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.