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Five Rings Page 12

He put it on the podium in front of the silent room and explained how this is what they were playing for. All the money in the world can’t buy one. It has to be earned. “When you think back to our season,” he continued, “no matter what the tough spot you were in, the reason why you won was because you identified the situation, you heard the call. And you did . . . your . . . job.” Again, the perfect slogan for his team, about 10 years too soon to be hashtaggable.

  However dull the buildup was, the game itself followed that old advertising marketing strategy that says you should under-promise and then over-deliver, because it turned out to be one of the most uneven, bizarre, dramatic, hard-fought, and exciting Super Bowls ever played. Harrison, a veteran of 10 NFL seasons, called it the most physical game he’d ever played in.

  And before it even began, the game gave us that welcome element that makes every sporting event better: bad blood. At the opening coin flip, Panthers’ defensive lineman Brentson Buckner began running his mouth, the Patriots yapped back at him, and the two sides had to be separated by the officials and sent back to their sidelines. It was just the taste of WWE Smackdown the day needed.

  After that, things got . . . well, they got dull. Unless you really hate watching football teams score points. Then it was the game for you. For a Super Bowl record 27 minutes, the game was scoreless. New England had some success moving the ball, but Adam Vinatieri revealed the shocking truth that he’s human by missing one field goal and having another blocked.

  On the other side of the ball, it was a disaster of epic proportions for Carolina’s offense as the Patriots swarmed them. Jake Delhomme started the game 1 for 9 with three sacks. With 5 minutes to go in the first half, Mike Vrabel came in off the edge and strip-sacked Delhomme as the Patriots recovered the fumble. At that point the Panthers had −8 yards in total offense. That is not a typo. Negative. Eight.

  And yet, they still found themselves tied in a scoreless game. But not for long. Because in a surreal turn of events, the biggest defensive struggle in Super Bowl history suddenly exploded in a burst of offense out of nowhere. A Brady touchdown pass to Deion Branch put the first points on the board. Inexplicably, Carolina answered right back with a 95-yard touchdown drive, ending with a Delhomme bomb to Steve Smith. The Patriots then moved the ball 76 yards in only 48 seconds to go up 14–7. Then with not much time left in the half, Belichick opted to have Vinatieri squib the kickoff rather than boot it deep and risk a long return. But it gave the Panthers the ball near midfield, and a few plays later they converted a field goal to make it 14–10 at the half.

  To review: that was zero points total in the first 27 minutes, 24 points in the final 3 minutes. And that wouldn’t even be the most bizarre part of the day.

  I actually missed the one thing that America would be talking about the next day and that is still the moment this game will forever be remembered for outside of New England. I was watching from my same buddy’s house as I’d watched the Super Bowl win over the Rams, actually sitting in the same seat with my same son sitting on the same side of me—partly because I know that helped the win two years earlier, but also because my pal had the most fun man cave I’ve ever been to. At halftime, I was hitting the next room to shoot pool with my kid. With all due respect to Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake, there was nothing going on there I felt I couldn’t miss.

  So it wasn’t until I woke up the next day and looked for reactions to the game that I caught wind of the fact that at the end of “Rock Your Body,” when Timberlake hit the lyrics “I’ll have you naked by the end of this song,” he pulled open Janet’s outfit and unveiled the Nipple Shot Heard ’Round the World. He revealed Janet’s right bewb for less than a second before the lights went out. The Internet would never be the same again. According to Guinness World Records, “Janet Jackson” became the most-searched term in Internet history as the world desperately looked for a screencap. When the pictures did come out, they revealed that Janet (“Miss Jackson,” if you’re nasty) was sporting a huge nipple piercing that looked basically like the headpiece from the Staff of Ra that told Indiana Jones where the Well of Souls was buried. YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim has said that moment inspired the creation of his video-sharing site. And Timberlake got a new term added to Merriam-Webster’s when he called it a “wardrobe malfunction.”

  Again, I was oblivious. I guess we’ve lived through too many celebrity sex tapes and naked photos hacked from phones to fully appreciate how little it took to shock the world back then.

  Another thing most of us missed, that I regret even more, was that as the teams were lining up for the second-half kickoff, a random guy had managed to slip past security wearing nothing but a jockstrap and proceeded to do an Irish step dance right on the field before he was tackled by Patriots linebacker Matt Chatham. Asked about it afterward, Chatham said, “We’re a Bill Belichick–coached team. We’d watched film on that guy all week.”

  But just as quickly as the offenses exploded at the end of the half, they went silent again, and the third quarter was scoreless.

  If Super Bowl XXXVIII were a song, it would be a quiet, ballady piano intro, leading into a quick death-metal guitar riff, followed by a long violin solo before finishing with a crescendo of power chords by the whole band, because the final quarter would be 15 solid minutes of what those final 3 minutes of the second were.

  After the Patriots scored on the first play of the fourth quarter, Carolina went no-huddle and began moving the chains. Running back DeShaun Foster broke a run outside and raced 33 yards for the touchdown that made it 21–16, New England. At this point, John Fox returned the favor Belichick had done for him with that squib kick by deciding to go for the two-point conversion instead of just take the extra point. The try failed.

  A long Patriots drive died when Brady threw a terrible, inexcusable interception in the end zone. Delhomme took immediate advantage with an 85-yard bomb to Muhsin Muhammad, the longest touchdown pass in Super Bowl history. Now Fox was basically forced to go for two because he’d missed the last time. Once again, the try failed. But his team still had a 22–21 lead. For New England, it was the first time they’d trailed in a game since the last time they’d played in that same stadium, the comeback overtime win against the Texans.

  Muhammad for one wasn’t feeling like his team’s one-point lead was insurmountable. Sideline mics picked him up on the bench saying, “It ain’t over. Not with that quarterback.” Smart man.

  Brady led his team downfield again, only this time there would be no drive-killing bad pass in the red zone. Instead, from Carolina’s 1-yard line, the Patriots went deep into the dark recesses of Charlie Weis’s playbook. They came out in a Jumbo formation with linebacker Mike Vrabel in as an extra tight end and defensive tackle Richard Seymour as the fullback. Brady faked the handoff and instead floated a pass into the end zone to a wide-open Vrabel. Now up by five, they too went for the two-point conversion, only it was a direct snap to Kevin Faulk. Brady gestured like the snap had sailed over his head in a perfect piece of pantomime and Faulk slipped through the line for the score to make it a 29–22 game with only 2:51 left.

  Which was plenty enough time for the Panthers, who put together a masterful, clutch, 80-yard touchdown drive of their own, capped off with a game-tying touchdown catch by Ricky Proehl. If that sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because in the Super Bowl two years earlier, the Patriots lost the lead in the final minutes to a game-tying touchdown catch by Ricky Proehl. Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it and all that.

  But that wasn’t where the eerie similarities would end. Panthers kicker John Kasay misplayed the subsequent kickoff, booting it way out of bounds in one of the all-time Super Bowl brainfarts. That gave the Patriots the ball with 1:08 left and all three time-outs, needing just a field goal to win it.

  We’d seen this movie before.

  Again, like that final drive against St. Louis, Brady was money. A sensational catch by Troy Brown, reaching up over two defenders, moved the ba
ll into Carolina territory. A 20-yard completion to Brown was nullified by a call of offensive pass interference on him. But on first and 20, Brady came right back to him for 13 yards. A few plays later, Brady found Deion Branch for 17. It was Branch’s Super Bowl record 13th catch, good for 143 receiving yards.

  It was enough to send Adam Vinatieri out for a 41-yard field-goal try. And like his kick to win the game in New Orleans, it was a no-doubter. It perfectly bisected the uprights with plenty of leg. He’d made a once-in-a-lifetime, Super Bowl–winning kick for the second time in 24 months.

  There were so many reputations cemented that day it’s impossible to name them all. For the Patriots, it confirmed that the earlier championship was no fluke. They’d built themselves into a powerhouse on both sides of the ball. They had a blend of youth and experience. They were a tough, resilient roster that put the team ahead of the individual, bought into the program, and could be a contender for years to come.

  For Vinatieri, it instantly made him the greatest clutch kicker of all time.

  For Brady, it meant that he was in an exclusive club of quarterbacks who’ve won two Super Bowls. Even more, he was a proven winner who could come from behind in huge moments. On his team’s final two drives, Brady was 10 for 13 for 104 yards, including three third-down conversions. For the game he had three touchdown passes and 354 yards, one of the best performances in the history of the Super Bowl. However, the MVP went to Deion Branch. Not that anyone was complaining.

  For Belichick, it proved that his system works, even when it means cutting ties with a beloved and respected warhorse player. He had every reason to feel vindicated after all the abuse and negativity directed at him at the start of the year.

  And apparently, he did feel it.

  In the postgame, Belichick was asked to sit down with the ESPN crew for a live interview and he agreed. Upon approaching the set, he was greeted by Tom Jackson, who offered him his sincerest congratulations.

  “Fuck you,” Belichick said. Jackson’s longtime friend Chris Berman did the interview alone.

  14

  The Patriot Way

  Most of the veterans on the Patriots were two-time Super Bowl champions. They were coming off a season that objectively speaking was the best in the history of their franchise, and subjectively speaking, one of the top 10 or so in the history of modern pro football. The players were being widely celebrated for being hardworking and diligent, for being coachable, humble, team-first football guys who loved the game and put winning above all else. The coaching staff was being hailed as the next generation of innovative geniuses who had figured out how to stay competitive in a league set up to make consistent excellence impossible. Not to mention, their owner was being credited for creating a style of business management and personal ethics that was starting to be called “The Patriot Way.”

  They were being celebrated everywhere they went. There was another duck boat parade in Boston, followed by another rally held on Ice Planet City Hall Plaza. This time, Troy Brown brought the house down. He’d been featured in one of those NFL United Way ads, the joke of which was that he was such a competitor that he’d even talk smack to the residents of the old folks’ home where he did volunteer work. Taking the microphone on the balcony at City Hall, he dropped the signature line from the commercials: “Bingo! I got Bingo! I win again!!!” Yet another catchphrase entering the lexicon.

  In 2002, Tom Brady achieved the newest level of his fame, the Celebrity Dating Phase. His gateway actress into this phase was Tara Reid, who was one of the hottest sex symbols in Hollywood, still at the height of her American Pie fame and many years before the start of her “American Botched Cosmetic Surgery” and Sharknado fame. But by the time the Patriots received their championship rings at a private party held under a tent at Robert Kraft’s Brookline, Massachusetts, home, Brady’s plus-one was Bridget Moynahan, most famous for playing one of the sexy bartenders in the ironically named Coyote Ugly—and for achieving the highest honor an attractive woman could in the early 2000s, cracking Stuff magazine’s “102 Sexiest Women in the World” list at No. 86. By the standards of most men, Brady was definitely climbing the hot actress ladder.

  All that adulation also spread to the coaching staff. Win one Super Bowl as an opposing coach and you’ll get some credit. Win a second, and other teams will start looking at you, subconsciously comparing you to their current coach and debating whether you’re the younger, prettier option they should dump him for. Pats coordinators Romeo Crennel and Charlie Weis’s names were at the top of the short list for every head coaching vacancy, college or pro.

  It was in this environment that Bill Belichick gave himself the unenviable task of reminding them all that it wasn’t good enough.

  It was dirty work, being the only negative voice in everyone’s ear. When the whole world is acting like a team’s Helicopter Mom, telling them how unique and special they are and what genius work they’re doing, it takes a unique personality to be the teacher with the red pen who gives them all a C+. But that was Bill Belichick. He’d learned the lesson from the sudden fame of that Super Bowl XXXVI win, that if his team was going to stay on top, he had to be a counterbalance to all that praise. To be the J. K. Simmons in Whiplash, throwing cymbals at their collective head and growling at them to stay on his tempo.

  The first order of business was improving the running game. Antowain Smith had been a loyal soldier as well as a serviceable back who’d contributed to two championships, but he’d missed some games with injuries and his production had slipped over his three years in New England. The situation called for an upgrade, not sentimentality.

  Belichick and Scott Pioli swung a shocking trade. Shocking in that it seemed to be nothing less than a major change in the core beliefs of the most successful team in football.

  No one knows for certain who started that talk about “The Patriot Way.” At least no one will take credit for it. Or blame. And no one ever really could say for certain what it meant. But the term was generally used by Patriots fans as shorthand for the fact the team seemed to place a premium on quality human beings over troublemakers. There are a million applicable sports clichés. Pick one. They wanted guys with character, not guys who are characters. Guys who think the name on the front of the shirt is way more important than the one on the back. Or to use the Bill Parcells expression that was still relatively fresh in everyone’s mind, “I’m too old to coach jerks.” Under Belichick, the Patriots seemed to be living all of them.

  Rightly or wrongly, there was a growing perception around the country that the NFL was being taken over by selfish, coach-killing divas who only cared about drawing attention to themselves in an ESPN highlights-centric world, with guys like Terrell Owens of the Eagles and the Vikings’ Randy Moss being the poster children. Also, this was just a few years after Jeff Benedict and Don Yaeger’s book Pros and Cons: The Criminals Who Play in the NFL had been published, sending shock waves throughout decent, God-fearin’, football-lovin’ America.

  Much of it was nonsense, old men yelling at clouds and talking about how back in their day people had common decency, as if football hasn’t always attracted an element of egomaniacs and testosterone-fueled rage monsters who only started committing crimes in the late 1990s. But there’s no question that Patriots fans were looking at their own team and telling themselves, “Hey, that isn’t us.”

  Instead of prima donnas like Owens and Moss, the Patriots’ star wideouts were quiet overachievers like Troy Brown and Deion Branch. Tom Brady was seen as a humble, self-effacing superstar without a bad word to say about anyone. The enduring image that came out of the last Super Bowl was Tedy Bruschi on the empty field before the game, running around with his two toddlers, a video clip that made every woman in New England bite her lower lip and go, “Awww . . .”

  All of which is why it was so shocking when the team announced they had traded a second-round draft choice to the Cincinnati Bengals for running back Corey Dillon.

  Dillon’s football
ability was beyond question. A punishing runner, he’d rushed for over 1,100 yards in each of his first six years in the league. In 1997, he’d broken Jim Brown’s single-game rookie rushing record with 246 yards against Tennessee. In an October 2000 game, he broke the all-time record with a 278-yard stomping of the Denver Broncos. And when he was at the University of Washington, he once had 222 rushing yards and 83 yards receiving, giving him 305 all-purpose yards. In one quarter.

  It was off the field where things got kind of on the murky side. He went to U of Washington only after spending his earlier years going the junior college route because of trouble he got into as a juvenile. In 1998, he picked up a drunk driving charge. In 2000, he was charged with domestic violence after his wife called the police claiming he’d hit her while she was driving their car, and responding officers found her bleeding from the mouth.

  And he wasn’t the model employee in Cincinnati, either. In 2001, he publicly called out club owner Mike Brown, saying the Bengals would never win as long as Brown’s family owned the team. He once said he’d “rather flip burgers” than return to the Bengals. As a restricted free agent, he threatened to sit out the first 10 games of the season, then return for the final six so he could qualify to become unrestricted and hit the open market before the team signed him to a $3 million deal. And there were reports that in his final game of the previous season, he’d thrown his pads into the stands and walked off the field.

  While the domestic violence was unforgivable, some of the stuff with his old team might have been excusable. This was the Bengals, after all. You could see where the years of losing and frustration could drive a man to do insane things. And maybe he just wanted to play for a winner. So perhaps that didn’t make Dillon the Antichrist. But it did make him an anti-Patriot.

  And yet, while Bill Belichick was treating another Super Bowl title like a loss, trying to keep his team’s feet on the ground and working to improve the roster, his counterpoint in Indianapolis was responding to his team getting its man parts kicked in the dirt in the playoff with a slightly different tactic. He was blaming the loss on the officials for letting the Patriots get away with penalties and getting the rules changed.