Nothing was as simple as it looked. There were emotional and psychological aspects that were going to take years, if not a lifetime, to untangle and grasp.
“My comments are certainly not in proportion to the unfortunate and sad situation that we have here,” Belichick said as he attempted to conclude his press conference. “But I’ve been advised to address the situation once, and it’s time for the New England Patriots to move forward. Moving forward consists of what it’s always been here: to build a winning football team, be a strong pillar in the community, be a team that our fans can be proud of. That’s what we’re here for.”
Belichick mentioned having a winning football team that the fans could be proud of. The fans had been proud, but now they were embarrassed and effectively speechless. And that was a bad place to be, because the performance of the Patriots did not speak for itself. Too often lately, the actions of the Patriots, or former Patriots, cried out for context and explanations.
When it came to actual football, Bill Walsh, the architect of the 49ers teams that Brady grew up watching, had been prophetic in many ways when describing the labor and even the psychology of winning. But he didn’t have any writings that began to explain the mentality of the New England fan base. Simply, the Patriots had dominated their division so much that a hat and T-shirt that read AFC EAST CHAMPIONS elicited smirks around the stadium. What they had done going into the 2013 season, win ten of the previous twelve division titles, was hard. The feat was often brushed aside locally because the competition wasn’t viewed as high quality. The irony is that the state of the division was part of the accomplishment; Belichick had helped create the badlands in the AFC East.
Not many people recalled the deficit that Belichick inherited in 2000. They didn’t remember that the Jets had four first-rounders to the Patriots’ zero, and that the Jets still had Bill Parcells as their team-builder while the Patriots had his frequently browbeaten assistant of twelve years. They also had the first quarterback selected in that draft, Chad Pennington. But in the summer of 2013, Pennington and the other three first-round picks in his Jets draft class were long gone from New York, and all but one, John Abraham, were retired. Belichick had competed against fifteen different full-time coaches in the division since 2000, and they had collectively entrusted their fortunes to twenty-three primary starting quarterbacks.
In August, the University of Michigan’s football players weren’t interested in the quarterbacks Belichick had competed against. They wanted to hear from the one he had drafted and stood by since 2000. Before a preseason game against the Lions, Tom Brady returned to his alma mater to speak with the current Wolverines. It was refreshing to be on the Ann Arbor campus without a struggle, to know that he wasn’t sharing the stage with Drew Henson. Brady was the headliner at Schembechler Hall, and that was more than sufficient. He had stayed at Michigan and become a champion, and he had returned as one as well. He was the only NFL player who had come back to Schembechler Hall with an equal winning percentage to the man himself, Bo Schembechler, whose Michigan percentage was .796.
Brady stood in the front of the room, looking out at teenagers and young men in their early twenties. Eighteen years earlier he was one of them, just trying to prove himself and get his coach’s attention. Now, at thirty-six, he was speaking as the best Wolverine the school had ever sent to the pros. He wore sneakers, jeans, and a blue short-sleeved polo with a maize “M” on the collar. He paced the room, often clasping his hands together for emphasis.
“Do you know what the greatest honor I’ve ever received as a player is?” he said. “In my fourth year and in my fifth year, I was named team captain. That, to this day, is the single greatest achievement I’ve had as a football player. Because the men in this room chose me to lead their team. And these were my best friends. These were the guys that knew that I liked to work, that knew that I loved football, that knew that I loved to play, that knew that I wanted to be the quarterback for Michigan.
“And all the lessons that I learned here on State Street and in the Big House, that’s still what I bring to practice today. And after fourteen years, I love the game more than I’ve ever loved it. But where did I learn the love for the game? Where did I learn to practice? Where did I learn to compete? It was sitting in the same chairs that you guys are sitting in today.”
The upcoming season was going to test him. He was going to have to love practice even when his top target, Gronk, was there but not available to play in the games. He would have to love the games even after a You gotta be kidding me season opener in Buffalo. The Patriots beat the Bills, 23–21, and the replacement for Wes Welker, Danny Amendola, had ten catches. He also sustained a groin injury that was going to sideline him for a month.
What made the situation worse was that Gronk was having trust issues. He’d had back surgery in June, and it felt fine in September. The problem was the left forearm, still, ten months after it was originally broken. Some of the people advising Gronk questioned the quality of the original surgery. Doctors had to repair it for breaks and rebreaks, and they’d had to clean it out a couple of times due to infections. It was too much, and it caused hesitancy in a player who was desperate to be on the field. Every week, reporters would see him in practice and then speculate that he was close to being on the field. But he wasn’t. He was taking his time, wanting to be confident that he was healed.
He wasn’t there for a 13–10 win over the Jets, when a frustrated Brady yelled at receivers for not seeing what he did. There were eighteen opportunities to convert third downs into firsts, and the Patriots did it just four times. They were 2-0, but it was shaky.
Two weeks later, the Globe reported that Gronk was taking the trip with the team to Atlanta. But he stayed at home as the Patriots won, 30–23, to move to 4-0. It wasn’t the same offense without Gronk, and it wasn’t going to be the same defense, either. Vince Wilfork, a defensive captain, tore his Achilles against the Falcons and was out for the season.
Reports were that Gronk looked great in practice the next week, before a game against the Bengals. But he didn’t play in the game, the Patriots lost 13–6, and the defense lost Tommy Kelly, the defensive tackle who was going to help minimize the pressure put on Wilfork. This was the cruelest 4-1 season yet, and it was going to get worse after week six. Brady was at his late-game best against the Saints. The game had two familiar things: a winning touchdown pass from Brady with five seconds to play and a season-ending injury on defense, this one to captain Jerod Mayo.
Gronk was finally ready to return, but it wasn’t even to the same team. It had been suggested a week earlier that he might not be the same Gronk. No matter what the personnel or obstacles, the Patriots were expected to be competing for the Super Bowl. It was an ethos that had been introduced by the Patriots and infused into other sports teams in the city. Fans and media were so used to seeing seemingly impossible things come to life that it was sometimes difficult to recognize a hardship. Belichick and Brady were great at football, not healing the sick.
When Gronk did return, in a 30–27 loss to the Jets, Brady couldn’t hide how excited he was. He targeted the big tight end seventeen times in his first game of the season. For all the talk about Belichick’s secrecy, there was nothing mysterious about what he and Brady wanted to do on Sundays. They wanted to utilize Gronk. It was okay if other teams knew it. The beauty of Gronk, an available and healthy Gronk, was that no one could stop him.
The region felt the same way about the surprising Red Sox on October 30. They had finished last in the division in 2012, but they had ridden a Belichickian shopping spree (short contracts, midrange dollars) to yet another World Series title in 2013. It was the eighth Boston championship since 2000, but this one truly did belong to the region. The marathon bombing in April had pierced the soul of the city, and the healing had been symbolized by the words and actions of the Sox. David Ortiz had inspired millions when he held a microphone at Fenway Park a day after the city had been told to “shelter in place” as
there was a manhunt for a terrorist. “This is our fucking city,” he said to applause, “and nobody is going to dictate our freedom. Stay strong!”
On the day of the parade, November 2, everyone stopped on Boylston Street, at the marathon finish line, and sang “God Bless America” with Irish tenor Ronan Tynan. It was a powerful moment, and a reminder of just how connected the region is to all of its professional sports teams. As a further tribute, there were no fights nor arrests among the million-plus gathered downtown.
The next day, at Gillette, there was an enjoyable Patriots party. Brady and the offense had their best day of the year, as they totaled 610 yards and 55 points against Pittsburgh. They had entered the game in the bottom half of the league in total offense, eighteenth, but on a 432-yard passing day, Brady managed to spring Gronk for 143 yards and a touchdown, as well as get 100-yard passing days for rookie Aaron Dobson and Danny Amendola.
Brady had his team positioned at 6-2, and he didn’t complain when he looked to Denver and saw what Broncos management had given Peyton Manning. They had signed Welker and added him to an offense that already had Demaryius Thomas, Eric Decker, and Julius Thomas. They were 7-1 and averaging 43 points per game. Manning already had twenty-nine touchdown passes. Pro football was not easy, but it was easier with that personnel.
Brady seemed to accept the challenge, both from the Broncos and the limitations of his roster. In week eleven, the Patriots beat the Broncos at Gillette in the biggest outlier game of the season. It was Brady-Manning, version fourteen, and it began with twenty-four consecutive Denver points. But the Broncos were having their success via the run and the strength of their defense; Manning had nothing to do with it. In the second half, the Broncos continued to run while the Patriots were passed along by Brady. He threw for 344 yards and three touchdowns; Manning threw for 150 yards and two scores. The Patriots won, 34–31.
With Houston and Cleveland on the schedule the next two weeks, a 10-3 record in December had them well positioned for the play-offs. The AFC East was theirs again, for the eleventh time in thirteen seasons, but as always the goal was much greater than the divisional attaboy. However, there was a problem against the Browns, and it wasn’t that the game was harder than it should have been. The problem was that the season unofficially ended on a play at the Cleveland thirty-four-yard line.
Brady had dropped back to pass and found Gronk, open as usual, down the seam. A linebacker had struggled to cover him, and now Gronk had the ball in the middle of the field. A safety named T. J. Ward went low to tackle him and put his helmet directly on Gronk’s right knee. Gronk fell to the turf, and it was obvious that it was bad. He didn’t even grab the knee. Instead he lay there, his left forearm already heavily covered by a pad and brace, and now the same thing was going to happen with his right knee. He looked up through his red face mask and saw the guy he seemingly spent more time with than Brady, Dr. Gill.
What a year. The Year of the Tight End, New England style, was a show no one wanted to see. For the second year in a row, Brady was without Gronk and Hernandez together for the most important stretch of the year. It was going to be tough to win with a healthy Gronk. Now, with his ACL torn, the burden was on another area of the team to deliver. But guys on defense had the same issues. They had lost their ability to push the line of scrimmage with no Wilfork, Kelly, and Mayo.
In January, in a divisional play-off game against the Colts, it looked like the Patriots found the answer. Run. They believed they could always run on the Colts, who didn’t have the size or toughness to stop them. Running back LeGarrette Blount had success on short runs, intermediate ones, and those that required a three-quarter sprint of the field. He scored four times and ran for 166 yards. It couldn’t be this easy, could it? Could the Patriots possibly have another play-off game like this one, where they won 43–22 and Brady didn’t throw a single touchdown pass?
The questions were going to be answered the next week in Denver, Tom versus Peyton, fifteenth round. It was the third consecutive conference championship game appearance for the Patriots, so theoretically they had a shot to win it. But they didn’t have enough anywhere to compete like they needed to, and the win over the Broncos in November was largely irrelevant now. That first game had been played in the wind, as high as twenty-five miles per hour, and it made an already cold night feel like it was six degrees. Typical New England chill. On the afternoon of the conference title, though, the sun kissed those bright orange Broncos jerseys, and people in the stands stood comfortably in the low-sixties warmth.
It was all good news for Manning, who was going to thrive in these conditions against the competition. He was efficient and patient, and he wasn’t touched once. Not a single time. The white 18 on the back of his jersey was immaculate. He wasn’t pressured, sacked, or even breathed on heavily. He made it look easy as he threw for exactly four hundred yards. The Broncos led 13–3 at halftime, 20–3 after three quarters, and 26–16 at the end. Welker, the trickster, had stuck it to Bill again. This time he had collided with Aqib Talib, and the cornerback couldn’t finish the game (Belichick thought it was a dirty hit and called it “one of the worst plays” he’d seen in four decades of coaching). And after a contract dispute with the Patriots, Welker was going to the Super Bowl with a team that had broken all of New England’s offensive records from 2007.
The NFL was going to get all that it wanted from this postseason. There had already been another Brady-Manning game, and next up was a matchup of number ones. The Broncos had scored a league-record 606 points, and their opponent, the Seahawks, had given up the fewest points in the league two years in a row. If that wasn’t enough hype, the location of the game would surely put it over the threshold. For the first time in the forty-eight-year history of the game, the Super Bowl was being held in the sizable shadows of New York City.
Although the Patriots were two hundred miles from the site of the game, they were still a part of the story. Their celebrity/popularity, their actions, and sometimes even their words ensured that they would be at the center of conversations. Belichick had gotten mostly negative pushback for his comments about Welker’s play on Talib, and that was enough to trigger former Globe columnist Bob Ryan. Now semiretired, the excitable Ryan, a regular contributor on national TV and radio shows, had long suggested that New England had no idea how much America hated the Patriots. He used Belichick’s comments on Welker to reintroduce his point.
“When Belichick stupidly acts out in public the way he did last Monday it reminds America about Spygate, something he has never owned up to and something that has never been forgotten in the outside world. Patriots losses are greeted warmly across America, and many people love to remind us that it is an undeniable fact that the Patriots have not won another Super Bowl, post-Spygate, a circumstance viewed by many as a form of cosmic retribution. Analysts less spiritually-minded think it has more to do with the lack of a championship-caliber defense all these years, but in any case, this failure to add another Lombardi Trophy to Belichick’s collection makes millions of American football fans happy.”
As if he had edited Ryan’s column and was determined to live out every sentence of its truth, former Rams running back Marshall Faulk agreed to do a Radio Row interview with Boston’s WEEI. Officially, he was there to pitch a product, but he and hosts Lou Merloni and Mike Mutnansky understood that wasn’t the case. He had a cause, and he had harped on it a year to the day earlier with another New England media personality, Tom E. Curran. Before that Super Bowl, between the Ravens and 49ers, Faulk told Curran, “I’ll never be over being cheated out of the Super Bowl.” He said he didn’t understand why the commissioner had destroyed the Spygate tapes, why the Patriots appeared to be prepared for all their plays, and why Roger Goodell didn’t punish Belichick more severely.
True to his word, Faulk wasn’t over the loss from February 2002 when he talked with Merloni and Mutnansky in January 2014. Bob Ryan was right. He had company. Even Roger Goodell had mentioned, in a 2011 interview with
Peter King, that he felt “deceived” by Belichick with his Spygate apology. Four years later, the league’s leader said he’d expected Belichick to express his regret with more humanity, as opposed to releasing a statement. Spygate was almost seven years old now, but there was still first-day bitterness over it, in owners’ suites, locker rooms, TV studios, and even league headquarters.
The Patriots and their fans were not paranoid; everyone was waiting for them to do anything small so they could retry Spygate and descend with a mightier punishment. There was a sense among the coaching staff as well as fans that the league was looking for anything, even if it was failing to signal on a right turn. If Faulk deserved credit for anything, it was his willingness to at least partially say what many in the league were thinking.
“I still consider Bill Belichick one of the greatest coaches. I still consider Tom Brady one of the greatest players. That team and what they did, and went on that run, it was great. The only thing that bothers me is there’s something that exists that gives us doubt on why the game went the way it did. The question is, how did they become a championship team? Listen, I’m not going to be the only one to say this: Ever since they got fined and said, ‘Okay, we’re not doing that anymore,’ they’ve won how many Super Bowls?”
He was told the correct answer. None. He was asked if they hadn’t won because they weren’t taping coaches anymore.
“I’m just telling you how I feel about it. If that’s your perception of what I’m saying, then that’s your perception. I’m not taking anything away from Bill Belichick and Tom Brady; they’re great. I’m going to continue to tell you that… I’m just telling you it’s just ironic that that’s the case.”
He was clearly saying what the hosts said he was. He just didn’t want them to label it. But his words were not hard to comprehend.
Belichick and Brady Page 29
