The Patriots Act
A perfect storm is an often used cliché. It is used for, sparingly, actual storms, but mostly for any disaster that was most likely not a perfect storm, but it seems either more interesting or more defensible if it was some ‘perfect storm’ brewed from nature like a potion. The use of the phrase is now so common that never does anyone even question its use. True perfect storms are rare, powerful and destructive. Perfect storms come around once or twice a decade in reality, like the Indian Ocean Tsunami/Earthquake. That was a perfect storm. The Credit Market collapse that ruined the economy worldwide, that was not a perfect storm. Hurricane Katrina, that was a perfect storm. The recent BP oil spill, that was not. The 2007 New England Patriots taping video signals and that blowing up in their face, causing scorn and hatred which was retaliated by the most vengeful team in sports history, which finally ended poetically with a great upset, all of those things which never would have happened if the perpetrator’s right hand man with inside knowledge decided not to turn him in after a hissy fit after an embarrassing loss, that was a perfect storm.
There was no team more interesting, more polarizing, more ashamed, more vengeful, more hailed, more hated and more popular than the 2007 New England Patriots, and all of it had to do with silly video signals. There was a tyrannical team that was caught as a team form of a criminal. The team was led by a dictator of a man, shrouded in mystery. Instead of accepting their punishment, they terrorized the rest of their peers week after week, somehow turning it around and placing the blame on everyone else. They showed no remorse, beating the strong until they were down, killing the weak while they were. Not until a team from the Gotham of New York City came to fight them with the Batman of Eli Manning, and his (helmeted)sidekick Robin named David Tyree, was the tyrant stopped, but until then no one complained, just watched in amazement. The Patriots were that tyrant, but more than that, they were THE tyrant. At a time when villains and heroes are doing battle in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Patriots become enemy #1 as well as exhibit #1 of greatness in team sports. All the talking heads had something to say, from those on sports radio to those on Capitol Hill. Everyone wondered, “How much did they cheat?”, “Were they punished enough?”, “Why are the Patriots acting like the victim?”, and most importantly, “Can Anyone beat that F**king team?!?!”
It started in Week 1 of the 2007 season, near the end of the Patriots rather routine 38-14 win over the New York Jets. The Jets were not a very good team, so that score was not that ridiculous (at least compared to what was to come). Eric Mangini claimed that the Patriots were illegally taping the defensive signals of the Jets, which was clearly against the rules. Mangini was correct, and he knew this since he knew the Patriots were taping signals throughout his time in New England as well. The Patriots were not forced to forfeit that game (what would have been a fair punishment), and for a day it did not seem like that big of a story. Most people thought that like in baseball, sign stealing was not that big of a deal, was not going to be punished that severely, and that the season would go on like normal. However, by the next Tuesday, it became obvious how wrong this was, and that the 2007 Season would not be like any other in recent memory.
On Tuesday, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell levied his penalty. Patriots Coach Bill Belichick, a hoodied, mysterious genius of a coach, was to be fined 500,000 dollars, the most ever levied to any one coach (or even player), and the team would be docked their first round pick in the 2008 draft. Some said this was too much, some said that this was not enough, some stupidly called for the Patriots’ three Super Bowl Titles in 2001, 2003 and 2004 to be stripped. Of course, Roger Goodell smartly did not listen to this polarized outcry, but he, stupidly, burned the video tapes that the league confiscated from the Patriots, burning the lasting evidence to the severity of the crime, and burning away the remains of the tape-stealing story. Roger Goodell would have loved for his burning of the tapes to end all discussion of Spygate, as the incident was unoriginally coined, but he was wrong. It was just starting, and the Patriots would be taking center stage.
LaDainian Tomlinson, the future Hall of Fame running back, was not a fan of Bill Belichick and the Patriots’ work. In fact, he hated their work and he hated them especially after they celebrated on the Chargers field after winning a playoff game the previous January. He was delighted by the public shame that the Patriots action had garnered them, and he used this opportunity to join various other NFL Players and coaches, both current and past, to voice his displeasure with the Patriots and their Spygate-ing ways. “The Patriots follow the motto, ‘if you’re not cheatin’, you’re not tryin’” he said in an interview. The Chargers and Patriots were scheduled to play that Sunday night in Foxboro, MA, in a early-season litmus test for both, which is why these words were so meaningful. For years the Patriots were known as a team who used this “bulletin board material” to inspire their performances, but this was usually used to inspire their defense. This taunt from Tomlinson was pointed at the team. Everyone’s taunts and jabs were pointed at the team. It was unofficial ‘Bash on the Pats’ week in the NFL, and everyone was happy to oblige. The Patriots, although 100% guilty of what they were accused of doing, had enough of this most public celebration by the rest of the league on their demise. They fueled the numerous taunts, and questions and insults into something special, so special it would captivate the nation and turn the fall and winter’s most watched TV program into “New England Patriots Games.”
The Patriots, mad at what Tomlinson and everyone else (like Coach Jeff Fisher, Terry Bradshaw, Tom Jackson, Merrill Hodge and more) said, drummed the Chargers 38-14 (up 24-7 at the half). They destroyed the team that many saw as the best in the AFC, and did it on National Television. At the end of the game, each Patriots player took time to hug their coach and leader, the man who was $500,000 lighter in the jeans pocket than he was just seven days earlier. Most people around the nation thought they saw an inspired performance by a great team. What they didn’t realize was that the fun, at least for the Patriots, was just beginning, and that the Chargers weren’t the focus, everyone was.
The Patriots, fueled by the taunts of the teams around the league, score 38, 34, 34, 48, 49 and 52 points in the next six games. It was the most amazing sight in football history. They were simply ruthless. Tom Brady, a QB that was hailed as the next Joe Montana, was finally putting up the stats that everyone wondered if he could ever put up. He had a perfect receiving corp, with Randy Moss, who was fired up to show the league that his stint in Oakland was a mirage and the real Moss was still there, Wes Welker, who was fired up to show the league that he was not a type-cast “white” receiver, and that he could be great, Donte’ Stallworth, who was fired up to show the league that he was not to blame for his being on three different teams in three years, and great offensive line, who was fired up to show the league just what pass-protection looks like. Of course, everyone was fired up to show the league that stealing signals had nothing to do with their 3 Super Bowl Titles. It was proof by execution. “Surely the signals that we taped meant nothing if we are setting offensive records here!” they were saying to the league. Of course, this polarized the nation on the Patriots even more. There were the people who love greatness, love perfection, and they were ebullient to see offense being played at a level it never was before. Then, there were all the people who lauded sportsmanship, and saw the Patriots Revenge Act as bad natured when they humiliated teams. Of course, this lead to controversy number two, running-up the score.
There has always been a code among sportsmen, a code that is rarely broken. It says that when one team is comfortably ahead, assured of victory, that that team would stop running all ten cylinders and dial everything down, basically go through the motions until the clocks showed zero. The Patriots, however, knew of no such gentleman’s agreement (or as Tomlinson, I’m sure, would agree, they knew of the agreement, but the Patriots weren’t gentleman). They threw when up 42-21 in the fourth quarter. Lord knows, they threw on 4th down up 45-7 against Washington. They threw and threw and threw. They always had to get one last touchdown in, one last “eff-you” TD, as Bill Simmons called it, just to show that team that first, the torture was not over yet, and that the Pats are just that dominant. The fact that they did this to Joe Gibbs, one of the few men who could claim to be Bill Belichick’s equal as a head coach, made it worse. The Patriots were, seemingly, intentionally running up the score on teams that had no chance to stop them anyway. It was horrible, unjust and ugly, and of course, great, great television.
The Patriots were suddenly America’s villain, and of course, everyone had to check out the villain. Even people that had no idea what sports were, and who Bill Belichick was, and certainly not if stealing signals had any real effect on the game, had to check in. Everyone has to be witness to the perfect storm. The Patriots, for one season at least, became America’s team. Patriots’ games were the 5-highest rated TV events of that TV season. The Patriots-Chargers, Patriots-Cowboys, Patriots-Colts, Patriots-Chargers Championship Game, and Super Bowl XLII (Patriots-Giants) all garnered more viewers than any other single TV program that TV season. American Idol was no longer the best reality show. That was the Patriots. Would they run it up? Would they hit 70? Would Tom Brady throw 6 tds? Would Belichick shake the opposing coach’s hand? These were the new question’s in TV. And of course, that same old one: “Can anyone beat that F**king team?!?!”
The chase for perfection was what made the 2007 Patriots the perfect storm. Not only did they break the rules in a manner that was probably more egregious than any football team in the NFL’s history, not only did they run up the score in a smug fashion and play with a hauntingly funny outward arrogance, and not only were they on pace to shatter nearly every record in the books on offense, but they were yet to lose a game. Never has the “Is this team going to go undefeated” asked any earlier than it was with the Pats. Because they were winning games by 24, 24, 31, 17, 21, 21, 21, 45 points for the first eight games, there seemed to not even be a team that could play with them, let alone beat them. The madness reached its height when before their Week 9 matchup against the Colts, the Patriots were favored by 6 points. The Patriots were playing in Indianapolis, against the defending champion Colts who were 8-0 and won their last two games by the combined score of 60-14, and the Patriots were nearly touchdown favorites, and no one could argue. The Patriots managed a tight win, coming back from 20-10 down in the 4th quarter. Sure, the Patriots won the game, but at least the Colts showed that the Pats were beatable, and maybe the revenge that they were levying against the rest of the league had an expiry date.
The Pats offense slowed, but the wins did not. It culminated in a Week 13 game agat the Baltimore Ravens. The Ravens, 4-7 at the time, were not supposed to be any match, but their defense, the heart and soul of their team, was finally healthy, and playing for their fallen College comrade Sean Taylor. On a windy Monday Night, Baltimore played inspired. Tom Brady barely completed half his passes, and with 2 minutes to go, the Patriots, who had sputtered all night, were down by 4. However, like they did every single one of the first 18 games they played, the Patriots made every play late. It was not the “eff-you” TD but the “Thank-God!!” TD. The Patriots, just like they did in a 31-28 win over the Eagles the week before, escaped with a win. Sure, the Patriots that dropped 48, 49, 52 and 56 points in four games in six weeks were gone, but the ones that win were not, and entering the playoffs at 16-0, the season that started, and in all reality kickstarted, by Spygate, by fines and lost draft picks, by scorn and rage, by taunts and insults, was three weeks away from ending in the most unlikely way, with a 19-0 record.
The Patriots efficiently, if not listlessly, rolled through two playoff games, setting up a rematch against the Giants, the team that barely lost to the Patriots 38-35 four weeks earlier. They were not supposed to be any match for the Patriots and their record setting offense. In between the day Spygate started, and their cap to a 16-0 season, the Patriots scored 589 points, beating the old record by 33. Tom Brady threw 50 tds (to just 8 ints), to barely beat Peyton Manning’s 49 he threw three seasons earlier. Randy Moss caught 23 td passes, again barely beating Jerry Rice’s 1987 record of 22 (it should be noted Jerry did his 22 in only 13 games, as it should be noted Brady threw 81 more passes than Manning did in 2004, because the Colts did not run up scores). The Patriots set records everywhere, but the one they really wanted, and would really shut up all the idiots who claimed that the league should strip their earlier titles, was the Super Bowl, and that record for most wins in a season with 19. All of those earlier records could be broken one day. The 19-0 never will. They will live on forever, just like the 1972 Dolphins did and continue to do. The Patriots knew this, and knew that this was the perfect way to end the storm that started five months earlier in Giants Stadium (irony there) where they were caught filming signals.
Of course, the Sports God’s had different ideas. In what was mistakenly called a perfect storm of a game by the Giants, the Patriots fell, somehow. For a team that had once scored 42 points before halftime, they were awful, outdone by a defensive line that simply played better. The Giants simply played better. Sure, luck was involved. If Asante Samuel caught that interception, the Pats would have won. Sure, if Eli Manning didn’t escape the sack or if David Tyree didn’t spontaneously use his helmet as a bar to catch a pass, the Patriots most likely would have one (if Tyree dropped it, it would have been 4th and 5 with 1 minute to go, not exactly over). However, the Patriots know better than anyone that “if” is a dangerous proposition. The best NFL franchise of the decade had made a fortune of banking on “If”s that didn’t turn out. “If Drew Bledsoe never sheared that blood vessel”, “If Walt Coleman didn’t inexplicably overturn Brady’s fumble”, “If the Rams learned to hold onto the ball”, “If Drew Bennett didn’t drop that fourth down pass”, “If the Panthers never went for two”, and “If the Eagles knew how to run a hurry-up offense.” If any of these “if”s didn’t happen, the Patriots dynasty doesn’t happen. “If”s are a part of life, and the biggest “if” for the 2007 Patriots was a different one, “What if Eric Mangini decided to keep his damn mouth shut.”
Eric Mangini’s double-crossing expose of the Patriots signal-stealing was the first step to creating a monster. The Patriots were so motivated by the taunts and insults launched at them after Spygate was exposed that they took it out and layed waste to the rest of the league for 18 weeks. Sure, the Patriots were a mightily talented team, with great weapons on offense and a savvy, good defense, but as we know from what happened when the momentum from the revenge for Spygate wore off sometime around the Colts and Eagles games in Weeks 9 and 12, the Patriots weren’t insanely better than the rest of the league. The Patriots played close games in the 4th quarter in Wins #9, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18 and in Loss #1. But it was Wins #1-8 and 10 that made the Patriots of 2007 the most analyzed and watch team of the decade, and what made Spygate and the Patriots subsequent chase of perfection one of the stories of the decade. When the Patriots were at their ruthless best, nothing else in sports really mattered. That years Red Sox World Series Title was totally overshadowed. The death of Sean Taylor was overshadowed. Everything happening in the world was overshadowed. The Patriots were the sports story, the news story and the gossip story. The Patriots were the story.
There never will be another perfect storm in sports like the 2007 New England Patriots again. First, there never will be another Spygate. For the first two weeks of its aftermath, it had giant-sized legs. People were bringing up all different types of alleged shady business that went on in Foxboro. People clamored for the Patriots titles to be stripped. Senators asked for congress to review the NFL saying that by destroying the videotapes the NFL was covering evidence that might show the league was unfair. Even the Matt Walsh fake story of the Patriots allegedly taping the Rams walkthrough had legs (I’ll have to admit, if that story was true, I believe stripping the Patriots of the 2001 Title might be reasonable). Then, there will never be another team that can use Spygate as the gasoline to spark that size of a sports’ inferno. The Patriots already had revenge and redemption on their mind after blowing a 21-3 lead in the 2006 AFC Championship Game. The failings in that game led to the Patriots bringing in Stallworth, Welker and Moss, which even without the extra-motivation from Spygate would have made for a dangerous offense, but when the energy from Spygate was added, it turned into arguably the greatest offense of all time (I’ll still take the Greatest Show on Turf, version 2000). Finally, add in a chase for perfection and you have the perfect football storm. That led to hundreds of hours spent on that old question, “Can Anyone Beat this F**king Team?!?!”
