They rise up en mass once every five to ten years, like a swarm of locusts. Nobody expects them, but when they are done, most everything around them has been chewed up and spat out.
Sounds like the plot line from a “B” movie, but its the story of the New England Patriots. Which is kind of appropriate. The Patriots are a perennial B-list team in the NFL. Nobody looks at them very closely when prognosticating the NFL playoff picture, they are seldom anybody’s first pick to go to the Super Bowl because they are mostly a sub-.500 team. But, once in a while, they take the league by surprise and win a couple of playoff games they, at least on paper, had no business winning.
The 1985 Patriots made stripping the other team of the ball their specialty. Nobody took the idea of running turnover drills in practice seriously until the Pats became the first team ever to win three road playoff games en route to the Super Bowl. Now, turnover differential is one of the best-kept statistics in the league.
The 1996 Patriots were the reformed product of Bill Parcells. They beat the then-defending AFC champion Steelers, and the upstart Jacksonville Jaguars in the playoffs. Current Patriot coach Bill Belichick was that team’s defensive coordinator.
There was one problem with those teams: They lost the Super Bowl. Badly. Super Bowl XX ushered in the Super Bowl’s “blowout era” as the Bears vaporized the Patriots. The Pats netted just seven yards rushing in the entire game, and quarterback Tony Eason was out before halftime. That game paved the way for the lopsided Redskins-Broncos, 49ers-Broncos, and Cowboys-Bills contests of the next 10 years.
Eleven years later, the Packers rode a pair of punt returns for touchdowns by MVP Desmond Howard to a double-figure win over the Pats in Super Bowl XXXI.
So why will this year be any different? The game is in the Superdome, just like the last two Super Bowls were for the Pats. That wouldn’t be significant except for the fact they are playing the St. Louis Rams, the best turf team in sports since the 1991 Minnesota Twins.
One, Drew Bledsoe isn’t starting at quarterback. He gets flustered too easily in the pocket. Patriot drives stall out when Bledsoe chucks hasty passes away.
Two, Tom Brady is starting as quarterback. He played in the Big Ten, where defenses are usually strong, so anything the Rams throw at him probably isn’t going to make him run and hide. He lacks the raw talent of Bledsoe, but his mental makeup seems to suit big games better.
Three, Belichick’s strong defense. Belichick has fielded strong defenses wherever he has gone. The only difference was that with the Giants, Jets and ’96 Pats, Parcells got most of the credit. With the Browns, politics and animosity masked anything good that came out of his tenure. Keep in mind that if the Rams have a weakness, it’s coughing the ball up.
Four, Troy Brown. Randy Moss and Terrell Owens may jump higher and whine louder, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a receiver who had a better overall season than Brown.
Last-and maybe this is most important-a Patriots victory will keep New Englanders’ minds off the Red Sox for a few months. You can only analyze the job status of Red Sox GM Dan Duquette so many dozens of times before its gets really old (you hear that, ESPN.com?)
