Is Your Team Going to the Super Bowl Again? Then Stop Talking Shit About the Partriots

Over the Patriots' nigh two decades under Bill Belichick, every twelvemonth seems to follow a familiar pattern—from the concerns of the offseason through a firm sense of identity and purpose as January approaches. This week The MMQB examines New England's 2022 season in four parts, Tuesday through Friday, from the perspective of that now-familiar narrative, and what it means for the Patriots' ninth Super Bowl advent of the Brady-Belichick era. Previously:

• I: Jenny Vrentas on Tom Brady's odd offseason
• II: Conor Orr on why September is unlike in New England
• III: Tim Rohan on the Patriots' mastery of the midseason motility

ATLANTA — The turning indicate came in the visitors' locker room at Heinz Field, on a nighttime December evening when daylight was running short and, for the outset fourth dimension in a long time, it felt like so might be the Patriots' season.

It wasn't just that the Patriots had lost to the Steelers, 17-ten. They'd also lost the week before, in Miami, on the Dolphins' claw-and-ladder walk-off touchdown that was so improbable it was given its ain proper name, the Miami Miracle. The Patriots just don't lose two in a row very ofttimes: Since Tom Brady became New England's starting quarterback in Week 3 of the 2001 season, the Patriots have only followed upwardly a loss with another loss a dozen times. Two of those 12 occasions happened in 2018.

And this Steelers loss was ugly, total of the self-inflicted wounds that are also atypical of the Patriots. They were penalized 14 times for 106 yards; viii of those came earlier the snap, which are particularly groan-worthy. For the second straight calendar week, the Patriots whiffed on an opportunity to assure the AFC East. New England played the underdog card plenty this postseason, simply the truth is, at that point in the year, even the Patriots didn't quite feel like the Patriots.

SUPER Bowl LIII: From farm to field, how a cow becomes a football

"It would have been easy for united states of america every bit a team to say, 'Ah man, we just don't have information technology this year, can't win on the road, not getting any breaks,' " says Matthew Slater, team captain and special teams ace. "We could accept packed it in."

It surprises no 1 in the Patriots' locker room that Slater stepped in, right so and there. He didn't wait until they got dorsum to Foxborough. At the lowest point of the season, he told his teammates they had a choice.

"I call up him saying, it's up to us," says correct baby-sit Shaq Mason. "We could experience pitiful for ourselves or rise to the occasion. It was a moment that needed to be had."

What happened from in that location? The Patriots began playing their best football at the near important role of the season. The following week, they rolled over the Bills with 273 rushing yards. They got a piddling help, too, when the Texans lost to the Eagles, putting the Patriots back in position for their routine kickoff-circular good day with a Calendar week 17 win against the Jets.

SUPER Bowl LIII: Officiating will be in the spotlight similar never before

Whorl to Continue

SI Recommends

Then they came out in the divisional round game against the Chargers, took the ball afterward winning the opening money toss rather than deferring to the 2nd half, and promptly drained nearly half of the first quarter with a 14-play, 83-m touchdown bulldoze. Twelve of the plays on that march involved the running back touching the ball, either on a handoff or a brusk pass. On Sony Michel's 1-yard touchdown run, the Patriots lined upwardly with an extra offensive tackle, two tight ends and two backs, and Michel plunged into the finish zone on a power play with fullback James Develin bulldozing a path behind blocks by tight end Rob Gronkowski and left tackle Trent Brown.

Brown described the feeling in that playoff game as "imposing your will" on the Chargers defense, and getting in their opponents' minds, to where "maybe they want to think almost coming on the field." A week later the Patriots opened up the AFC Title Game in similar way: An 8-minute, 80-yard drive with 10 run plays, capped by another 1-yard Michel TD run. "In one case yous take success running the ball, it definitely irritates the defense," Mason adds.

SUPER Bowl LIII: Five Bill Belichick protégés explain his sustained success

The Patriots have averaged 165.5 rushing yards per game this postseason, more any other team except for their opponent in Super Bowl LIII, the Rams, who have been picking up 175 yards per game during the playoffs. This NFL season has seemed to exist all about passing, and yeah, Brady passed for 348 yards confronting the Chiefs afterwards the conference championship turned into a shootout in the fourth quarter and overtime. But one of the biggest reasons the Patriots are nevertheless playing, in February, is that they have remade their identity this flavor as … a power running team?

"How nearly that?" says Slater, the third-longest tenured Patriots role player behind only Brady and kicker Stephen Gostkowski. "I don't know if nosotros have ever done information technology similar we are doing information technology this year. Anybody has actually bought into, Hey, this is kind of our thing, we are good at information technology, let's embrace it. It starts with Tom buying in, and he'due south sent that bulletin throughout the ranks: We are going to run the brawl. Nosotros are going to do whatever we need to win."

SUPER BOWL LIII: Rob Gronkowski is the kind of player this Patriots dynasty needed

Some of it may exist zigging when other teams are zagging. Only the Patriots had a program for this—only expect at some of their offseason moves. During this year's NFL draft they used their two first-round picks on offensive tackle Isaiah Wynn (now on IR with a torn Achilles) and Michel; they also added Brown, the league'southward largest left tackle at half-dozen''8", 380 pounds, in a typhoon-weekend trade with the 49ers. Having a potent run game would permit the Patriots to avert loading everything onto their 41-year-sometime quarterback and also gave them perhaps the best defense against a hot young passer similar Patrick Mahomes (or an explosive offense similar the Rams): Playing keep away with the football.

While much of this season might not have seemed typical of the Patriots, the last calendar month has in this way: The Patriots' merely real identity is that they do any they need to do to win. A couple days before they departed Foxborough for Atlanta, Gronkowski was walking through the locker room with Michel, when he pointed to the rookie running dorsum and appear to the media: "Five touchdowns, right here, everyone." He might have been referring to the five TDs Michel had scored this postseason—or, maybe, a prediction for the final game of this season?

SUPER BOWL LIII: Belichick's next career—Tv set analyst?

The Patriots are playing in their ninth Super Bowl on Sun because of their ability to remake themselves, both tactically and psychologically; to sympathize that it's a long flavor, and that who you are equally a team in the beginning and middle is a means to what happens at the terminate. That's why, when faced with a crossroads in Pittsburgh, they were able to choose the path that that brought them to Atlanta, where they will play for a sixth ring.

"Nosotros were in a fork in the road in our season," Slater says of that night at Heinz Field. "We were going to go this style, or going to become that mode, only nosotros knew it was going to be up to the states. We rallied around one another, and hither we are."

Question or comment? Email usa at talkback@themmqb.com.

mckeeverboading.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.si.com/nfl/2019/02/01/super-bowl-53-new-england-patriots-miami-miracle-steelers-loss-run-game

Share this post