From the locker room attendant right up to Robert Kraft, the organization kept its egos in check and the thirst for redemption to themselves. But they were united for one sole mission: Victory.
Just a few days before the Super Bowl, Ernie Adams, the team’s research director, tripped while trying to avoid a kickoff during practice in Foxborough and hit his head. Adams, a respected and trusted adviser within the organization and close friend of Belichick, was taken away on a golf cart and received several stitches. Shortly after getting sewn up, Adams made his way back onto the Foxborough practice field. His toughness galvanized the team.
“We’ve all been knocked down out there one way or another, but that was unexpected and a little bit scary,” Belichick recalled. “[But] you’re not keeping Ernie out of the Super Bowl.”121
It was a small symbol of the fight inside every member of the organization, a spirit that was infectious all season and only grew as the team prepared for the Super Bowl.
Meanwhile, NRG Stadium’s parking lot swarmed with fans of both teams dressed in Patriots red, white, and blue, and Falcons red and black. The stadium was draped with billboard-sized banners of Ryan and Brady, signifying the matchup of the reigning league MVP and the greatest quarterback in league history. The banners, flowing next to the massive Super Bowl LI logo, raised the prospect of whether this day was going to be a passing of the torch, or another historic performance by the best ever to play.
A Patriots win would also make real the dream that had been dancing in the heads of Brady fans for some time, the moment when Roger Goodell would be forced to hand the Lombardi Trophy to number 12.
The commissioner stayed clear of Brady and Gillette Stadium throughout the playoffs, opting to attend matchups in other cities instead. Goodell watched games in Atlanta two weeks in a row. During games in Foxborough, the Patriots faithful serenaded themselves with chants of “Where is Roger?”
Goodell was pressed on this topic during his Super Bowl LI press conference days before the big game, when Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy took dead aim at the commissioner.
“You’ve not been in Foxborough for two years since the Deflategate investigation, your explanation strains all credibility that you needed to be in Atlanta two weeks in a row,” Shaughnessy told him. “It appears that you’re avoiding Foxborough. The Patriots are in this game and back home where I live it feels like there’s still a war between the Patriots, their fans, and you. How would you characterize the situation and is it not awkward?”122
Goodell smiled uncomfortably at the podium before offering his response.
“Ah, I would tell you that it’s not awkward at all for me. We have a job to do…there was a violation, we applied a process and discipline and we came to a conclusion that was supported by the facts and by the courts.…If I’m invited back to Foxborough, I’ll come.”
For some Boston sportswriters, it was Goodell’s equivalent of President Nixon’s “I’m not a crook” speech. They analyzed every syllable to exploit any inconsistencies.
Boston Herald reporter Jeff Howe tweeted, Goodell was misleading when he said, “If I’m invited back to Foxboro, I’ll come.” Goodell makes the choice which playoff games to attend.
Sports Illustrated legal analyst Michael McCann also piled on with this tweet, Goodell again says the courts “supported the facts” in Deflategate. That’s not what the courts supported. True, he’s not a lawyer but still.
The commissioner also gave a rare interview to sports talk show host Colin Cowherd. The host asked Goodell if he would feel uncomfortable handing the Lombardi Trophy to Brady if the Patriots emerged victorious. “Not for a second,” he replied. “Tom Brady is one of the all-time greats. It would be an honor.”123
No one in New England believed a word.
Back in Boston, David Portnoy and his Barstool Sports minions had concocted a slogan to counter the commissioner and any other Brady critics: They hate us ’cause they ain’t us. It was a rallying cry of cockiness and bravado that simultaneously slapped down critics and played up an us-against-the-world mentality. Like-minded Brady supporters also descended on Roger Goodell’s $6.5 million summer home in Scarborough, Maine. One fan nailed several deflated footballs to a telephone near Goodell’s estate, while another hired a local pilot to fly a banner over the house that read, “Comm. Goodell Jet home to N.Y.” The aerial prank was in retaliation for a similar stunt in the skies over Gillette Stadium when a Jets fan paid for an airplane banner reading “Cheaters Look Up.” The harassment got so bad that Goodell asked Scarborough police to step up patrols around his home.
The commissioner and his family appeared to be thin-skinned in response to the ribbing, and it was a trait that would continue even after Deflategate. In the fall of 2017, Goodell’s wife, Jane Skinner Goodell, would be caught and exposed by the Wall Street Journal for setting up a fake Twitter account to defend her husband against criticism for his response to a campaign by players to kneel during the national anthem. The protests sent television ratings plummeting, and the commissioner’s wife said she took the deceptive action out of frustration and love for her husband.
Brady carried the love and support of fans with him as he arrived at the stadium from the Marriott Hotel on the team bus. As always, he looked as though he had stepped out of a GQ ad, wearing his black Beats headphones, a slim-fitting gray and black checkered suit with a white pocket square, a white shirt with a gold collar bar, and a black tie.
Chris Long was nearby, sporting a black Grateful Dead tour shirt and sunglasses, his long brown hair pulled back in a man bun. Martellus Bennett, who had become a fan favorite as the season wore on, walked next to Long wearing a red and blue checkered flannel over a hoodie, a trio of thick gold chains swinging from his neck and his own set of Beats on his head.
Running backs Blount and White strode in together solemnly, the former in a maroon suit with a white collared shirt and the latter in a gray and white suit with a floral-patterned shirt and black tie. None were smiling, and all looked like they were ready for a fight.
Inside the stadium, NFLPA chief DeMaurice Smith was finally nearing the finish line of another long Super Bowl week, which is generally an exhausting one for Smith as he and his team manage about 250 player appearances at a variety of events, while every NFLPA sponsor is there. The NFLPA also hosts its own party on Thursday night, followed by an event for its members on Friday. And Saturday is the NFL’s gala, where Smith is called upon to work the room.
He saw Goodell only briefly that week and only caught a couple glimpses of Brady at Media Day. He had seen Tom work the media in the past but noticed a change in tone this time.
“Whether it was explicit or not, it felt different because of what everyone on the union side and the player side had gone through that season with [Tom’s] discipline. Obviously, [the feeling] was there,” Smith remembered. “And also the fact that you’ve got a thirty-nine-year-old quarterback playing in the game.”
Smith generally doesn’t root for either team and actually rarely has time to watch any of the game as he’s too busy running from suite to suite to schmooze with sponsors, players past and present, league officials, and friends. Most of all, he just hopes that none of his players get hurt.
As the fans streamed into the seating area, Smith made his way to the NFLPA suite alongside an entourage of friends and family. In the group was a close friend from his days at Riverdale Baptist High School in Maryland and a pair of homicide detectives whom Smith worked with for years while a federal prosecutor. Also sharing the suite was Smith’s wife, Karen, and their two children, Elizabeth, then nineteen, and Alex, seventeen.
Down on the field, the two teams stretched, eyeballed one another, and went through the normal pregame routines while fans at the stadium buzzed with anticipation. Cameras flashed. Stadium crews prepared staging for the halftime show by Lady Gaga. The sidelines were packed with celebrities like actor Mark Wahlberg, rappers T.I. and Lil Jon, Usher, former Houston Rocket Yao Ming, comedian R
ob Riggle, Olympian Simone Biles, New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez, members of the cast of Hamilton, and singer Harry Connick Jr.
Ernie Adams, who just days earlier was reeling from a head injury sustained during practice, watched Falcons receiver Julio Jones very closely, looking for something—anything—to gain even a minuscule edge for his secondary. The All-Pro receiver had battled an ankle sprain late in the season that limited his cutting to the left, so Adams was watching him to see if there was any sign that his quickness in that direction was diminished. If it was, it meant the Pats’ defensive backs could possibly cheat a little bit or perhaps jump some routes. Belichick and his staff knew that if they could somehow limit Jones’s touches or yards, then they’d have a shot at slowing down the Falcons juggernaut.
But after watching him in warm-ups, Adams determined that Jones’s foot looked fine. That determination meant there was only one option: play Jones straight up and hope your defensive backs could make a play or two to keep his catches down, especially the deep ones.
Frustrated with his findings, Adams returned to the locker room to brief Coach Belichick and defensive coordinator Matt Patricia so they could adjust their strategy and prepare for the full strength of the Falcons’ air assault. It wouldn’t take long for the cornerbacks, safeties, the coaches, their teammates, and the entire world to see the awesome power of the Falcons offense on the sports world’s biggest stage.
Part V
Chapter Twenty-two
The Locker Room
February 5, 2017—NRG Stadium, Houston, Texas
Tom Brady and Robert Kraft had a long-running pregame ritual. Before each game, the owner and his quarterback got together alone somewhere away from the team and had a one-on-one talk before the Patriots took the field. Brady always felt a closeness to Kraft, despite moments of real friction over Deflategate, and the owner cared deeply for him. It’s a relationship that started that day before Brady’s rookie season when he told the billionaire team owner that drafting him was the best decision the team had ever made.
Their pregame discussions sometimes included a quick chat about the opponent or the game plan. Usually they ended with Brady assuring his owner, “We’re going to kick some ass today.” And he always said it with confidence and a steely stare, never leaving any doubt that he would do everything possible to carry through on that promise.
On other occasions, the talks were more personal. But never before any game did they have a talk as frank and personal as the one they had before the Super Bowl against the Falcons.
Brady’s mother had not been able to attend any games during the season, and Tom Sr. had made it only to the Sunday night game against Seattle, a nail-biting loss.
“I’m glad Mom’s here tonight,” Tom told Kraft. “But I feel bad Myra can’t be here for this one.”
“They’re both here,” Kraft said of Galynn and his deceased wife. He paused. The rumble of the pregame ceremonies echoed through the cavernous bowels of NRG Stadium.
The owner looked his quarterback squarely in the eyes. He saw grit, determination, and that fire that he recognized whenever Brady’s back was against the wall or whenever these biggest of moments were at hand.
“Let’s win this one for Mom,” Kraft said. “Let’s dedicate it to Mom.”
Brady welled up with tears as he fought back the emotion of the moment, struggling to maintain his focus and composure. He leaned forward and gave Kraft a bear hug and kissed him on the cheek.
“Let’s go,” he said.
They released their embrace, gave each other another nod, and number 12 turned back toward his troops. While he had always been able to compartmentalize the chaos around him, it was undeniable that his mother remained on his mind.
While his father was Tom’s most vocal supporter and protector, Galynn Brady had always been the family’s calming force. Now that calm was shaken by the turbulence of a deadly disease.
As Brady walked back to his locker, he passed the running backs, including James White. A former fourth-round pick out of Wisconsin, White had celebrated his twenty-fifth birthday just a few days earlier.
White grew up in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. His father was a police officer and his mother a probation officer. The rules were strict in the White home for James and his older brother, Tyrone. Because both parents were in law enforcement, they knew all the pitfalls that trapped so many young men in Miami Dade County and put far too many on the path to prison rather than college.
“There were a lot of rules. They were tough on us,” White told the authors of this book. “They tried to keep us on the right path. They shaped me and my brother into who we are.”124
Athletics also ran in the family. James’s father, Tyrone White Sr., was a wide receiver at Missouri Valley College before transferring to Florida A&M. James’s uncle played for the University of Minnesota.
James White had a regular season with the Patriots under his belt and was adjusting well to NFL life, including splitting time with a talented backfield that also included Dion Lewis and LeGarrette Blount. While Blount had rushed for eleven hundred yards and eighteen touchdowns and was generally the featured back, White had emerged during the season as a reliable weapon as he got more touches due to the absence of Lewis, who spent the first half of the season rehabbing from a 2015 ACL injury.
“I don’t necessarily see it as fighting for playing time. I see it as just competing,” White said. “I think it’s always good to have multiple guys in the backfield. It makes the offense more versatile. It wears the defense down when you can bring a fresh guy in. Guys that can do different things…or two people out on the field at the same time. It keeps the defense off-balance. I like it. It keeps guys fresh. I think it just makes the team overall better.”125
Splitting time was nothing new for White. In fact it was something he’d been used to his whole playing career. At Fort Lauderdale’s St. Thomas Aquinas High School, he was a standout back on a national championship team that also featured Cincinnati Bengals back Giovani Bernard. During his senior year in high school, White rushed for over a thousand yards and twenty touchdowns, earning him his nickname Sweet Feet.
At Wisconsin, he was in a world-class Badgers backfield that included three other NFL talents: John Clay, who played for the Pittsburgh Steelers; Monte Ball, who played for the Broncos and Patriots; and Los Angeles Chargers star Melvin Gordon. During White’s freshman year, he rushed for nearly eleven hundred yards and fourteen touchdowns on a Badgers squad that was ranked number five in the nation and lost in the Rose Bowl to undefeated Texas Christian University, which was led by Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton.
When White was a senior, he ran for 1,444 yards and eighteen touchdowns and started to show his receiving prowess, making thirty-nine catches out of the backfield for three hundred yards and two scores. It was this versatility that caught Coach Belichick’s attention and led him to draft White in the fourth round.
And that versatility was also a big reason why the Patriots were in Houston and why White was certain his number was going to be called quite a bit by number 12 on this night.
“I knew I had the ability to make some plays,” White recalled. “I knew I’d have my part and I was ready for it. I was excited to go out there and have the opportunity to play on such a big stage with my teammates. That’s what you work all year for—to have that moment—so I wanted to leave it all out there on the field and just find a way to help my team get a win.”
White’s parents were at the game, as they always were, and he was able to spend some quality time with them in Houston during Super Bowl week. As with all players at the Super Bowl, it’s a difficult balance to enjoy all the hoopla while maintaining focus. But as this was the Patriots’ seventh Super Bowl with Brady and Belichick, and White’s second, he was far from a wide-eyed rookie, and as he laced up at his locker, he knew what it was going to take to beat the Falcons.
“They play a lot of man-to-man coverage, and I just wanted to win my matchups,”
White said. “And I wanted to be open if they played zone, and find a spot in the zone so if Tom looked in my direction I was in the right spot. Just try to pay attention to details…I just wanted to be a viable option. If the ball was handed to me, I just wanted to make sure I did the right thing with it.”
After three years playing with Brady, White had a great feel for the quarterback, and like all players who thrived in the Patriots offense over the course of the team’s unprecedented run, he knew that he had to out-study, out-work, and out-perform the opponent every chance he got.
“Ever since I stepped foot in the building, ever since my rookie year, you could see how hard the guy [Brady] works on and off the field,” White said. “It rubs off on everybody else. He’s a competitor. He competes in practice. He competes in every moment. He makes everybody on the team better. He heightens your awareness.
“You just want to go out there and be great,” he continued. “He’s the greatest quarterback of all time. I’m definitely glad he’s on our team…just a fearless guy. Great teammate. There’s nothing more you can ask for from him.”
As White sat at his locker getting ready, he thought about the turbulent regular season. He knew the suspension had taken its toll on his quarterback, but also that he was never one to let emotion get in the way of business.
Sitting at his nearby locker, Brady was a portrait of intensity, focus, and calm. It was an icy demeanor all his teammates knew well. Tom wouldn’t say it, but this was the biggest game of his career. His personal legacy was on the line. He had been pilloried in the press, accused of being a fake, a phony, and a cheater. Other players, most of whom he had abused on the field repeatedly, took cheap shots at him on social media and in the press. His blood boiled inside, but outside, he was measured and calculated. He was also challenged by his coach.
“Tom, we’ve been to six Super Bowls together and we’ve never scored a point in the first quarter. Can we get that done?” Belichick asked.126
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