Robert Kraft got the call from the league during the offseason and of course said "Yes, we would be honored to represent the NFL in London." That was the correct answer. But now reality sets in and the importance of a regular season game far outweighs the plan for global domination of the sporting dollar. The Pats really need to put this game in the W column and if traveling to jolly old England to play in Wembley Stadium in any way hurts their chances to beat a hapless Tampa Bay team ... well, that's a problem.
The Patriots are 0-2 on the road so far this season and eventually, if you have plans of winning that fourth Super Bowl you've been battling for the last four years, you have to start winning road games. A trip to the sunny climes
of Tampa and the winless Bucs would have almost guaranteed the team's first road win. A detour to London and Wembley, the home of soccer, changes the odds just a bit. To say the least.After the Pats destruction of the Oilers/Titans in the snow last week, it seems safe to predict the Pats will come away with a win and go to 5-2 heading into their bye week. A trip to London hopefully turns out well. But a trip to Tampa would have almost certainly been a good thing for the Patriots ... and me. If the game was being played in Florida there's a good chance I would be sitting in the Bucs stadium come kickoff. Much like in 1997 when I flew down to visit my friend Brendan who worked for the Associated Press in Miami. Although it wasn't in Foxborough, it is one of my favorite "tales from the tailgate"... Florida style.
The Patriots played Tampa on November 16th in 1997, Pete Carroll's first year in the impossible task of replacing Bill Parcells. They were defending AFC champs. Drew Bledsoe. Curtis Martin before he left to join the Tuna. The Pats won their first four games under Carroll (I couldn't believe it either, but they really did. I checked). But they were sitting at 6-4 as they came into Tampa. The Buccaneers were 7-3 and playing some serious Tony Dungy defense. Nonetheless, I was feeling pretty confident.
I left Logan Airport Friday evening in the middle of a blizzard. I arrived a few hours later in Miami and soon found myself sitting in shorts and a T-shirt at a bar along a canal drinking a beer while large boats (yachts I think they call them) pulled up to the dock and let the beautiful people spill out one-by-one. This was my first trip to Miami. I felt like I had landed in Oz. Brendan, who is the type of person who knows his new town like the back of his hand in about a week, took me on a whirlwind tour of South Beach and the rest of Miami on Saturday. The next day, game day, we made the drive from Miami to Tampa along "Alligator Alley." We weren't exactly sober but I was not imagining the gators hanging on the side of the road. When Brendan asked if I needed to stop to go the bathroom, even though the answer was yes, the answer was no. Do you see the gators out there?
We drove into the city and found a parking spot in a lot near the old Tampa stadium known as Houlihan's Stadium. Named after Hot Lips Houlihan? I don't know. This was one year before Raymond James Stadium and the pirate ship with the canons that fire when the Bucs score a TD. The new stadium (much like Gillette a few years later) was rising up right beside the old one. The old stadium, kind of shaped like a giant saddle, was a heck of a place to watch a game. Brendan and I wandered around the Tampa-style tailgates looking for free food and beer. We found lots of beer. And at our last stop some interesting food.
"You ever had gator?" asked this rather large dude in a sherbet orange Bucs jersey and a cowboy hat in a Florida drawl. "Uh, no I said." Brendan had of course.
"Well you can't come all the way down to Florida and not have gator,'' he laughed as he cut me a piece. I took a bite of the chewy meat. It was good, tasting mostly of the spices he had cooked it in. "Where do you get alligator?" I asked.
The cowboy hat guy looked at me seriously and said "You drove here through alligator alley, right?" I told him we did. "You saw those gators on the side of the road?" he continued. I told him we did. "That's where we get 'em. On the way to the game we just grab one and cook it up," he said proudly. All his tailgating friends nodded and smiled.
Wow I thought. That's crazy. I took another bite. Wow. They get it on the side of the road? After a minute or two cowboy hat guy and his friends couldn't hold it in any longer and fell over each other laughing. Turns out in Florida you can just buy gator meat at the store. Yes. He got me good. We hung out with them till game time and then headed to our seats. It was about 80 degrees. It was mid-November. We were having a great time. Brendan and I were ready for the game. We even had on Pats jerseys. In 1997 the Pats had won exactly zero Super Bowls. You could wear your Flying Elvis or Pat Patriot jerseys to any stadium (except NY of course) without any problem. People mostly felt sorry for you because you rooted for one of the saddest franchises ever. Three Super Bowls later and they mostly want to get in your face. Now you wear your Pats jersey into enemy territory at your own risk.
We struck up some good-natured conversations with the Tampa fans around us, telling them their Dungy defense hadn't seen anything like Bledsoe and the Pats offense. I was feeling pretty confident. The Bucs scored the first 27 points. The Pats had three turnovers early in the game. Bledsoe was awful and didn't even throw for 100 yards. It was ugly. A preview as to what the Pete Carrol tenure would become. And the insults rained down on me and Brendan. But we continued to stay cool with the beverages and didn't let the ridicule bother us. As we left the stadium after the 27-7 thrashing, Bucs fans were thanking us for our team being so bad and inviting us to come back soon.
As we headed to the car we bumped into the cowboy hat guy. "Hey!" he shouted. "You were right. Your team is pretty darn good. About as good as a gator picked up off the side of the road!" Brendan and I headed out to eat away the loss at a local restaurant. "So what do you think of South Florida," he asked after our team got crushed. "Best trip I've ever had," I answered. "Best trip ever."
I might have had another one if the Pats and Bucs weren't moving the game to London. Instead I'll watch it from the couch. It's a huge game. A loss would mean they have to be perfect in the difficult four-game stretch that comes after the bye. A stretch of: home against Miami and the wildcat, at the Colts, home against the Jets, and at the Saints. That's the regular season right there. So a win against the Bucs means the Pats can go 2-2 in that stretch and be in good shape to win the division. Go 3-1 or better and they are a top three team in the league. A loss, in England, against the Bucs, means they have to go 3-1 or better in that stretch. You have to beat the teams you should beat. That, old chap, is what makes a game in London against a winless team a must win.
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