'Tis the season

WEEK 14

Patriots 42, Texans 14 (12/10/'12): The headline on this post has been banned (rightfully so) this time of year at the newspaper where I work. But when it comes to December and the New England Patriots it truly 'tis the season ... for winning .. when it really counts.

All week the Patriots said the game against Houston, the AFC's top seed, was a good measuring stick for them. In 2012 in the AFC, it's still the Patriots who are the stick and it's the rest of the conference that keeps doing the measuring. And coming up short.

The Texans are a very good team and if they have home-field advantage in the playoffs they will be tough to beat. But last night, in what they themselves admitted was the biggest game in the history of their franchise, the Texans were not a very good team. At least not when compared to the Patriots.

The game was supposed to be a tight contest and played in very rainy conditions. Neither proved to be the case. The back seat of my car was loaded up with rain gear and we invested in a new tailgating tent (like the team, we are getting ready for the playoffs) but we didn't need it. My raincoat stayed in the car and the tent ended up shielding us from the rays of sun that broke through the clouds just before sunset instead of the predicted downpours. A Monday evening in the Enchanted Forest with temperatures in the 50s and steaks on the grill had us fired up by the time we got to kickoff. Seems the Pats were pretty fired up to.

Brady and the offense scored touchdowns on their first three possessions and it was 21-0 before the Texans could get their prime-time sea legs. Brady and Lloyd connected on a rare deep bomb for the second score which came just a few plays after McCourty picked off Matt Schaub in the Pats' end zone. The offense was clicking and the defense was coming up with third-down stop after stop. One team looked focused and confident. The other looked confused and intimidated. As is often the case, it was the Pats doing the intimidating.

Brady finished with nearly 300 yards passing and threw for four touchdowns with no picks. He spread the ball around to Welker, Hernandez, Lloyd, Woodhead, and even connected for a 63-yard touchdown with old friend  Donte Stallworth. And the running game was strong again. On defense, the Pats held Arian Foster -- the second-best back in the league -- to just 46 yards. It was an all around impressive performance.

It's been so long since the Pats have lost a home game in December that I can't even remember it. Next week will be an even bigger challenge as the Niners -- with the league best defense -- come to Gillette for a Sunday night game. It's another measuring stick game.  And it's the Niners who will be doing the measuring.

It's December. 'Tis the season.

Monday Monday

TALES FROM THE TAILGATE
Cowboys 35, Patriots 21 (9/21/'81): Are you ready for some football? Of course you are. The Patriots host the Texans tonight in what is expected to be a warm -- but rainy -- night at Gillette. I hate tailgating in the rain more than anything. But nothing can dampen a Monday Night battle for supremacy in the AFC.

In 2012 the NFL plays on Thursday nights, Sunday nights, Saturday evenings, and of course from sunrise to sunset on Sunday. But Monday Night is still special. It all started in the 1970s to promote the merged AFL and NFL. It brought football to a new level and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Even when your team is mediocre (Jets), it's always fun to settle in on the first weeknight, open a beer, and watch them play.

The Patriots have played 44 MNF games. They have won 22. They have lost 22. Like most Patriots stats, the majority of those wins have come in the last 20 years. In fact, the team has played 20 of those 44 games in just the past decade. Bill Belichick is 15-5 in those games. I have enjoyed some great nighttime football during that time. My favorite is still the 2010 game against Rex Ryan and the Jets. The Pats were 9-2. The Jets were 9-2. Not-so-skinny Rex was talking about a new sheriff in the AFC East. Final score ... Patriots 45, Jets 3.

The Pats have played at least one Monday night game for eleven straight years. It comes with the territory when you are a championship contender year after year. And whether at home or on the road they are among the most anticipated games on the schedule. But before Belichick and Brady (and Parcells) turned the franchise's fortunes around, the Pats were not regulars on MNF. In fact, after a particularly ugly night at the old stadium in 1981 the Pats (more to the point: their drunken fans) were banned from Monday Night games for years.

1981. Ron Erhardt. "Call me Fargo." 2-14. I was a 19-year-old fan who a mere five years earlier had become hooked on the team watching Steve Grogan, Russ Francis, Steve Nelson, John Hannah, Stanley Morgan. and a group of entertaining, tough players make the playoffs and almost knock off the eventual champs the Raiders. The Pats fired their coach (Chuck Fairbanks) before the playoffs the next season and went into a downward spiral that hit rock bottom on a cool, late September night at what was then known as Schaefer Stadium. A perfect night for tailgating. A perfect night for drinking. For drinking a lot.

The Patriots started the season 0-2 but were ahead of the Dallas Cowboys 21-17 in the third quarter. Matt Cavanaugh was the team's quarterback and he made Zolak look competent. Cavanaugh threw four picks and the Cowboys scored 18 straight points to win 35-21. It was ugly on the field. And uglier off the field.

Schaefer (later Sullivan and Foxboro) was known as a tough stadium. It was not a place to bring your kids. Or you girlfriend. Or your doberman. It was like watching the game at the corner bar. There were three fights for every touchdown. It seemed that as much beer was dumped on people as it was consumed. Of course that's impossible but it often felt that way. As Rodney Dangerfield would say... "What a rough crowd." On that night in 1981, as the Pats blew the game to Dallas and fell to 0-3, the rough crowd turned into a raging mob. The final stats on the game say Cowboy great Tony Dorsett rushed for 162 yards and the Patriots finished with seven turnovers. The final stats in the stands (and the dirt parking lot) say 100 people were kicked out of the game, about 60 people were arrested, 35 ended up in the hospital, 1 cop's gun was stolen, and 1 person in a wheelchair was assaulted.

The mayhem was so bad that ABC Television decided they weren't going to be bringing their MNF crew to lovely Schaefer Stadium for a while. Turns out it was 14 years before the Patriots played another Monday night game at home. Fourteen years. It was a different time for sure. I was in the stands that Monday night in 1981. I got out alive. Someone else was in the stands that night. Robert Kraft. He too got out alive. And something tells me it was that night he decided he would one day buy the franchise and make it so that boxing skills were not required to attend a Patriots game.

Thirty years later it is a great place to watch a game. And now a lot of those games are on Monday night. I think you had to be there on that night in 1981 to truly appreciate what Mr. Kraft has accomplished.

Ted-dy! Ted-dy! Ted-dy!

If there was ever a question about who is the most popular Patriot of all time, it was answered during halftime of the Pats-Jets game. On a cold night like Monday, halftime ceremonies are usually just an afterthought to getting warm, using the bathroom, or getting another drink. Not on this night. Except for the red seats (I guess the lure of the clubhouse and the flatscreen TVs is just too strong), most fans stayed right where they were as Mr. Kraft brought out a blue #54 jersey and had the man of the hour -- of the night -- put it on.

Tedy Bruschi removed his coat in the frigid air and donned his game shirt. He let out a Bruschi roar and the adoring crowd echoed it right back at him. On a night when Tom Brady was working hard on leading a new Patriots team to a shot at a Super Bowl, Bruschi was leading the fans on a great trip down memory lane.

The halftime ceremony was just like Bruschi. Simple, heartfelt, fun, and memorable. A video montage opened the proceedings, chronicling the linebacker's 13-year career. After Kraft praised him for his dedication to the team and the community, Bruschi gave a shout-out to the best coach in the history of the game and to the fans who braved many cold nights like Monday to cheer him on.

Pointing to the championship banners, he did what Belichick's players always do... give credit to everyone else. He went through the names of the great players who helped put those banners in the south end zone corner of Gillette. Troy Brown, Joe Andruzzi, Ty Law, Lawyer, Rodney, Willie, Vrabel, Ted Johnson, Roman Phifer, Richard Seymour, even Larry Izzo. The mention of each players name brought a loud "Whoooo!" from the delighted crowd. (One player that he didn't mention? Asante Samuel. I guess Tedy is still pissed about that dropped pick in the Super Bowl too.)

There are going to be a lot of fun induction ceremonies at the Hall at Patriot Place in the upcoming years. If Bruschi's day is anything like his night on Monday, it will be the best one of all.

Bruschi captured the mood of everyone at Gillette when he said, as he stepped to the mike wearing his #54 jersey, "It still feels good." It sure does.

Ride on, Dennis

Dennis Hopper was usually one of the last things I saw before I went to sleep each night when I was about 8 years old. It was 1970 and "Easy Rider," the seminal road film that Hopper co-wrote, co-starred in, and directed a year earlier, had left an impression on many people about to enter or already in college, including my 17-year-old brother Richard.

It also left an impression on me. I shared a room with him and my other older brother Jim. On the wall next to the shelf with the 8-track player was a long horizontal poster of Hopper and Peter Fonda gliding along the highway on their choppers with the Southwest landscape behind them. Fonda with his American Flag custom paint job, no helmet, hair in the wind. Hopper with his mustache, bushman hat, and buckskin pants and tassle-covered coat. I would lie in bed listening to the Stones, Doors or Jefferson Airplane coming from Richard's or Jim's headphones and stare at the poster. Fonda and Hopper. Both wearing sunglasses, leaning back, on the road. They were the picture of cool. I often fell asleep imagining where they were riding to. I could almost hear the engines.

It was several years until I actually got to see the movie. There were no R-rated DVDs for kids to watch when their parents were at work when I was 8. No On Demand. You either snuck into the theater or waited -- for years. I was a little too young for sneaking. But just looking at that poster every night slowly made me part of the "Easy Rider" faithful.

When I finally did watch it, Hopper's Billy was like no other character I had seen. Hopper was like no other actor. I would see many characters like Billy again from those who Hopper inspired to do their acting over the edge. Jack Nicholson was one of those actors. His drunken ACLU lawyer George attracted most of the attention (and Oscar nomination) and sparked a legendary career. But it was Hopper's Billy that I remembered after leaving the theater. The actor's most famous lines come from his roles in "Apocalypse Now" and "Blue Velvet,'' but it was Billy's line in the scene with George in the darkness of night -- only a campfire reflecting on their faces -- that I think of first.

Nicholson's George tells Billy the establishment is afraid of what he and his friends represent. Billy says "Hey man. All we represent to them, man, is just somebody who needs haircuts.'' Oh no, man, George tells him. What they represent to them is freedom. Billy answers with one of my favorite movie lines and one that captures the late '60s/early '70s as well as any lyric or line from that time.

"What the hell's wrong with freedom, man? That's what it's all about."

Hopper's death the other day had me watching bits of "Apocalypse Now" and "Heart of Darkness" for some of his best moments. It also had me watching another classic clip of his that many have probably not seen -- or at least don't remember seeing. And here is where this post fits in on a tailgating blog.

Hopper's career suffered at the hands of his over-the-edge style. He took his visions -- even the non-drug induced ones -- too far and became too big of a hassle to deal with. He was in exile most of the '70s. He returned in the '80s with "Rumblefish" and "Blue Velvet" and "Hoosiers" and then became the movie villain of the '90s starting with his role in "Speed." It was at this time that the NFL brought him in to do little promo videos for Monday Night Football and other big games. Some of them rank among the best in TV shorts. My favorite (attached below) is the one he did before the Patriots home opener against the Pittsburgh Steelers in September of 2002. That was quite a night. One of the all-time greats in Foxborough: http://tjtailgatetales.blogspot.com/2009/11/we-are-champions.html The Pats were defending their first Super Bowl on a Thursday night in their new stadium. The banner was raised. The Steelers destroyed. I got home late that night and, as I often do, popped open a beer and popped in the video tape of the game.

I fast-forwarded through the pre-game talk till I saw a blurry Dennis Hopper going by. I stopped and hit rewind. Then play. I still laugh when I watch it. It captures just how amazing it was that the Patriots really won the Super Bowl. And note the very end. Hopper predicts the Patriots dynasty. "Every year, man! Every year!"