Champs glum and glummer
Pats — and Brady — in need of serious attitude adjustment
The standard procedure following each Patriots game is for coach Bill Belichick to amble into the assembly room for his Marshawn Lynch-like I’m-just- here-so-I-won’t-get-fined media session.
When Belichick is done, quarterback Tom Brady speaks. If there’s some starof-the-game type whose accomplishments merit podium time, he gets ushered into the room.
Sometimes Brady goes first, either because Belichick is predisposed, or because a ball-and-chain device is being applied to the coach’s ankle in order to keep him from escaping his Happy Time with the sportswriters. But it was just as well Brady batted leadoff following the Pats’ 42-27 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs Thursday night, considering he delivered much of the time-tested, allphases-of-the-game oratory we’ve come to expect from Belichick.
“Every position that we have is going to have to do a better job than we did tonight,” Brady said. “There was nothing really positive about anything that was done, so we’ve got to get back to work. We’ve got nine days before the next game, and hopefully we play a lot better than tonight.”
“Every position that we have” = all phases of the game.
“We’ve got nine days before the next game” = we’re on to New Orleans.
But Brady also slipped a little note under the door that should come, if not as alarming news to Patriots fans, then at least something to think about.
In response to a question about the Rob Gronkowski touchdown that was called back, Brady started with some boilerplate stuff: “Yeah, that was a disappointing play. I mean, that would have been a big play in the game . . .” Good, good . . . “You know, just didn’t make it and didn’t make a lot of plays tonight, actually.” Yes, of course. And then . . . “So, we just have to be a lot better in a lot of areas, starting with our attitude and our competitiveness. We’re going to have to do a lot better than tonight.”
And then somebody asked about losing Julian Edelman for the season and what the offense has to do to, and . . . hey, wait a minute. Stop. Back up the tape.
What did Brady say at the end of that last answer?
“So, we just have to be a lot better in a lot of areas, starting with our attitude and our competitiveness,” he said. “We’re going to have to do a lot better than tonight.” Attitude? Competitiveness? On a Bill Belichickcoached team?
On a Tom Brady-quarterbacked team?
He was asked to please expand on that answer.
“I just think we need to have more urgency and go out there and perform a lot better,” he said. “That is a winning attitude and a championship attitude that you need to bring every day. We had it handed to us on our own field. It’s a terrible feeling, and the only people that can do something about it are in that locker room. We’ve got to dig a lot deeper than we did tonight because we didn’t dig very deep tonight.”
True, the heavy lifting in the Things To Be Worried About factory should be devoted to injuries. In addition to Edelman being lost for the season, and Malcolm Mitchell going on injured reserved and ineligible to play until Week 9, there’s Gronk’s imitation the other night of an 85-year-old man trying to get up off the sidewalk after slipping on the ice. This was right after the aforementioned touchdown that was called back, and the man looked pained and tentative. Not a good look in Week 1. So, yes, worry about that.
But if Brady has issues with this team’s urgency, attitude and competitiveness, and if he’s willing to share those concerns with the media — and, hence, you — then it’s not unfair to wonder if some members of the Patriots were pressing a glass to the wall the other night to listen in on the team’s way-too-overthe-top Super Bowl banner celebration.
If Belichick had his way, the latest Super Bowl banner would have been unfurled under the cover of darkness back in March. And then the Pats would have taken the field Thursday night with no pomp, no circumstance and no mention whatsoever of their thrilling comeback against the Atlanta Falcons.
I believe there’s a method to the malaise when Belichick speaks to the media following a loss. He performs the song and dance with non-stop grimace because he knows his players are going to see it, and he doesn’t want them to think, not for one bloody second, that there are any silver linings to celebrate.
The last thing Belichick wants, post-loss, is for his players to invent goody life lessons, or to see a glass as half-filled.
The other day on WEEI, former Patriots tight end Christian Fauria was telling a tale out of school about his former teammate Willie McGinest, now an NFL Network analyst. According to Fauria, McGinest once stuffed Bethel Johnson in a trash can because the receiver was heard laughing after a loss.
McGinest, who was a guest on the show, responded to the anecdote with a what-happens-inVegas-stays-in-Vegas retort. I took that as an affirmation that the story was at least somewhat true, though I don’t buy the trash can bit. And I’m confident McGinest acquired that type of hardline postgame decorum from Belichick. And just as Belichick’s postgame grumbling is meant to be a message to his players, it’s reasonable to assume Brady, too, was speaking to his teammates from the podium. It’s also possible Brady was referring to himself — and if not, maybe he should be. It’s been seven months of hawking diets, training regimes and coffee-table books for Brady. A little urgency from ol’ No. 12 wouldn’t hurt.