Authors: Michael Holley
Twenty-four points in three minutes and ten seconds. The Patriots led
14–10 at halftime, and halftime was when pop singers introduced a new phrase to
pop culture: wardrobe malfunction. Janet Jackson and Justin Timber- lake had
been performing “Rock Your Body,” a song that includes the lyrics: “Bet I’ll
have you naked by the end of this song.” It turned out to be a solid bet,
because toward the end of the performance Timberlake pulled Jackson’s bustier
and more than a hundred million viewers saw her right breast exposed. It was
covered by a nipple shield, but it wasn’t covered enough to prevent a stream of
complaints, apologies—and Internet searches for close-ups of Jackson’s breast.
Jackson said it was a wardrobe malfunction, and she and Timberlake issued
apologies.
For those watching at home, it would have been
understandable for the malfunction to be the buzz of the third quarter. Once
again, the teams were trading field position but not points. It was a scoreless
third.
When Antowain Smith scored seven seconds into the fourth to
make it 21–10, it was time to bury the Panthers again. The Patriots weren’t
going to blow an 11-point lead, were they? They would in this game of sudden
eruptions. “One of the great Super Bowls of all time,” wrote
Boston
Herald
columnist Gerry Callahan, “broke out like a fistfight in the
middle of morning Mass.”
Foster had scored on
a 33-yard run—Carolina went for a 2-point conversion and failed—and Brady had
thrown an interception at the Carolina 2. With the Patriots still leading
21–16, Wilson guessed wrong again and literally got hurt along the way. The
Patriots defensive backs had been told that if Delhomme was looking in one
direction, he would probably throw in that same direction. So on third-and-10
from his 15, Delhomme looked right. Wilson followed his eyes and cheated right
with him. The quarterback couldn’t find anything. The play was officially
broken. He began to freestyle, and Muhammad was smart enough to freestyle with
him. The play wasn’t meant to be a GO route, but it became one, and Wilson was
in no position to stop it. Eighty-five yards and a missed tackle later, the
Panthers had the lead. Wilson was out of the game with a torn groin. Again, the
Panthers went for 2 and failed. But they led 22–21.
“Motherfucker!” Brady shouted from the sideline. “I can’t believe we’re
losing.”
Brady had gained so much respect from his teammates by
pointing out his own errors. His management style was not to berate following a
mistake. He liked to mention that the next play was a good opportunity to
correct any previous errors. That’s what he did after his interception. He
began at his 32, mixed five completions with three runs, and led the Patriots
to the Carolina 1. That’s when the comedian, Vrabel, checked in as an eligible
receiver.
“Holla at your boy,” Vrabel said in the huddle.
It was not a problem. All Vrabel had to do was hold on to the 1-yard
pass, and he did. When Faulk took a direct snap and ran up the middle for the
2-point conversion, it was 29–22 New England. But there was too much time and
not enough resistance in this fourth quarter. Wilson was
down, and the other safety, Harrison, would soon follow. Harrison broke his arm
with just over two minutes left and remained in the game to make the next
tackle. He was every bit the player New England expected when they signed him
in March 2003, but he could not defy his body. His right arm was drooping, and
it was impossible for him to stay in the game like that.
Delhomme
went to work on the defense, a defense that was mottled by injuries and
mistakes. With seventy-three seconds left, a misunderstanding—Asante Samuel was
playing zone when he should have been in man—led to a 12-yard Ricky Proehl
touchdown. It was Proehl who had scored the final St. Louis touchdown in Super
Bowl XXXVI to tie the score at 17. He was part of a different tie this time: 29
apiece.
“Well, you asked for it,” Huard said to Brady before
walking away. He did ask for it. He had talked about it on the way to practice
on Friday. But this was much deeper than Friday. This went back to Ann Arbor,
when he believed he was entitled to run the two-minute drill perfectly. If he
were going to be a quarterback, he would have to be skilled at this drill. It’s
the same way some musicians feel about playing the standards. There are certain
crowd- pleasers that have to be in your rotation if you’re going to make it in
the business.
He was calm. He didn’t know most of the 71,525
people here, but this didn’t count as an anonymous crowd that could make him
nervous. This was still football, and no matter how much importance was placed
on this game, it was his game. And, oh, it really belonged to him after Kasay
made the biggest mistake of his career. He kicked off, and
the ball landed out of bounds. So now twenty-six- year-old Tom Brady, who was
already the MVP of one Super Bowl, was a couple of completions away from
snatching another one. He was going to begin at his own 40 and have sixty-eight
seconds to perform.
Time for the drill. Weis’s voice was in his
helmet, and that’s all he could hear. He was operating from the shotgun. He
missed on his first pass, “O Out Cluster 146 Z Option X Deep Return,” and then
connected with Brown for 13 yards to the Panthers’ 47. He wasn’t flustered when
a 20-yard completion was taken away from him and Brown was called for offensive
interference. “Tommy,” he heard Weis shout into the helmet. “ ‘Gun Trips Left
259 Max Squirrel X IN.’ ” He was going back to Brown, for 13, and back on the
Carolina side of the field.
Rob Ryan was right. Brady was similar
to Belichick in the way he was able to think quickly without
reacting
too quickly. He’d take what he was given. Four yards
to Graham, and he was at the 40 with fourteen seconds left. He took a timeout
there and still had one left. On third-and-3 from the 40, he picked up 17 yards
in five seconds. The play was “Gun Trips Right 80 Rock OPEQ.” Deion Branch
caught the pass, and New England used its final timeout.
There
were nine seconds left. Nine seconds left, and suddenly it was as if a
photographer were trying to recreate a family photo from a couple of years ago.
No, you were standing over there the last time. Remember?
Gil
Santos was once again describing the scene to listeners in New England. Robert
Kraft and his family were in their box. Some coaches were above the field, and
others were standing on the sideline. Just like the last time. Nine seconds
left, and this time the only difference was that they were more complete than they were in New Orleans. They knew how it
felt to win and then be pushed back to mediocrity. They were wise men now,
capable of telling you about the joys and burdens of winning. Who among them
would take this for granted? Not after what they had seen since February 2002:
a new stadium, new teammates, dismissed veterans, frustrating games, loved ones
gone too soon.
Vinatieri took the field stuffing his size 11s into
a size 9 shoe. There would be no slippage that way. It was going to be foot on
ball for ultimate accuracy. This attempt was going to be 7 yards shorter than
his winning kick at the Superdome. There would be no talking this time as he
walked on the field—the line of scrimmage just on the nose of the 24—and began
to create another piece for his collection. The snap was straight, the hold was
clean, the kick relieved stress. It was high and good, once again, just like
the last time.
I
n the postgame happiness, there
were still harsh words that needed to be said. Belichick was asked twice by
ESPN reporters to do one-on-one interviews. Twice he declined. There were
celebrations and tears everywhere. The Patriots had won 15 games in a row,
allowing them to consider a couple of questions with no wrong answers: How
great were they, historically? And which of their two trophies, fingerprinted
by family and friends, carried the better story?
Belichick would talk about these things with others, but not, initially,
with ESPN. When his friend Chris Berman personally asked him to appear on the
air, however, Belichick couldn’t turn him down. They
walked on the Reliant Stadium field, passing a few workers and television
reporters doing stand-ups. On the set Belichick saw Tom Jackson. The coach
didn’t want to be diplomatic. He still didn’t like the way the comment from
September was handled, and winning the Super Bowl wasn’t going to change his
mind about that. Jackson extended his hand to Belichick. The coach looked at
him and said, “Fuck you.” It was left at that. Belichick went on the air with
Berman— Jackson did not join them—and eventually returned to his suite at the
Inter-Continental.
The hotel’s Discovery Ballroom was where the
team party was being held. A proud Tedy Bruschi walked the perimeter of the
room, clutching the trophy and allowing fans to touch it. He was smiling and
looking for people who wanted to be close to the trophy but didn’t have the
chance. Some of the musicians from Brady’s iPod playlist—Kid Rock, Aerosmith,
Snoop Dogg—performed at the party.
Well after midnight Hochstein
was spotted walking around the hotel. He was jubilant and drunk, and he waved
when a few people called his name. “Hey,” he slurred. “Where is Warren Sapp
now? Fat motherfucker.” He laughed. He had been waiting to get that out for a
while. He was a champion, on a team of unlikely champions.
But
then, didn’t it all make sense that the Patriots would finish like this? This
was a team led by a man who sees a link between high production and
preparation. He is a man who was raised near an academy where men and women
always talk of teamwork and excellence. He took the parts of the structure he
liked and fashioned a life in which he would always seek a person’s ideas
first.
He can never be accused of being distracted by superficial things. Some of his friends are famous and some are
not. Some are conservative and some are liberal. He has talked with presidents
and prisoners alike. He has made decisions that have been interpreted many
ways, but he is not concerned with shaping the interpretations. He is a lover
of many things, but football occupies him. He wants to work with people who
care about this sport as much as he does. So he has reached out to Robert
Kraft, Scott Pioli, Ernie Adams, Eric Mangini, Tom Brady, Richard Seymour, Tedy
Bruschi, and Willie McGinest. Anyone can join the club. You just need to have
the mind and heart for working. And winning.
On the noon plane from Houston’s Ellington Field to Boston’s
Logan Airport—the plane carrying the Super Bowl champions—there still was work
to be done. Belichick began some of it by talking with outside linebackers
coach Rob Ryan. He told Ryan that the Oakland Raiders had called, and they were
asking about him.
The Raiders were looking for a
defensive coordinator, and he was one of the candidates. Belichick reminded
Ryan that he always had a home in New England, a statement that made the
assistant coach smile. But the idea of leading a defense was exciting to him.
He was the same kid who once described himself and his twin brother Rex as “the
thugs of Canada” when they were living with their mother there. When the twins
moved back to the States to live with their famous father, Buddy, they still
had some rough edges. Rob remembers taking the ACT for Rex while his
brother went fishing. He was the same young man who loaded
Burger King trucks for extra money, who once said that the only nonfootball job
that appealed to him was border patrol, who had spent so much time working that
he and his wife, Kristin, “never had a honeymoon.”
If the job
were offered, he would have to take it. It was, and he did. (He and Kristin
also got their honeymoon: Willie McGinest, who was selected to the Pro Bowl,
paid their way to Honolulu.) Ryan left the coaching staff, and so did John
Hufnagel, the quarterbacks coach who had been in Foxboro for a season. Hufnagel
became the offensive coordinator of the New York Giants. The Patriots were and
are loaded with coaches who could lead their own Cabinets, but not everyone got
the call he sought. Coordinators Charlie Weis and Romeo Crennel interviewed for
head- coaching jobs before the play-offs started, and both, remarkably, were
passed over. Belichick knew both men were capable of running teams and
implementing original ideas. He also knew he was going to have to do a lot of
managerial balancing in the next several months.
There were going
to be qualified people—Weis, Crennel, Mangini—performing jobs that they were
close to outgrowing. There were going to be tough decisions to make on free
agents. Antowain Smith, the back who ran well in two Super Bowls, did not have
the option year in his contract picked up by the team. Damien Woody, the team’s
most talented offensive lineman, was not re-signed and moved on to Detroit.
“I’ll never forget what I experienced in New England,” Woody says. “I hadn’t
been on a team like that since high school. We would hang out together, have
fun, and hold each other accountable. It’s something that can never be taken
away from me.”
Ted Washington, who had been
close to resigning with the Patriots, got a better deal in Oakland and
followed Ryan there. Cornerback Ty Law, who intercepted Peyton Manning three
times in the AFC Championship game, said he no longer wanted to be a Patriot.
Law didn’t believe he had contract security—given what had happened to Lawyer
Milloy—and wanted the Patriots to do something to put him at ease. Both sides
talked about a new contract, but a stalemate became public in the second week
of March. Law said Belichick lied to him about negotiating and added that the
love was gone in New England. He was tired of many things—such as the Patriots’
refusal to pay his off-season workout bonus, even though he didn’t work out in
Foxboro. His contention was that the previous management team, led by Bobby
Grier, gave him the bonus anyway.
Belichick released brief
statements on some of the transactions and offered no comments on others. He
was amused, for the second April in a row, when his team was mentioned in a
move-up-in-the-draft rumor with the Detroit Lions. He was supposedly after
University of Miami safety Sean Taylor, a rookie he would have to pay more than
Milloy and Rodney Harrison if he traded up to get him. And if he did that, he
and Scott Pioli would have to make an exception to the draft advice Belichick
had received from Jimmy Johnson on his boat, which was to write down all the
players you wanted on your team, whether they were in round one or round seven.
Belichick had listened to that advice in 2003. He walked away with one of the
best drafts in Patriots history.
He applied the same theory to the
draft of 2004. He sat at his Gillette Stadium computer and wrote down the
names of twenty-five college players he wanted to see on
the Patriots. He put them into two categories: first- and second-day draftees.
If he and Pioli needed to move up and get a specific player, they had enough
capital—or picks—to control the draft board. They had already traded one of
their second-round picks to Cincinnati for running back Corey Dillon to replace
Antowain Smith. They had also given up a sixth-rounder for defensive lineman
Rodney Bailey, who had played the 2003 season in Pittsburgh and would now add
depth to their defensive line. Now they had a plan to strengthen the Patriots
with draft choices.
The Patriots held two picks in the first
round, numbers 21 and 32. At the top of Belichick’s list were four players the
Patriots should consider moving up for from 21: cornerbacks DeAngelo Hall and
Dunta Robinson, defensive tackle Vince Wilfork, and linebacker Jonathan Vilma.
Next, he had written “My Card,” with “guys I would like to have on 1st day and
2nd day” in parentheses. His first-day card included two tight ends, Ben Watson
and Kris Wilson. Three offensive linemen—Chris Snee, Travelle Wharton, and Sean
Bubin—were on the list. In addition to Wilfork, he listed nose tackles Marcus
Tubbs and Isaac Sopoaga. His linebackers were D. J. Williams, Dontarrious
Thomas, and Jason Babin. If he couldn’t get Hall or Robinson on the first day,
he thought Ahmad Carroll would be a good choice at corner. Taylor was not one
of his safeties, but Guss Scott, Madieu Williams, and Dexter Reid were. He
rounded out his first-day list with running back Kevin Jones and defensive end
Marquise Hill.
Unlike 2003, when the Patriots were dealing to
secure their targets, they were quiet in 2004. It was one of those Aprils in
which the board was unfolding favorably. They didn’t have
to move to get what they wanted. Wilfork fell to them at 21, and Watson was
there at 32. Snee, Thomas, and Madieu Williams all went to other teams in the
second round, but the Patriots were able to get Hill with the 63rd overall
pick. Wharton went to the Panthers at number 94, but Scott was right behind him
for New England at 95.
That was it for the first day, and three
high-priority players—Reid, Sopoaga, and Bubin—remained on the board for the
Patriots to select. Day two was impressive: Reid, Christian Morton, Cedric
Cobbs, and P. K. Sam—Belichick had written of Sam, “This will be a cheap
receiver for four years if we are right”—were drafted. All had been on the
coach’s list.
It said it right there, in black and white, that the
off- season had begun successfully. Jimmy Johnson would have been proud. There
was another trophy added to the collection on the second floor, which really
meant that there was another piece of hardware to defend. The 2004 Patriots
would have to protect their championship
and
their standing as
one of the smartest, fairest franchises in professional sports.