STRONG LEADERS HELP PEDP PATS STEER CLEAR
Captains, team culture keys to getting past trades, suspensions
When Bill Belichick traded star linebacker Jamie Collins to the Browns on the final day of October, one of the widespread opinions in the immediate aftermath was that the Patriots coach was playing with fire.
Not only was Belichick taking away one of the team’s best defensive players, he was setting in motion a confusing and potentially volatile situation in the locker room, considering Collins was one of the many Patriots due to be a free agent at season’s end.
Add in the March 15 trade of Chandler Jones, along with the Week 11 benching of defensive starter Jabaal
Sheard, and it’s easy to see how all of this turmoil might have caused a divide or gotten the team off-track.
But it didn’t happen. Maybe this would have been the scenario in other locker rooms, but not in the Patriots room. If anything, all of the major causes of adversity in the 2016 season, from Tom Brady’s four-game Deflategate suspension, to
Rob Ninkovich’s four-game suspension for violating the league’s performance-enhancing drug policy, to the trades of Jones and Collins, to Sheard’s benching, to the loss of all-world tight end
Rob Gronkowski, were handled maturely, professionally, and only served to make the team stronger.
That’s not just the view from the outside, but also how the players view it on the inside.
“To be a good team, you want to be able to respond to adversity, no matter what it is, no matter how big it is, or how small it is,” defensive captain Dont'a Hightower told the Herald Thursday. “If you can’t stand up to adversity, you’re not going to be successful, not only in football, but in life. We could have shut down those first four games without Tom, but that’s not our mindset. We go out each and every week, and want to win.”
Win, and continue to grow as a group. As they head to Houston tomorrow, ready to take on the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl LI a week from today, the players believe this is as tight-knit a group as the Patriots have ever had.
“It’s cool to look back and see those growing moments,” said fullback James
Develin, “the tough situations you go through as a team, where we banded together, and got even stronger.”
That’s why the distractions from Super Bowl week, and whatever else might turn up, will seem like a picnic to this team.
Perhaps the Patriots are so used to dealing with distractions, or difficult situations that may arise during a season, they aren’t as fazed as we think they should be, or another team would be.
“I think it is (second nature), as odd as that sounds,” said Hightower. “You know things are going to happen, things are going to pop up, mishaps, things of that sort. It’s just how you deal with it, and what you do after.
“I feel like every time we’ve been hit with adversity,” he went on, “we might have been stunned a little bit, but we get back up, and get going strong again.”
But that’s not entirely true. The Patriots do have their moments, they just handle it better than others. With the leadership in
the room — beginning with captains Matthew Slater,
Devin McCourty, Brady and Hightower — the brush fires get put out.
“We’re humans. As much as you try to push out the noise, and not be distracted, it’s tough at times,” said Slater, the special teams captain. “There are conversations that come up, obviously, but we deal with it. Usually when we have those issues, we talk about it and we’re able to move on. Look, we’re not perfect in handling these situations. But we’ve done the best we could and moved on.”
Having spoken with several of the captains and their teammates, all allude to the same theme, and same message. It’s easy for them to deal with any obstacle, and forge ahead because they’re all fighting for the same thing. They all have a common goal, and they’ll be trying to see it all come to fruition next Sunday. That wasn’t going to be lost whether Collins was still with the Patriots or dealt away during the Week 9 bye.
“None of our goals were gone. Everything we wanted to do in the season was still right in front of us,” McCourty said. “Honestly, even with Jamie’s trade, it wasn’t late in the season. We were still getting better, we still had a lot of football in front of us.
“Even with all that was happening, it didn’t take away from what we had an opportunity to do this year. I think guys realized that. That’s something I always tell guys and preach about: Taking advantage of this one year, and trying to make the best of it.”
That opportunity, what the players have been shooting for all year, would have been lost by now had they not been able to come together, particularly on defense, and sort out the issues created by Collins’ departure. Naturally, the coaches were a part of it, but the players also took the baton.
“Jamie’s like a brother to me, and arguably one of the best linebackers in the National Football League. Losing him hurt, and it took a little while,” Hightower said. “Things slowed down, but they didn’t stop. Matty P. (defensive coordinator Matt
Patricia) did a good job fixing that void.”
The effort they put together against the Texans, and then the Steelers in the first two playoff games, were merely exhibits A and B.
“Guys really just got to work. There was a big hole, so we