Foxborough, Mass. – The system finally caught up with them. They lost one too many free agents, one too many playmakers, one too many pieces to the puzzle. So many that even Bill Belichick couldn’t make another Super Bowl run.
Or so we thought back in mid-November when the New England Patriots lost their third home game out of five. But then things began to happen. November turned to December and, sure enough, December turned to January.
“It’s our time,” Patriots tight end Daniel Graham said after Sunday’s 37-16 playoff victory over the New York Jets. “We’re flying under the radar, and that’s the way we like it.”
It was easy to fly under the radar in the AFC this season. The San Diego Chargers turned in the greatest season in franchise history, and the Baltimore Ravens reestablished themselves as the standard of the industry among NFL defenses.
How powerful is the AFC these days? The Indianapolis Colts won their first nine games, which didn’t get them so much as a first-round bye.
The Patriots went into the playoffs as just another face in the crowd, as the fourth seed in the conference. But they still have Belichick, one of nine coaches in NFL history with three championship rings, and they still have Tom Brady, the winningest quarterback of his generation.
And it is, after all, January, when the Patriots have a funny way of finding a way. No, says Brady, it isn’t a fluke. That’s how they’re wired.
“I think, when you’re born and put on this Earth, you’ve got a certain skills set that kind of helps you be ready for situations like this,” Brady said. “We’ve got a bunch of players who’ve come up over the years and trained to prepare for moments like this. It’s about being focused, it’s about working hard to prepare and not being overwhelmed by the situation. There’s something in you that you figure you can handle it.”
Then he proceeded to rattle off the names. Tedy Bruschi. Mike Vrabel. Rosevelt Colvin. Richard Seymour.
“I’m glad we’ve got guys like that,” Brady said.
They used to have guys named David Givens and Willie McGinest and Ty Law and Deion Branch, but watched them walk away when they became too expensive. Not only that, they lost three coordinators – Romeo Crennel, Charlie Weis and Eric Mangini – to head coaching jobs.
So much for the notion that the Pats, in the aftermath of all those defections, aren’t the Pats anymore.
They were good enough to finish 12-4, better than their record in 2001, the season they won their first Super Bowl. And, as is their way, they’re playing their best football when it matters most.
“Yeah, definitely, no question,” Brady said. “The defense has been playing great all year and, offensively, I think we’ve kind of found a nice identity. We know what our guys do really well, the guys we’ve incorporated. We’re running the ball really well, spreading the ball around. … We’ve just got to keep it going.”
These aren’t the Patriots of old. They have no 1,000-yard runner and no 800-yard receiver. Jabar Gaffney, their go-to guy in Sunday’s win over the Jets, was picked up after being cut by Philadelphia before the season. He had 11 receptions during the season, but grabbed eight for 104 yards in his first career playoff game.
The Jets beat the Patriots 17-14 on Nov. 12 in their previous meeting at Gillette Stadium. But Sunday’s game was different from the opening moments, when the Pats came out in a no-huddle offense that had the Jets struggling to get their personnel on the field.
It was the latest stroke of genius by Belichick in the playoffs. With the sun shining and temperatures in the low 50s, he was sporting his trademark gray sweat shirt with the cutoff sleeves, the one you wouldn’t wear to clean your garage.
No sleeves, no sweat, as things turned out.
“If you don’t substitute, then they can’t substitute, either,” Belichick said when asked about his no-huddle strategy. “We wanted to go at a tempo where we could kind of control it, and we were able to do that. We did a better job today of playing our game and doing the things we needed to do.”
Forget the Jets getting their personnel on the field. The Patriots played at such a fast pace, the officials barely got the ball spotted before the New Eng- land offensive line arrived for another play.
“It got to be one of those games,” Brady said. “I had never been in a game where it was like that. We were rushing to the line of scrimmage, rushing the run plays. At one point, we ran the same play four times in a row, and in my earphone, Josh (McDaniels, the offensive coordinator) says, ‘Run it again.’ I’m like, ‘All right, let’s get up and run the ball.”‘
To say the least, Belichick’s latest playoff ploy was a rousing success. By halftime, the Pats had run 46 plays to the Jets’ 26. By game’s end, they had converted 11-of-16 third downs, eight more than the Jets in the same number of opportunities.
And, as usual, the Pats had unsung heroes. Nose tackle Vince Wilfork, for instance. He almost scored in the third quarter after alertly picking up the ball after Colvin had batted down a backward pass by Chad Pennington.
“I just saw the end zone,” said Wilfork, all 325 pounds of him. “I’m like, ‘Man, that’s a long way.’ It’s the first time I’ve run with the ball in the NFL. I’ll look at the film of myself and see what I need to work on.”
Now comes the fun part for the Patriots. A date with the big, bad Chargers a continent away in San Diego. Wilfork’s scouting report on the AFC West champions?
“Everywhere you look, they’re loaded,” he said. “LaDainian Tomlinson, (Antonio) Gates. … They’ve got a good offense, a good defense, good special teams. … Where do you want me to start? We have our hands full all around the board. So anything other than our ‘A’ game from us and we’ll lose. We know that.”
But then, if any team is going to bring its “A” game in January, it’s the Patriots.
Staff writer Jim Armstrong can be reached at 303-954-1269 or jmarmstrong@denverpost.com.
