FOXBOROUGH, MASSACHUSETTS -- Even today, there are things that go as well as we
could have hoped for, that fit perfectly into the little slots we've carved out
for them in our minds.
It's a football day. As pure a football day, in fact, as anyone is likely to
witness at Gillette Stadium this season. The sky is clear, the air
cool-heading-for-cold, rich with the scent of burgers and chicken that rises up
from the gas and charcoal grills, gathers over the parking lots, then spreads
out along Route 1. Except for the fact that far too much of the foliage has yet
to turn -- robbing the horizon of color and the air of the subtle hint of
fallen leaves that seems to hold autumn still even while announcing its turn
toward winter -- this is the kind of day that makes people football fans to
begin with, hooking us with its endless charms, allowing us to pretend we've
forgotten about the hard, bitter months ahead.
It's impossible to forget that this may be the only classic New England autumn
day Patriots fans will get in Foxborough this
year. The Pats are back from
their bye week, fresh and ready, we hope (some of us might even pray), for
their game with the Denver Broncos. After this, they play three straight road
games, tough ones in Buffalo, Chicago, and Oakland. By the time they get back
home to host Minnesota on November 24, the trees will be mostly bare.
Thanksgiving will be hovering, keeping the idea of fall
alive. But winter
will be looming. They
don't forecast this far ahead, but no one will be at
all surprised if it's raining one of those awful, late-November-style rains,
the kind that ensures you'll be sick just in time for the holiday.
So this is it. This has to be a big day for the Pats, not just because they
need it, not just because they've lost three straight coming in and may well
lose two if not all three games on their extended road trip, but because we
need it. All of us gathered in the parking lots -- the burger grillers by the
backs of their cars; the prime-rib-and-mashed-potatoes types at the sides of
the RVs; the low-key tailgaters, like Tom and me, with our cans of Bud, our
sandwiches from the sausage guy, and our pre-game show on the car radio. All of
us walking up Route 1 to the stadium, still clutching a last beer, some
shouting from time to time, some laughing loudly all the way. All of us
crossing over the highway on the bridge, looking down on the sea of RVs in the
stadium lot, watching their standards (Patriots banners and US flags mostly,
with an Irish flag here, a booze-company logo there) shift gently in the lazy
breeze. We all need it.
For just a few seconds, I leave off thinking about how important this game is
to everyone to chuckle at the assortment of fans finishing their drinks just
outside the stadium gates, then to listen to the girl up ahead yelling,
"Programs! Get your New England Patriots PRO-grams!" (the call of stadium
vendors never ceases to have a comforting sort of music about it), when Tom,
looking up at the stadium, announces, "It's four o'clock."
He means only that the game's about to start, and his tone is just that flat,
but coupled with the newly early and accelerating dusk, it causes me to swallow
hard. They have to win today, I think, that's all there is to it.
AS WE WALK into the stadium, a cheer goes up from within. The people around us
join in, though no one has any idea what they're cheering for. The excitement
of the moment, the idea of a game about to start, is more than enough. Plus, it
helps us use up some nervous energy.
We walk upward forever, ramp after ramp, settling into our seats in the back
row of section 321 (the highest up I've been in the new stadium, though there's
still one tier above) just in time for the coin toss. Denver calls it wrong,
and I think maybe that's a good omen, maybe things will keep on going the
Patriots' way.
My optimism is miserably short-lived. The Pats fall flat on their first
possession, punting after three ineffective plays net them a lousy two yards.
The Broncos score on their first drive, making it look easy, going 52 yards to
the end zone in seven plays. The Pats get the ball back, lose two yards on
three plays this time, and punt again.
Only the fact that Denver quarterback Brian Griese throws a downright stupid
interception on the first play after the Pats' second punt keeps any hope
alive. Then the Pats sputter on yet another possession. Denver eats up the rest
of the first quarter, then scores to start the second.
Six plays and 15 yards of offense later, the Pats line up to punt once again.
Tom mutters, "This could get ugly."
"So you don't think this is ugly already?" I say.
He has no response.
Tom is a Denver fan before he's a Pats fan. Usually, anyhow. Today, he's
rooting for the Pats, not just because we're at their stadium, but because he
just thinks the Patriots need the win more. Tom's got a good bit of the cocky
Broncos fan in him. He's dead certain his team will win its division, even if
it is the toughest in the league (with San Diego, Kansas City, and Oakland all
playing good football this season), so he's happy to give up a game to a home
team whose chances of making the playoffs, much less repeating as league
champs, appear to be in jeopardy. Still, he winces every time mistake-prone
Griese holds the ball too long. And he casts smiling glances at the section
full of Broncos fans behind and to our left when his real team does well.
Not that the Broncos are looking especially good today. By midway through the
second quarter they've given up an interception and a fumble. It's just that
the Pats are looking particularly bad. Even when they turn that Denver fumble
into a short touchdown drive, they look awkward, halting in doing it. It
doesn't inspire renewal of anyone's confidence.
The Pats fans in this part of the stadium are mostly just quiet. They cheer for
the odd good play, but mainly just sit, grumbling to themselves, occasionally
grousing to their neighbors.
I don't hear a real jeer until late in the quarter, when Denver, having
traveled 65 yards in six plays to set up on the Pats' five-yard line, has a
running play go for only a yard.
"Whooo-hoo!" comes a voice dripping with sarcasm, from just over my right
shoulder. "We stopped 'em on that one!"
And all anyone within hearing distance can do is laugh.
IT GETS WORSE even before the half is out.
On the Pats first play after Denver's third TD, Tom Brady, who has looked worse
today than in any of the three previous games, can't find a receiver and has to
throw the ball away. Boos rise up from everywhere. It's official: the hero of
the Patriots' Super Bowl season, the guy who took Drew Bledsoe's job and
refused to give it back, is now just another quarterback, the guy who's going
to get blamed for every failure of his team's offense.
Then I hear the utterance I've always known was inevitable. "I knew trading
Bledsoe to the Bills was gonna come back to haunt them." I look over my left
shoulder to see the speaker, a fat guy with a season ticket in a plastic
envelope hanging from a lavaliere. I want to ask him if he was one of the
people yelling for the team to dump Bledsoe after last season, but he looks
angry enough already.
Two guys behind me and to my right -- the pumpkin-headed fellow who got the
negativity fest started with his mock enthusiasm moments earlier and his
friend, a round-shouldered guy in an ugly fleece jacket with sort of
Southwestern pattern but in all the wrong colors (blue, purple, and green) --
are insulting the team loudly and steadily. As the Pats line up to punt once
again with seconds remaining in the half, fat guy looks over at his
commiserators and offers, "These fuckin' losers don't even care. They'll
sputter through the rest of the season."
Not everyone is giving up. A youngish fellow in a big Patriots parka sitting
two rows in front of us may have his doubts about the offense, but he continues
to believe in the D. As the second half begins with Denver threatening to
score, he urges the section to rise and cheer on the defense with him. When the
Pats sack Griese for a big loss that will hurt Denver's chances at a field
goal, he looks around for high-fives, but gets only a few lackluster slaps from
fans who just don't have it in them to stand up.
Halfway through the third quarter, as Denver starts a drive from its 32-yard
line, parka boy once again tries to raise the section. "Come on!" he yells,
looking around for help. "De-fense! De-fense! De-fense!" A woman sitting in
front of Tom joins in hesitantly. I get the feeling she just sort of feels bad
for the guy.
A few minutes later, Denver, leading 21-10, gets off a bad punt and parka boy
shouts, "This is what we've waited for all day."
I can't help myself. I turn to Tom and say, "It is?"
By the time the Pats blow a two-point conversion early in the fourth, even
parka boy has gone quiet. Pumpkinhead, though, has gotten very loud. "I'm
ready," he says, responding to some unheard challenge. "I'm ready to go down
and try to do better than these guys."
It isn't long thereafter, though, that he and his buddy come up with a better
plan. As Brady takes a sack that will bring on the punting team with just under
10 minutes left in the game, Pumpkinhead offers, "That's it." He and his friend
turn to leave.
They aren't alone. And while Tom and I are among the few who stick it out until
the final seconds of the game, I'm never quite sure why we're staying here in
the dark and cold of a late-October night to watch the Patriots lose a game
they absolutely had to win.
As we inch our way out of the stadium, I hear a voice come up from the crowd:
"Bledsoe, where are you?"
It's only a week before the Pats go to Buffalo where Drew awaits. I might have
tried to remind the yeller as much, but I'm pretty sure that's not what he
meant.
Sean Glennon is a freelance writer living in Northampton, Massachusetts. He
can be reached at sean@thispatsyear.com.
Issue Date: November 1 - 7, 2002
