Patriot Reign (15 page)

Belichick hadn’t said anything like that all season to anyone in the
media. He tried to find reasons that the Super Bowl didn’t matter. He tried so
hard that he may have ignored any hint of Super Bowl hangover. He had been
trying to encourage the team to move on from something that not all of them—the
rookies and free agents, for example— had experienced. But other teams weren’t
forgetting the Super Bowl. They were not going to let the Patriots creep up on
them. They delighted in trying to clock the champions. And if the Patriots
didn’t treat the Miami game “like a wild-card play-off,” as Belichick said in
the production meeting, they were in their last days as champs.

At
what was going to be the final Cabinet meeting of 2002—win or lose—Belichick
reviewed the game plan at the Four Points Sheraton Hotel in Norwood. He had
concerns about cornerback Ty Law’s groin and asked Mangini about it. He
wondered if the groin would become a problem during the game. Mangini said that
Law would be shot up. “He won’t miss this,” Mangini said. Belichick reminded
the coaches that the sun could be a factor. He compared it to the year before,
when a pop kick had been sent toward a Dolphin, in hopes of getting a
fumble.

He told Romeo Crennel that he didn’t want to be too soft
on first down. He told Weis that he wanted the Patriots to run against a
seven-man box and beat man coverage. “There’s not one play that doesn’t do all
that shit, as far as I can see,” Belichick said. “Don’t be
afraid to throw it on first down. Things like ‘X Option.’ If those fuckers can
cover us on that, it’s going to be a long day.”

I
t was one half of a long day on
Sunday afternoon in Foxboro. The Dolphins were thirty minutes away from winning
the AFC East, leading the Patriots 21–10 at half- time. The problems were not
new: Ricky Williams, the NFL’s leading rusher, already had 120 yards by
halftime. The Patriots wanted to set the edge and force him back inside;
Williams would sometimes dip inside and then bounce
outside.

Outside linebackers coach Rob Ryan called
one of his smartest players, Vrabel, on the sideline. “Vrabes,” Ryan said, “I
know Ricky is making it look like he doesn’t wanna go outside. But I guarantee
you he wants to. Don’t let him do it.”

It was the third quarter
now, and the Patriots were beginning to do a better job on Williams. But they
didn’t have much time. They got an Adam Vinatieri field goal in the third to
make it 21–13. But in the fourth, with eight minutes left, Brady threw a bad
pass that was intercepted by Brock Marion. An Olindo Mare field goal with five
minutes remaining made it 24–13. It certainly was looking like an 8–8 season
for the Patriots.

They needed to do something quickly, so they
went to a play that had been a part of their game plan the first time they
opposed Miami, in October. On the call sheet that day the seventh item under
“notes” read, “Pick on #21 in SUB (include GO’s).” They were talking about
cornerback Jamar Fletcher. And everyone knew what GO meant.
Go deep. “He doesn’t have deep-ball speed and will struggle against faster
receivers,” read the Patriot scouting report. Givens, the rookie from Notre
Dame, wasn’t the fastest receiver. He did have an understanding of how to
create separation, and he had earned the respect of his teammates with hard
work. On first down at the Miami 33, Givens went on a GO route against
Fletcher. He didn’t catch the ball, but he did draw a pass interference penalty
at the 3. One play later Brady threw across the middle to Troy Brown, who
scored. When Fauria caught a 2-point conversion pass to make it 24–21, there
was hope again.

There was the sense that Miami was gasping. There
weren’t even 180 seconds left, but that was plenty of time for the Dolphins to
make mistakes. They guessed wrong on the kickoff—they thought it would be an
on-side kick—and were out of position. So they started with the ball at their
own 4. They had the lead, the Patriots were the ones who needed to stop the
clock, and Miami had the NFL’s leading rusher in their backfield. Yet, on the
first two downs, they called for passes. When they did run, it was quarterback
Jay Fiedler running, not Williams. Punter Mark Royals completed the disastrous
series with a 23-yard punt.

The Dolphins had burned all of
twenty-eight seconds.

New England actually got the ball to the
Miami 25. But on third-and-1, Smith couldn’t pick up the yard that would have
given the Patriots the chance to go for the win in regulation. “Keep trying,”
Jason Taylor shouted in the direction of Belichick. The Dolphins defensive end
was daring the coach to send Smith into the line on fourth down. “Keep trying,”
he repeated.

Instead, Vinatieri made a 43-yard field goal to tie
it at 24. Eleven points in five minutes. Who didn’t know
what was going to happen in overtime? Who didn’t know that there would be more
Miami mistakes? The first was Mare kicking the ball out of bounds after the
Patriots won the coin flip. Who didn’t know that Vinatieri would win it with a
35-yard kick and then shrug later in the locker room, saying, “What can I say?
This is what I do”?

R
omeo Crennel called it early. He
was watching the Green Bay–New York game, and he had an observation about the
Packers. “Green Bay doesn’t want to play today,” he said. The Packers were
already in the play-offs, and the Jets needed to win. The Jets were relentless
too.

Brian Belichick was watching the game in his
father’s office. When Brett Favre threw a touchdown pass to former Patriot
Terry Glenn, Brian had to tell his father. “Hey, Dad. Look who just scored:
Terry Glenn!” They all gave each other high-fives and said what a dependable
player (wink wink) the notoriously undependable Glenn was.

But it
didn’t matter. It was over. The Jets did whatever they wanted against the
Packers. The final score was 42–17, and Crennel was right. Green Bay didn’t
want to play.

Belichick must have known it too. “I can’t stay here
and watch this,” he said. He packed up some of his things and was gone by
halftime, when it was still a 14–10 game. At least he didn’t have to see the
worst of it.

As he thought about it later that night and early the
next day, he wasn’t that angry about missing the play-offs. “It was probably
for the best,” he says. “It didn’t look like we were going very far.” He knew
they would have had to go there without Brady, who had
reinjured his arm against the Dolphins. He wouldn’t have been available for a
play-off game if there had been one.

But there wasn’t. This was a
team that had tried to be what it used to be. The lesson, though, was that none
of us can go back. For one game, their last of the year, the Patriots were able
to mimic themselves from 2001. By the time they got it right, December 29,
2002, it was far too late.

Only the
naive didn’t understand what the squad meeting truly represented. And no one in
the Gillette Stadium auditorium, at least one season into a Patriots career,
was considered naive. It was going to be good-bye for a dozen of them, maybe
more. It was nine
A.M.
on December 30, the Monday
morning after Miami. Just a couple of days earlier, in this same room, they had
been asked to collectively figure out a way to beat the Dolphins. Now each of
them was potentially an independent contractor who might be asked to turn in
his ID card and work somewhere else.

Cold, yes. But
each of them had gotten over cold a long time ago. This was what made them
professionals: concentrating on doing a good job every day, even though the
talent searchers in the organization—the scouts—were in the
same building trying to find people who could replace them. It was protocol,
not personal. And when the team had gone 9–7, it was something else:
inevitable.

So this was going to be the last meeting for several
Patriots. They weren’t going to be here on Saturday mornings before a road
trip, watching all the wives and girlfriends in the parking lot wave to their
men on the bus. No more State Police escorts from two states—Massachusetts and
Rhode Island—on the way to T. F. Green Airport in Providence. Once there, the
bus drives toward a security gate at airport operations. It is waved through
and pulls up to the plane. No one is asking if you’ve packed all your bags
yourself or if you talked to any strangers on the way to the airport. Just
board the chartered plane—it’s not a luxury plane, it’s just chartered—and wait
for the flight attendants to offer more food than necessary.

For
some, this was going to be the end of hearing Belichick’s raw analyses of the
Patriots and the teams they play. There would be no more surprises from the
coach, like the one he had after the Thanksgiving win in Detroit. After leading
the players in the Lord’s Prayer, he told them he had several announcements to
make. It was all good news. He was giving them the weekend off; that news drew
their applause. He told them to leave their red throwback jerseys next to their
lockers and to not even think about keeping them. “By the way some of you guys
look in these red uniforms, don’t gain too much weight,” he cracked. He told
them that, with the weekend off, they should avoid trouble. He glanced at
Willie McGinest when he said “trouble,” and McGinest started laughing. “Come
on, Coach. Why are you looking at me when you say that?” He asked the players
to give thanks and reminded them that there was someone
they could call—a coach or family member—who had helped them along the
way.

Next season, some of them were going to miss the camaraderie,
adult and juvenile alike. They weren’t going to be able to hear a few guys
whistle on the plane as
The Godfather
’s Michael Corleone
watched his Sicilian bride remove her shirt. In 2003, how many times would
there be locker- room celebrations like the one in Champaign, Illinois? The
Patriots had trailed the Bears by three touchdowns, 27–6, in the third quarter.
They came back to win, 33–30, on a late touchdown catch by David Patten.
“Where’s the beer?” offensive lineman Grey Ruegamer shouted. “I’ve never met
anyone luckier than Tom Brady,” Mike Vrabel said so Brady, who had thrown 55
passes, could hear him. “If we had lost this game,” Pepper Johnson announced,
“it would have felt like losing to the University of Illinois! Because how can
you lose to the Chicago Bears when you’re not at Soldier Field? We’re not even
in Chicago.”

It was fun. Now it was history. All kinds of practice
conversations, weight-room competitions, observations about what was on the
television in the cafeteria—all gone into the vault known as the 2002
season.

How long does it take to switch one’s focus from one
season to the next? How about one shift? The squad meeting was at nine o’clock.
At four o’clock there was a “needs meeting” in Belichick’s office. The coach,
Ernie Adams, and Scott Pioli were all there with independent lists. They were
charged with taking the first steps toward reconstructing the Patriots. It was
going to take them from December 30, 2002, until August 19, 2003, to acquire
and shape all the pieces they needed to be great again.

They weren’t going to be able to do it alone. They were
going to need help from ownership, the scouts, the assistant coaches, and in
some cases the players themselves. They would do some work in Foxboro, but
there would be trips to Mobile, Alabama, and Indianapolis as well. There was
the East-West Game, the Cactus Bowl, the Senior Bowl, the Paradise Bowl, and
the Hula Bowl. There was going to be pro free agency, a strange period: some
players who didn’t satisfy the Patriots would make another team happy, and some
players who were fired by other teams would be embraced by the Patriots. All of
those all-star bowls—not to mention the Super Bowl—were in January. The
fifty-nine days of Pioli’s January and February schedule were jammed with
football activities. There was just one exception, at 5:20 in the evening on
January 9: Pioli had a dental appointment, during which he was scheduled to
have his teeth cleaned. He had to lead a department, watch film, consult with
Belichick, and handle things at home with Dallas. She was four months pregnant
with their first child.

It wasn’t just the players.
Everyone
in the organization knew how unhappy Belichick was
with the previous season. He became surly when anyone mentioned his secondary
in a complimentary way. He was clearly going to overhaul it. He also wasn’t
going to tolerate any misevaluations by his coaches or by college or pro
scouts. If you weren’t going to be able to get it right, you were put on
notice. He was coming after you. If you saw something positive and he didn’t
see it, it was okay. You just had better be prepared to defend it.

He gave Pioli, Adams, and all the coaches postseason assignments: they
had ten games to watch, and they were asked to make their
evaluations off those ten games. They knew he would be watching too, and there
was no such thing as a throwaway line when describing a player’s strengths and
weaknesses. If you said a player still had sudden burst, for example, and the
coach didn’t see it, he would ask you to cite your sources, like a professor
demanding more from the bibliography. At the end of the year and well into
January and wild-card weekend, it didn’t feel like the Patriots had actually
won nine games. This was the feeling that a six- or seven-game winner would
have. From all perspectives, there was no confusion about what was starting to
happen. In corporate-speak, there were going to be transfers, layoffs, firings,
and vigorous interviewing of fresh-faced kids from college.

Anthony Pleasant had seen the ritual play out since1992. Pleasant was a
month away from his thirty-fifth birthday at the end of 2002. He was a deep man
whom the players sometimes called “Moses” for his wisdom and religious
convictions. He knew what was happening. He understood that he was at the age
where it could happen to him, without anyone asking questions. “Sometimes the
business takes the fun out of the game because of everything that goes on
around you,” he says. “You know, the different politics and that kind of stuff.
So that takes the fun out of it and makes it hard to trust people. It’s a cold-hearted business. It’s not the real world either. It’s not the everyday
nine-to-five job. It’s a coldhearted, cutthroat business.”

Larry
Cook was one of the people assigned to find the best rookies and replacements
for the Patriots. The scout didn’t disagree with Pleasant’s analysis. The
nature of the job is diabolical. “You’ve got to be cruel at times,” he says.
“It’s a bit of a mercenary position.” Cook has been
involved with football evaluation for over forty years. He has seen the game
from all regions of the country. He grew up on Chicago’s South Side, went to
college in Michigan, worked and taught in California, scouted nationally, and
arrived in New England in 1985. He knew what Belichick wanted, and he knew how
to think about what the coach wanted.

“A lot of times when a team
gets to the Super Bowl, that’s really the apex of their performance. And what
you really have to guard against is becoming complacent with the personnel you
have. When you do that, essentially, you step off the cliff. Our job is to have
people in place, ready to be future Patriots. It may take them a year or two or
three to develop—but hopefully not ten. We can’t let the team fall off the
cliff. That’s the whole purpose of our job. That’s what we have to
prevent.”

All of football operations went to work. Flights,
hotels, and rental cars were booked. Sources were called. Office lights were
left on a little longer than usual. They were all working for one of the most
competitive coaches in the country, and they had to realize that he was angry.
They had to realize that one thought was uppermost in his mind: the Patriots
didn’t even qualify for the right to guard their championship. At minimum, his
next team had to be able to do that.

I
t was 7:15 on a Tuesday morning,
and the temperature in Foxboro was in the single digits. On this windy day in
January—the 22nd—Bill Belichick was taking a drive. He got behind the wheel of
his Toyota SUV, slipped Santana’s
Supernatural
into the CD player, and started driving
south toward Annapolis. He would see his parents and do some scouting at the
University of Maryland. He would have his cell phone with him, and that was a
good thing, because he had a lot of work to do.

As he
drove through Rhode Island two things were apparent: he was tired—he had been
rubbing his face and shifting in his seat—and he was agitated about his
defensive backs. “We’ve got major problems in the secondary,” he said. He
wasn’t happy with any of his safeties in 2002. He thought Victor Green had lost
a lot of speed. He thought Lawyer Milloy had lost speed too, and he was shocked
by the zeros Milloy posted in the playmaking categories—no forced fumbles, no
fumble recoveries, no interceptions. Tebucky Jones missed too many tackles and
was going to want a lot of money; Belichick had a problem with both of these
things. He was surprised that on a defense ranked as low as the Patriots’, the
team had three starters make the Pro Bowl.

“I’m sorry,” he said.
“I just can’t say anything good about our defense right now.”

He
said he was not sure what would be done about cornerback Ty Law’s high cap
number for 2003 or about Milloy’s contract, which was backloaded. He needed to
do something about his fatigue, though. He decided to take the next exit. He
wanted to find a place where he could get a bottle of water. He gave no thought
to his status as one of the most recognizable faces in New England. As soon as
he stepped out of the car, a young man spotted him and yelled, “Bill, nice to
see you.” Belichick waved and walked into a convenience store, where four
people stared at him as he brought the bottle to the counter.

Back on the road, his cell phone rang. It was Berj
Najarian, the coach’s executive administrator. Najarian had earned Belichick’s
complete trust. (“No matter what I give him, he can handle it. He’s so
competent. I wish I could be as organized as he is.”) Belichick was receiving
an update on strength coach Mike Woicik. The Jacksonville Jaguars had faxed a
request to speak with Woicik about becoming their strength coach. Jack Del Rio,
a close friend of Woicik’s, was the new head coach of the Jaguars. Najarian
told Belichick that the Patriots’ chief operating officer, Andy Wasynczuk,
would be calling him soon.

Wasynczuk called a few minutes later,
and Belichick already knew what to tell him about Woicik: “I’d like to give him
permission to speak with those guys, but I don’t want to give him permission
yet to take the job. I’m not sure if that’s possible.” And since they were on
the subject of Jacksonville, Belichick mentioned that he wanted to hire former
Jaguars assistant John Hufnagel as quarterbacks coach.

He was
working the phone and talking football. The music changed from Santana to the
Beatles to U2. Rhode Island became Connecticut, and Connecticut became New
York. Belichick left a message for Robert Kraft so the owner could be updated.
He talked with Wasynczuk a second time. Somewhere on the New Jersey Turnpike he
even received a surprise phone call from a cousin who wanted to set up a family
reunion.

Soon enough he would have his own reunion, with Mom and
Dad. He wanted to take the scenic route into Annapolis, pointing out some of
the local landmarks. He smiled when he passed the restaurant on Dock Street
where he used to work. He was just 15 minutes away from his parents’ house;
they have lived in the same place for the past 44 years.
Belichick has someone take care of their landscaping and was always making
other efforts to modernize the home that they adored. Steve and Jeanette Beli-chick had been married so long, Jeanette says with a smile, “because I don’t
nag him.” One of the few times that she did, she was right. She had been
editing one of his football books, and she said she didn’t understand the
excessive jargon. “You’re not supposed to understand it,” he replied. “It’s not
for you. It’s for football coaches.” She shook her head. “That’s the problem
with you coaches. You’re not thinking about the average reader.” She was right.
He accepted her changes.

Now she was at the door, wishing that her
only child could stay longer than a day. She hugged and kissed him, told him to
have a seat, and made sure she had all his updated numbers. And since it was
Maryland, after all, she was making crabcakes. She is a calm woman who has a
wonderful voice. She and Steve complement each other. He has a good sense of
humor and doesn’t mind telling you a few stories. He likes to sit in the family
room, lined with books and game balls, and read the sports sections of the
Washington Post
and the local paper, the
Capital.
Sometimes when he can’t believe something he’s seen,
he’ll read it aloud to Jeanette to see what she thinks. When Belichick arrived
at home, his father had been watching ESPN’s
Pardon the
Interruption.
“You ever watch this show?” he said to his son. “It’s
pretty good.”