of the end zone, the Patriots offense kept hammering Indianapolis through the air and on the ground. LeGarrette Blount added two more touchdowns in the rout. The final score was 45–7, and with the win, the Patriots secured their sixth trip to the Super Bowl under Coach Belichick. Tom Brady completed twenty-three of thirty-five passes for a total of 226 yards, while Luck finished with just twelve completions and two interceptions. Soon the rain in Foxborough gave way to a shower of red, white, and blue confetti as players donned championship baseball caps and shirts, dancing in jubilation while the Lamar Hunt Trophy was handed to team owner Robert Kraft.

  “You did your job,” Kraft told the sold-out crowd. “Now we must go to Arizona and do our job.”

  CBS sports anchor Jim Nantz then pulled in a grinning Bill Belichick, who once again echoed that season’s memorable mantra. “I only have one thing to say. We’re on to Seattle!”

  Finally, the microphone was presented to Brady, the one man every fan was waiting to hear from. Nantz reminded Brady and the frenzied crowd that he would be setting a new record, becoming the first quarterback to play in six Super Bowls. Number 12, wearing glare-deflective eye black, his wet hair matted, did his best to deflect attention from his personal accomplishment and praised his fellow players.

  “My teammates…I couldn’t be more proud of them,” he said. “We put a lot of work in this year, worked our tails off to get to this point…we’ve got one more to go.”

  Hoisting the Hunt Trophy and flashing the smile that had graced the cover of countless major sports and lifestyle magazines in America, Brady then addressed the fans. “I know we’ve had some ups and downs this year, but right now we’re up, baby, and we’re gonna try to stay up for one more game.”

  The Patriots had approached each game that season with a similar mentality. After suffering a humiliating defeat to the Kansas City Chiefs in week four, a loss that had both team beat writers and chest-beating fans finally questioning whether the team and its legendary quarterback were now approaching a steady decline, Bill Belichick had refused to take the bait. When asked about the performance of his thirty-seven-year-old quarterback during a press conference after the game, the coach quickly cut off the repor
ter. “We’re on to Cincinnati,” Belichick barked. “It’s not about the past. It’s not about the future. We’re preparing for Cincinnati.” The team bounced back against the Bengals the following week and soon regained control of the conference before marching through the playoffs. In other words, there would be no more talk about the Colts after this night. The team’s sole focus would turn to the Seattle Seahawks, the defending NFL champions. The players would be allowed to celebrate for a few more hours before placing the victory in their rearview mirror.

  Meanwhile, Patriots fans wanted to savor this victory longer, as for them it was yet another coronation for the most dominant sports team of the twenty-first century. For Colts fans, of course, it was a car crash, and Bob Kravitz had witnessed the fiery wreck close enough to smell the burning rubber. This was more than a playoff loss. It was the worst defeat for the Colts against the Patriots in a big-game situation. There were no silver linings to write about for next season. Even with a star quarterback like Andrew Luck, the Colts were simply not in the Patriots’ class, and as long as Tom Brady remained on the field, the outlook would not change.

  Kravitz made his way to the losing locker room and the Colts’ postgame press conference, where he spotted the team’s brain trust—owner Jim Irsay, head coach Chuck Pagano, and general manager Ryan Grigson—huddled in a corner in a heated powwow. The columnist figured that the owner was demanding heads roll after such an embarrassing defeat. It was understandable, Kravitz thought, and over the next couple of hours he stuck to his script and conducted player interviews that would make up his Monday-morning hit piece. It was late in the evening when he returned to the press box to fetch his laptop and cell phone. After packing away his computer, he reached for his phone and noticed that he’d received a message from someone in the NFL league office. The text read, Something you need to know. Give me a call.