Five Rings

by Jerry Thornton

  The biggest move they made was trading Chandler Jones for guard Jonathan Cooper, who didn’t make the roster, and a second-round draft pick that they flipped for picks that became guard Joe Thuney and wideout Malcolm Mitchell. As Belichick moves go, this one was about a 5.5 on the Shock Scale, having less to do with Jones’s little chemistry experiment during the playoffs than the fact that he was in the final year of his rookie contract and the price of edge rushers gets so ridiculous, they would have had to overpay for Jones given his production.

  To help fill the void left by Jones, they signed defensive end Chris Long, a former No. 3 overall draft pick for St. Louis who had never been in a playoff game in his life and was sick of losing and wanted to play in New England. Long later told Sports Illustrated, “If I didn’t have an opportunity to play somewhere I could win, I would have retired. I would have played this year for five dollars—I just wanted to be here.”

  They also added tight end Martellus Bennett, who had over 90 receptions for the Bears and looked to give them the viable second tight end option opposite Gronkowski that they hadn’t had since Aaron Hernandez started wearing orange jumpsuits, plus linebacker Shea McClellin. And in one of those moves where they get a guy who’s played at his best against them in order to solve two problems, they signed receiver Chris Hogan, the rangy, fast, deep-ball threat who had done damage to the Pats playing for Buffalo.

  With no pick on Day 1, the Patriots’ draft promised to be relatively drama-free. Until one of the most beloved players of the championship era added some. Round 2 of the draft featured retired players getting to come up and make their former teams’ selections. When it was the Patriots’ turn to make their second pick, Kevin Faulk came out. He came to the podium and opened up his suit jacket, revealing that he was wearing a Patriots No. 12 jersey as the crowd lost it. It was beautiful. Cheers mixed with boos filled the hall as he said, “With the 78th pick of the 2016 NFL Draft, the New England Patriots . . . AND Tom Brady . . . select Joe Thuney, linebacker, North Carolina State” as the rest got drowned out. Again, Thuney is a guard, but it didn’t matter. The message was delivered.

  It just so happened that Faulk was up for election into the Patriots’ team Hall of Fame, facing stiff competition from his teammate Mike Vrabel. This was exactly the kind of election-year stunt campaign consultants get paid good money to come up with. I’m not questioning Faulk’s motives, mind you. But it worked. Fans voted him in. It’s kind of ironic, too, because a guy who was running for President of the United States fought hard to win over the pro–Tom Brady voters and was friends with Robert Kraft and Bill Belichick. In fact, he read a letter Belichick had sent him to the crowd at a rally in New Hampshire. Donald Trump lost all six New England states, but Kevin Faulk’s brilliant pandering worked. It’s one of those things political science majors will be doing theses on for decades to come.

  The most dramatic draft selection was quarterback Jacoby Brissett, also out of NC State. Dramatic because it suggested that they were worried about Brady losing the appeal of his appeal, but it also signaled that maybe they weren’t satisfied with Jimmy Garoppolo’s progress. Only they knew. What we do know is that Brissett came highly recommended by former Patriots’ Quarterback Whisperers Bill Parcells and Charlie Weis, who had some sort of personal connection with the kid.

  The biggest human-interest story among the picks was Mitchell. As it turned out, he had the distinction of being the only receiver in the draft to have a lengthy feature done about him on CBS Sunday Morning, that show your grandmother watches because they do profiles of classical pianists and long videos of ducks landing on ponds at sunrise or whatever.

  It seems that while Mitchell was at Georgia, he came to the self-realization that he couldn’t read. You can discuss among yourselves the fact that a little thing like illiteracy doesn’t get in the way of your education at the University of Georgia. I’m just here to talk about Mitchell and how he not only got tutoring to solve the problem, but he also ended up meeting a woman at the library who got him involved with her book club. So this college kid was meeting regularly with a group of middle-aged women to discuss Nicholas Sparks’s romances over glasses of Pinot Grigio.

  The relative quiet of the summer was broken with the news that Tom Brady lost his appeal. Or the NFL won theirs. Regardless of where it was at that point, Brady was suspended for the first four games again. The judges were focused pretty much on this business of Roger Goodell having NFL bylaw Article 46 at his disposal. If that sounds like the Order 66 that Emperor Palpatine initiated to have all the Jedi killed in that Star Wars trilogy you hate, you’re not entirely wrong. In no uncertain terms, Article 46 gives him the power to do anything he decides is in “the best interests” of the league, regardless of whether it’s fair or has any justification. So if the commissioner decides to issue the Writ of Prima Nocta and sleep with all NFL brides on their wedding night, it gives him that authority.

  Bear in mind that Article 46 had been in the bylaws since the 1960s, available to all commissioners who’d come before him, and had never been used like this. There’s an expression I heard a historian use once that says when you give a power to Caesar because you like Caesar so much, it’s only a matter of time before you put that power in the hands of Caligula. Which happened here.

  Before this thing went any further, though, Brady announced on his Facebook page that he was shutting the whole process down, ending the appeal, and serving the suspension. Which naturally turned into “Aha! See? He IS guilty! Told ya!” from the same people who found it easier to claim that than admit they were anti-science and pro-abuse of authority.

  Because I want our relationship to be built on trust, I won’t lie to you. I did not take the news well. He announced it just before we went on the air and as we went through the first four games on the schedule making predictions, I was not in a happy place. At Arizona? Loss. Home against Miami? Loss. Thursday nighter against Houston? Um, loss. Buffalo? I admit I had them going 0–4. But in my defense, that was a very emotional moment. I will own it, but I can’t be held accountable.

  In time we found that the reason Brady gave up the fight had everything to do with something much, much more serious than one corporate despot’s power grab. I don’t know exactly when the information was made public, but within days of him dropping the appeal I got a call from a friend of Brady’s family. It was set up by a mutual acquaintance and I didn’t know why this guy wanted to talk, but thought, what the hell? My time isn’t so valuable.

  As he introduced himself and started to explain that he knew the real reason Brady was tapping out of this fight, I got a sick feeling that everything I’ve believed and stood up for is a lie. That this guy was about to explain how Brady had done something wrong, he did it, and while we’re at it, there is no God. But it turned out to be the furthest thing from it.

  The reason he was dropping the appeal, this source explained, was that his mother was battling cancer. This thing had dragged on and seeing your loved one’s reputation trashed from coast to coast every day for well over a year takes a toll, emotionally and physically. Brady was going to take the four weeks, rest up. Visit his parents. Spend time with his wife and kids. Then just move the hell on with his life. If anything, Brady was a better person than the public was giving him credit for.

  And once training camp was over and he was not allowed by the NFL to be on Patriots property, travel with the family is exactly what he did. He was spotted visiting his folks in California. Got photographed by paparazzi sunbathing naked while in Italy with Gisele. He basically just spent time being fabulous while his team had games to win without him.

  Which they did.

  In week 1, against one of the best defenses in the league in 2015, the Arizona Cardinals—who had just added Chandler Jones—Jimmy Garoppolo was sensational. He was poised. Comfortable under pressure. His passes were crisp. On the first possession he led the team on a 10-play drive, going 4 for 5 and capping it off with a 37-yard touchdown throw to C
hris Hogan.

  It wasn’t perfect, as he lost a fumble on a sack that was recovered by Jones. But with the Patriots trailing 21–20 in the third, Garoppolo hit Danny Amendola with a 32-yard strike on third and 15. Then he hit James White to convert another third down. The drive went 61 yards and led to a Stephen Gostkowski field goal to give them the lead. It was scary at the end and required a missed field goal by Arizona to seal the win, but a win it was. Jimmy G. had taken his team on the road against a quality opponent and come back with a win, going 24 for 33 with 264 yards and a touchdown. It was more than you could ask of most backups.

  The next game, he was better. In the home opener against the Dolphins, Garoppolo threw for three touchdowns on his team’s first three possessions, two to Amendola and one to Bennett, to cap off drives of 75, 75, and 76 yards. For the game he had 232 yards on only 26 attempts.

  But the reason why he had so few attempts was the problem.

  After the fourth New England possession ended on a fumble, they got the ball back. And just as Garoppolo released a pass, he was hit by the Dolphins’ Kiko Alonso, who drilled him into the turf. The backup was taken off the field and transported to the hospital while the backup-backup, rookie Jacoby Brissett, came in to finish. Brissett was good too, going 6 for 9 with 92 yards and no mistakes to speak of as the Patriots held on for the 31–24 win. But there was a Thursday night game to be played, and it looked like there was no way Garoppolo would be back with such a quick turnaround.

  Unfortunately, that was correct. Brissett was forced into emergency duty against the Texans. A rookie, with, at most, three days to prepare. Against a Houston defense that included some of the best defensive front players in the game in J. J. Watt, Whitney Mercilus, Jadeveon Clowney, and Vince Wilfork, playing his first game against the team he’d help win a Super Bowl in his first and last years in New England.

  And Brissett handled it like a 10-year veteran, with a lot of help from his offensive line. Tackle Marcus Cannon, who looked so ineffective against Denver in the playoffs, was a Jersey barrier on the right side, taking Watt completely out of it. On the game’s biggest play, Cannon blocked down on Mercilus to set the edge and Brissett scrambled 27 yards for the touchdown.

  The Patriots’ defense that had looked helpless in the second half of the Arizona game, and had given up a ton of yards to Miami the week before, rallied. The Texans had seen enough of Brock Osweiler while he rode the bench to a Super Bowl ring that they paid him a massive amount of money to be their franchise quarterback. He was terrible, with less than 200 yards passing, an interception, and no TDs. The Patriots won in a rout, 27–0.

  But that win came at a price as well. Even with the protection of Dante Scarnecchia’s blocking schemes, Brissett had gotten banged up and was toughing it out by the end of the game. The hope was that with 10 more days off, giving Garoppolo a full two weeks to recover, he’d be ready to start against Buffalo. But in a last-minute decision the day of that game, he couldn’t go. It was up to the rookie. And while the defense kept it close, a limited Patriots offense led by a rookie quarterback staying on the field through sheer guts couldn’t produce points and they lost to Rex Ryan’s Bills 16–0.

  Now Brady was back. In his absence his team went 3–1 on the improbable heroics of, well, nearly everyone, but especially of the backup QB and his backup QB. It was a solid vindication of Patriots football, of team leadership deep in the vacuum of space in the void of Brady. And it galvanized Patriots Nation.

  The Brady Revenge Tour’s first stop was Cleveland in week 5. I mentioned that one road game New Englanders traveled to every season like the San Diego game in 2014; this was the one everyone submitted their vacation days to Human Resources for. As Vince Wilfork said of San Diego, it was practically a home game. Brady played it like it was in his living room.

  The first three Patriots’ drives went eight plays and ended with touchdowns, Brady completing 13 of his 15 attempts. On that day he threw for 406 yards and three TDs, completing a pass of 63 yards to Chris Hogan in the first game they’d played together, and 37-yarders to both Danny Amendola and Rob Gronkowski. All this in just 3½ quarters as they pulled him from the game with a 33–13 lead. When he headed to the sidelines, field-level cameras showed that at least three-quarters of the remaining crowd where there to cheer him off.

  His triumphant return to Gillette was more of the same. With 367 yards passing, three TDs, and a passer rating of 140.0, it was just as we’d drawn it up. Garoppolo and Brissett had played well enough to hand Brady the baton of a 3–1 record. He arrived tanned, rested, and ready (but without tan lines, based on what we saw in Italy) to come at everyone with a vengeance. And he was proceeding to go scorched earth like Sherman marching to the sea. The NFL’s plans were backfiring in magnificent fashion.

  The Patriots hit their bye week at 7–1, and in the very first day of it made the obligatory shocking mid-season personnel decision. This time they announced they’d traded Jamie Collins to Cleveland for . . . well, for nothing. Collins was in the final year of his rookie deal, just as Jones had been. But they got a player and a draft pick for him. For Collins they got the same pick they would have had if they’d kept him all year and let him go to free agency. The only way the trade makes sense is they saw it as addition by subtraction.

  Former Patriots executive and friend of Belichick Mike Lombardi said in his opinion Collins freelanced too much, taking himself out of position, which causes breakdowns across the defense. It wasn’t hard to remember him twice getting burned by a Clydesdale like Owen Daniels with a trip to the Super Bowl on the line. But it was even harder to forget the incredible things we’d seen him do: Blitzes where he came in at the speed of light. Leaping up to snare interceptions. Stretching out lengthwise along the line of scrimmage like a diving third baseman to block a kick. Video of him doing cartwheels in practice. And the one everyone remembers, Collins leaping over the center to block a kick. They were giving up all that athletic talent just to get rid of a guy, and it made no sense—other than this is what the Patriots do.

  After the break they faced the Seahawks for the first time since Super Bowl XLIX on Sunday Night Football. Together the two games made you wish these teams faced each other all the time, because they brought out the best in each other once again.

  Richard Sherman killed a drive with an interception, one of only two Brady would throw in the entire regular season. The Patriots took a 14–12 lead late in the half, thanks to a LeGarrette Blount 1-yard touchdown run where he fought through such an impenetrable wall of Seattle defenders that he took 30 steps just to gain that 1 yard. Then with just a minute to go in the half, Russell Wilson led Seattle the length of the field before hitting Doug Baldwin for the score to make it 19–14.

  It came to one Patriots drive at the end with them trailing 31–24, an 11-play, 74-yard series that ended with four cracks at the end zone from inside the Seattle 2 to tie. A Brady sneak gained a yard. A plunge by Blount gained nothing. Another QB sneak lost a yard when Brady lost the ball and recovered it. With one last shot, he tried to hit Rob Gronkowski, whose feet got tangled with the defender, they both went down, and the pass fell incomplete.

  There was one takeaway from that game that spilled over to the next and was becoming an ongoing problem: the Patriots’ defense was giving up a ton of yards, and getting picked apart not just by quality quarterbacks like Russell Wilson (348 yards, three TDs) but also the following week at San Francisco by Colin Kaepernick. Statistically, Kaepernick was at best a below-average passer, but he took a perfect rating into halftime in a game that had no business being close. They’d figured it out in the second half, handing Brady his first career win in his old hometown. In an odd quirk of scheduling, the Bay Area had been the only NFL market he’d never won a game in. But the way the defense was giving up yards, it made even less sense to give away your most gifted defender.

  That is, until it started to make sense. The bodies they put in at linebacker rotating through alongside Dont’a Hightow
er, Shea McClellin, Elandon Roberts, and Kyle Van Noy, gelled. They didn’t make the spectacular plays Collins did, but they played well as a unit. After the Seattle loss, they didn’t give up more than 17 in four straight games. When they did, it was 23 in a win over Baltimore in which Brady put together one of his greatest games ever against the Ravens’ No. 1 ranked defense, again throwing for over 400 yards on Monday Night Football.

  One notable moment from that game involved Shea McClellin leaping over the Ravens’ line to block a field goal. You couldn’t help but think it was more than about taking three points off the board. It was their way of saying it doesn’t take a freak of nature to leapfrog a guy who’s down on all fours.

  Defensively, there was never any reason to panic. In the final three games of the season, they gave up a total of 20 points and finished the league last in points allowed.

  Besides, there was plenty else to panic about when Rob Gronkowski was lost for the year.

  But not really. He actually hadn’t been healthy all season. Officially, Gronk played eight games, but unofficially it was more like half that. Only five times all season was he targeted more than twice, a total of 38 times on the year. By way of comparison, Julian Edelman had been targeted a career-best 159 times. In the absence of Gronk, Brady was relying on other targets. James White had really established himself in that role of clutch, elusive, dependable third-down option. Kevin Faulk: The Next Generation. Chris Hogan quickly gained a rapport with Brady. And while in the middle of the season it looked like Malcolm Mitchell didn’t have the quarterback’s trust, he was seeing the ball a lot more as we got into December. Plus, Martellus Bennett, while clearly battling some injuries himself, managed to stay on the field and contribute.