FOXBORO – Because the Patriots have been so good for so long, the main protagonists in their story unchanged, we’re always looking to the past for links and precedents.
Troy Brown to Wes Welker to Julian Edelman. Kevin Faulk to Danny Woodhead to Shane Vereen to James White.
A season of dominance begins to unfold? How’s it compare to ’07? Bad receivers? Is it like ’06 or ’13? Tom Brady not looking like Tom Brady? Is it like ’05 or ’13 or early in ’14?
It’s like examining the growth rings on inside a tree and remembering what the wide ones and skinny ones represented.
Throughout this season, we’ve gone back to the ring representing 2009, probably the bleakest year in the Patriots dynasty. And there’s been reason behind the comp. Between the team’s struggles on the road (a 3-5 record), their final record (11-5, the lowest win total since ’09) and the specter of having to play in the (gasp!) Wild Card Round for the first time since that season, it’s been an easy touchstone.
It was wildly insubordinate for a Bill Belichick coached team. It was a blend of immature and self-impressed and – as its 33-14 playoff bludgeoning at the hands of the Ravens showed – it wasn’t real good nor real competitive. But what set that team apart was the fact it had factions.
New England Patriots
I’ll never forget safety Brandon McGowan, calling out offensive lineman Mark Levoir in full view of the media after a game against the Jets for a crushing block Levoir threw on cornerback Donald Strickland. Rookie corner Darius Butler chirped his agreement.
“Are they mad at you for blocking too hard?” I asked Levoir.
“I guess so,” he answered.
So what’s my point? It’s that, even though the team’s relative struggles this season might recall the last time they won fewer than 12 games, this team is nothing like that one.
Rob Gronkowski led me in this direction.
After the Patriots 38-3 demolition of the Jets, I asked Gronk how deeply the criticism of the past week penetrated.
“Being here for a while now, many years, I’m pretty sure I’m used to ups and downs like we were talking about (earlier in our conversation),” he said. “But, it’s part of the game and it’s part of the process. You just have to ignore the noise and you have to stay focused. Everyone within the locker room just has to keep putting our heads forward and keep looking to get better every single week, and that’s what we’ve been doing.”
The first part of the answer brushed up against some candor but by the end he retreated into Pats-speak.
Then he stopped, opened his eyes wide as if he just remembered something important and started again.
“One huge thing too is we’ve been sticking together,” he added. “When people are down everyone’s been coming together, everyone’s been lifting each other up, and we’ve just been staying strong together. I believe it showed just how strong we are as a team through the end of the season.”
Mutual support, team-wide character, caring for your fellow man – it’s all terrific. But it’s not going to get the Patriots to Atlanta in February as readily as blocking, tackling and converting on third down.
But there’s a “just keep swimming” mentality that makes this team – despite its flaws – unworthy of being lumped in with that ’09 team.
How much can you take from the season-ending wins over the Bills and Jets? Honestly, it doesn’t mean much what YOU take from it or me.
What the players and coaches quite clearly took from it was significant.
The carrot-dangling that goes on all week in the meeting rooms and practice fields we weren’t privy to but the party line after the game made it clear. This game against a moribund team with a lame-duck head coach was treated as a playoff game.
“The bye is huge,” said Gronkowski. “It’s huge. That was basically a playoff win right there. To get that win today, now we don’t have to play next week. It basically won us a game for next week. So we got a bye, rest up, get the mental part and physical part.”
Maybe you were watching the fourth quarter out of the corner of your eye or had switched over to Red Zone, but the Patriots were taking this game dead seriously.
“What was huge was the final drive we did to complete (the game),” said Gronk. “You know, we’re up 28-3 and we go down, it’s the fourth quarter at the end of the regular season. We just go down and make a drive and put up points, which was tremendous to do.”
Cute. Nice. How’s that help them in two weeks against the Chargers or Ravens or Texans?
That’s the thing. We don’t know. They don’t either.
But what they THINK about getting to 11-5 after Gronk’s up-and-down season, Julian Edelman’s suspension, the fits and starts of the offense, the addition and subtraction of Josh Gordon, the ass-kickings on the road and whatever trials we weren’t even privy to does matter.
They think they have a shot.
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