Five Rings

by Jerry Thornton

  The price of Revis was $12 million guaranteed, with a phony second year that would pay him 20 bazillion dollars or something, just as an accounting move to spread the salary cap hit out. That was all secondary, bean-counter crap no one cared about—as was the fact that Aqib Talib had been allowed to walk about 24 hours earlier, signing with Denver. All that mattered was the Patriots had monumentally upgraded the cornerback position. For one of the few times in their history, they were being the aggressive ones in the off-season. In New York, everyone was losing their damned minds about it. The back page of the New York Post photoshopped him into a Patriots uniform with the screaming headline “You Dirty Pat!”

  And all was right with the world.

  The best defense in the NFL in 2013 belonged to the Seattle Seahawks, who had just smothered the Broncos’ record-setting offense in a 43–8 Super Bowl beatdown. Coached by Pete Carroll, the defense called themselves The Legion of Boom. And it fit. They were strong. Athletic. They played with an edge. And they physically punished offenses, thanks in large part to their secondary, led by big corners Richard Sherman and Brandon Browner.

  Browner was gigantic for a cornerback at six foot four, 221 pounds. His style was to jam receivers trying to come off the line of scrimmage and get into their routes, and he had the league-leading number of pass interference penalties to prove it. He also ran afoul of the NFL substance abuse testing, meaning he would have to start the 2014 season serving a four-game suspension—which might be the reason the Seahawks let him go to free agency. The Patriots signed him up four days into his eligibility.

  They later reacquired safety Pat Chung, who had spent one season with the Philadelphia Eagles. They still had Devin McCourty as their free safety, but otherwise had completely done over their secondary in the span of days. They then signed Brandon LaFell, a tall, rangy, red zone target from the Carolina Panthers to add depth to their receiving corps.

  At the draft, Belichick and player personnel guy Nick Caserio pulled off what was probably the biggest stunner of the entire weekend by using their second rounder to take a quarterback, Jimmy Garoppolo of Eastern Illinois. No one could’ve possibly seen it coming. Even though Garoppolo played his college ball at the same school that had developed the Cowboys’ Tony Romo and Saints’ head coach Sean Payton, the only highlights of him playing were taken at field level with a handheld camera in a small stadium with an ocean of empty seats. The net effect was that of watching a report of the high school playoffs on your local news.

  It was the story of the draft in New England. This was by far the highest pick they’d used on a quarterback since Drew Bledsoe, 21 years earlier. And it was largely seen as proof that they were, for the first time, starting to plan for life after Tom Brady.

  Personally, I wasn’t necessarily buying that. Backup quarterback is an important position. Vital, even. I’d once seen the Green Bay Packers use their first rounder on Aaron Rodgers even though Brett Favre was the most durable starter in NFL history. And just the year before, the Broncos took Brock Osweiler in the same round as the Pats took Garoppolo to back up Peyton Manning. To me, the people arguing that taking a backup QB was “wasting” a pick must not have spare tires in their car or smoke detectors in their house, because you don’t want to ever have to use those, either.

  But it wasn’t all just additions. In the harsh, zero-sum game of managing an NFL salary cap, every pay raise has to be accounted for on the other side of the balance sheet. Two veterans were having a hard time getting what they deserved. One was Vince Wilfork, who, at the age of 32, was trying to get a contract extension and took the dramatic step of clearing out his locker and removing his name tag from it. But eventually he and the team came to an agreement and he returned for his 10th season.

  Others who looked like they might be on their way out were the running backs, power back Stevan Ridley and pass catcher Shane Vereen, both of whom were nearing the end of their rookie contracts. Ridley was having fumbling problems and had been kept out of games for not holding onto the ball. Vereen’s replacement appeared to already be on the roster, fourth-round pick out of Wisconsin James White. But both backs were kept around for at least one more season.

  For the Patriots, the most contentious issue of the summer of 2014 involved Logan Mankins. By this point, he had established himself as the second-best guard in team history, behind only John Hannah, who to this day is the best the NFL has ever seen. Mankins was not just a fan favorite; he was a legend. After his last contract dispute, he played the entire 2011 season on a torn ACL, which nobody knew about until after the season when he had surgery to repair it. And even he wasn’t aware he’d also torn the MCL in the other knee during the playoffs. He was also the first guy to fistfight an opponent when the situation called for it. To me personally, he was a part of that Patriots television show I had done the year before, being interviewed live on the air after the games. I always found him to be thoughtful, articulate, honest, and interesting to listen to—just one of those rare, soft-spoken guys who is 100 percent man, zero percent bullshit. So like virtually every other Patriots fan, I wanted the guy in New England, getting paid whatever it would take to keep him plugging away, throwing haymakers, and talking from the heart.

  Which is why it was tough to deal with the news that he’d been traded. The team was after Mankins to take a pay cut, and he was refusing. So on August 26, they sent him to Tampa Bay for Tim Wright, a hybrid tight end/wide receiver, and a mid-round draft pick. It was yet another stunning subtraction from the roster at the strangest moment imaginable, like Lawyer Milloy, Deion Branch, and Randy Moss before him. Once again, I was most shocked by the idea that Bill Belichick was still capable of shocking me.

  Rumors started to go around saying the players in the Patriots locker room were more than stunned—they were furious. Tom Brady in particular was reportedly disgusted by the loss of his best protector and a guy who had given so much.

  Publicly of course, they all said the right things about football being a business, they were all professionals, this comes with the territory, and they couldn’t let this distract them. But 12 days later they played like it was bothering the crap out of them.

  On a hot, steamy day in Miami, the Patriots played like they simply were not ready for the season to start. Jordan Devey started in place of Mankins, but it wouldn’t be at all fair to blame him for what happened, because coaches basically rotated every offensive lineman they had throughout the game. You’ll see that done with other position groups all the time to keep players fresh and to put them in specialty roles. But with offensive linemen, it’s rare if not unheard of because that unit is all about continuity and playing together. This day, they did none of those things.

  Brady was under duress the entire game. Blocking assignments were being blown. It probably didn’t help that offensive line coach Dante Scarnecchia, who had been with the Patriots since 1983, had retired and been replaced with former Giants and Jets assistant Dave DeGuglielmo. Rather than being fresh, the O-line was in chaos all game as Brady was sacked four times. The 20–10 lead they’d built up at halftime melted like a Freeze-Pop and they were outscored 23–0 in the second half. The lone bright spot was Julian Edelman, who was looking more and more like the replacement for Wes Welker that some injuries had preventing Danny Amendola from becoming.

  In week 2, they bounced back at Minnesota, a game that became a national story because it was the first in which Adrian Peterson was finally suspended for child abuse. The lowlight of the pregame was a photo that went viral of a crazy grandma type walking into the stadium in Vikings’ purple and gold Zubaz pants and a Peterson jersey, carrying a switch. Get it?! A switch! Like the one he beat his son’s testicles with! That’s the joke! Good one, granny. I’m sure that killed at the RV park. Anyway, the Patriots kept the ball on the ground. Stevan Ridley had more rushing attempts than Brady threw passes and they scored an easy win.

  They won again the next week against Oakland, but it was ugly. Brady again was under p
ressure all game. They only scored one touchdown as drives repeatedly ran out of battery power in the red zone. Through three games, Tom Brady was statistically the least accurate passer in the NFL. But they still won 16–9, so it wasn’t like it was the end of the world.

  No, the end of the world would come the next week at Kansas City, on Monday Night Football. At least that’s how it looked to the world.

  It would be an understatement to say week 4 was a disaster. It would be more accurate to say the game was to the Patriots as Vesuvius was to Pompeii—an initial fiery explosion followed by the slow torture of hot, flowing magma that didn’t stop until it had buried them alive.

  This was the worst in all three phases of football the team had looked in the Belichick Era. Early on, the defense looked helpless on an 11-play, 73-yard touchdown drive. Later, the Chiefs’ Knile Davis gashed the defense for a 48-yard run that set up another TD. A defensive penalty on a play that should have ended the half instead put Kansas City in field goal range and they converted to make it 17–0.

  Offensively, the Patriots did nothing. All five of their first-half possessions ended in punts, and the longest was only eight plays. The Chiefs were flying around the field. The Patriots looked dead. Lifeless. Worse still, they got the Arrowhead Stadium crowd, noisy under any circumstances, completely into it, and it only got louder with more Patriots failure.

  Whatever halftime adjustments they might have taken only made matters worse. Their first drive netted 1 yard on three plays. The second ended on a fumble. The third, an interception. Meanwhile, the Chiefs scored 10 unanswered points before Brady connected with Brandon LaFell on a 44-yard score. But KC came right back to make it 34–7. They’d taken the Pats to Blowout City, where the turf is green and the score looks shitty.

  What none of us knew at the time and wouldn’t find out until the Patriots released the video, Do Your Job, many months later, was that there were no halftime adjustments. Belichick told his players and coaches there was nothing they needed to do differently in terms of game planning. It wasn’t about X’s and O’s. It was about executing better. It was about competing. He told them how they responded in the second half would define their season.

  On the outside looking in, the results looked atrocious. They were outscored 24–14 in the half, with the final Patriots scoring a meaningless late touchdown with the game out of reach and Jimmy Garoppolo in for Brady. But Belichick was actually pleased. “When I walked off the field that night, I felt really good,” he said later. “Even though we’d gotten smashed. I felt something about the team that night in the second half that I really thought we could build on. Anybody that wanted to pack it in could’ve packed it in. . . . But I could see the fight. I could see the team’s emotions in that game. I felt good about their toughness, their competitiveness. That they cared. That they really played with a purpose. And that they cared about each other.”

  Belichick was more or less alone in that sentiment. The reaction in the immediate aftermath and the days to come was nothing short of hysteria. In a clip that became an instant viral sensation, ESPN’s Trent Dilfer went on in the postgame and essentially chiseled their headstone. “Patriots Dynasty: 2001–2014.”

  “When you’re weak, when you’re the weakest kid and you go into a bully’s house, you get the snot beat out of you,” he began, gleefully. “We saw a weak team. The New England Patriots, let’s face it, they’re not good anymore!”

  Most of the histrionics came from the fact that Garoppolo had replaced Brady with 10½ minutes to go in the game and had completed six of his seven throws. Brady’s numbers were abysmal—just 14 completions for 159 yards, two interceptions, and two sacks. Only four games into Jimmy G’s career and he had outplayed the incumbent in significant minutes. In Belichick’s press conference, he answered a question about how the team would “evaluate” everything. Reporter Mike Giardi, representing the show I was on, asked, “Do you consider evaluating the quarterback position?” Belichick just stared him down, the wheels inside his brain almost visibly turning as he worked out which answer he would give that would not be headlines all around the league. Instead, he just gave half a laugh and moved on.

  Even that literal nonanswer was fresh meat tossed to the wolf pack that had been sniffing for any sign of weakness in Brady for years.

  A column on Grantland said, “It’s entirely possible to see how ineffective the Patriots have been . . . and suggest they are fatally flawed. And there is something entirely wrong with them that even Tom Brady and Bill Belichick can’t fix.”

  “It is also worth wondering if the Patriots’ incredible dynasty died at Arrowhead Stadium,” another on Yahoo! said. “That’s how bad the 41–14 loss was; the Patriots have never looked this incompetent in the Belichick-Brady era.”

  On a panel show, Donovan McNabb declared that if this continues “for five or six more weeks, this will be the last year for Tom Brady in New England.”

  At his contractually obligated midweek presser before the next game against the Bengals, Belichick turned his Deflector Shields up to full power. He got a question about what went wrong in the Chiefs game and answered, “We’re on to Cincinnati.” Another about his offense. “We’re on to Cincinnati.” Brady. “We’re on to Cincinnati.” It became fascinating theater. You wanted someone to chime in with, “Do you think a mother’s love is eternal?” just to see how far he’d go with the “We’re on to Cincinnati.”

  The blowback was enormous. The people who like to get outraged by evasive answers at a football coach’s press conference were outraged by his evasive answers at a football coach’s press conference. The press demanded more accountability. Talk show callers ripped him. And for real, there were calls to start Jimmy Garoppolo. Not many, but some. Just like there are some people living among us who are serial killers, it doesn’t take many for you to fear their existence.

  On ESPN’s Sunday NFL Countdown, reporter Chris Mortensen cited “several players, coaches, and former players [who] have rendered an unsettling picture that all does not look well with Tom Brady and the Patriots.” He went on to say these sources told him that “Brady is uncomfortable with the personnel and coaching changes, the consequences have led to tensions between Brady and the coaching staff, with Brady’s input into game plans, personnel packages, formations, pre-snap adjustments being significantly diminished.” He suggested that Garoppolo was drafted to be Brady’s successor, and his time was coming soon.

  It’s worth noting that while the Patriots were 2–2, so were the Indianapolis Colts. And the Green Bay Packers. The Seattle Seahawks were 3–1, but soon fell to 3–3. I mention this because (spoiler alert) those ended up being the teams that advanced to the conference championship games. The NFL’s Final Four, if you will. But only in one place were the dead rising from the grave and the rivers running backwards, and that was New England. Only one of the starting quarterbacks on those four was considered finished, and that was Brady.

  For my part, I went on TV before the Cincinnati game with numbers. Numbers that showed Brady was actually performing better through four games than he had the season before, when he got off to a slow start but the Patriots’ offense ended up scoring the third most points in the league, just one point behind the team with the second most. I said they had figured it out in 2013 and there was no reason to panic this season. My cries for sanity didn’t so much fall on deaf ears as they fell on angry furrowed brows and stinkeye that I was just being a fanboy and to get out of there with that crap.

  Whether it was just a coincidence or a reaction to me showing up armed with hard, cold, irrefutable numbers of sweet optimism, a couple of days later I got a call from the producers of the show. I knew this couldn’t be good, and I was right. They told me they were letting me go. They were apologetic and insisted it was coming from up high and there was nothing they could do. And literally 20 minutes later, I got another call, from the program director at WEEI Sports Radio. I thought it might be very good.

  And I was ri
ght.

  He was offering me a full-time job as cohost of their afternoon drive-time show, with Dale Arnold and Michael Holley. It would mean leaving Barstool Sports and quitting my cushy day job of 17 years. But it would also mean a career in sports broadcasting—including, but by no means limited to, doing their Patriots Monday coverage from Gillette Stadium. I anticipated a long series of discussions with my beguiling Irish Rose, talking to our sons about it and weighing a lot of pros vs. many cons. But all she said was, “Are you crazy? You were born to do this.” I mentioned how volatile radio is and asked what happens if I lose the job. “Then you’ll land something else. You’re taking it.” It was the riskiest move of my life, and the person who had every reason to be reluctant was the most enthusiastic. Life lesson: Marry the right person, kids.

  It turns out I was right. About everything. About making the career change, yes. But more immediately, about the Patriots figuring it out. The Cincinnati game they were so famously on to was vintage Patriots. Facing the NFL’s only remaining unbeaten team, they came out firing.

  On the opening possession they went 80 yards on 10 plays. Still, the cameras caught a Bengals assistant coach talking about Brady to the defense. “He’s starting to get nervous! Guy’s already bailing! So stay after him!” The next time Brady got the ball, he “bailed” with a 27-yard reception to a fired-up Rob Gronkowski. That completion put Brady over 50,000 yards for his career and keyed a 58-yard touchdown drive that needed only six plays.

  They led 20–3 at the half. An 86-yard touchdown drive was followed by a forced fumble on the ensuing kickoff that they returned to make it 34–7. Brady ended up with 292 yards with two touchdowns and no turnovers. Stevan Ridley led the way with 113 rushing yards. Gronk had an even 100 yards and a touchdown as the Patriots made a very loud and extremely clear statement, winning 43–17.

  Afterward, an emotional Gronkowski let it be known that this game had more riding on it than just one win in the conference. “I told my brother before I came to the game, ‘I’m gonna make 12 look like Tom Brady again, baby,’” he said. “And I went out there with my teammates and we made Tom Brady look like Tom Brady after you guys were criticizing him all week. The fans, everything. And it feels so good and he’s such a leader and he went over 50,000 yards today. He’s an unbelievable player and I’m so glad to play with him.”