Roger that, Patriots
Goodell isn’t there to watch Super Bowl champs kick off their campaign with a win behind Brady and Gronkowski
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — The singsong chant echoed through Gillette Stadium midway through the fourth quarter of New England’s 28-21 victory over Pittsburgh.
It was a thumb in the eye of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who didn’t attend Thursday night’s kickoff opener, saying he didn’t want to be a distraction. The league is still smarting from a stinging rebuke in federal court, one that erased the four-game suspension of Patriots quarterback Tom Brady for his alleged role in deflating footballs.
“Where is Roger?” the crowd chanted, undeterred by the driving rain.
Not only was Brady un-suspended, he played like a guy revived from suspended animation, showing no signs of rust and picking up where he left off in New England’s Super Bowl XLIX victory in February.
“You don’t really forget how to play football in the seven months,” Brady said.
He threw four touchdown passes — three to tight end Rob Gronkowski — and at one point strung together 19 completions in a row, a franchise record.
“He’s such a big target out there,” Brady said of Gronkowski. “He’s got a great catch radius. Seems like any time I put it up there close he comes down with it.”
Brady collected an NFL record
with his 161st victory, the most by a quarterback with one franchise. He had been tied at 160 with former Green Bay quarterback Brett Favre.
The Steelers, playing without suspended All-Pro running back Le’Veon Bell and standout receiver Martavis Bryant, kept the game competitive but ultimately made too many mistakes — including two missed fieldgoal attempts by new kicker Josh Scobee.
Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger played well, putting a couple of long passes on the money, but there was an air of inevitability that this was the Patriots’ night. Roethlisberger threw an 11-yard touchdown pass to Antonio Brown with two seconds remaining to close the gap to a touchdown.
The ensuing onside kick was recovered by — who else? — Gronkowski.
There was a problem with the Steelers’ sideline headsets that persisted for most of the first half. Coaches were receiving the Patriots’ radio broadcast and it hampered their ability to communicate. The technical difficulties stoked suspicions on Twitter that New England was resorting to underhanded tactics to gain an advantage — even though the NFL is responsible for setting up that system, not the home team.
Steelers Coach Mike Tomlin didn’t quell those suspicions when asked about the equipment problems. “That’s always the case,” he said.
Asked if he meant it was always the case at Gillette Stadium, he said, “Yes.” Tomlin said the Steelers let league officials handle the situation and it was eventually rectified.
So that no team would gain an advantage, the league shut down New England’s system while Pittsburgh’s was being fixed. Asked whether he got an answer from the NFL about what went wrong, Patriots Coach Bill Belichick said: “We never get that answer. We just try to fix it.”
League spokesman Michael Signora said the headset problem was caused by “a stadium power infrastructure issue, which was exacerbated by the inclement weather.”
Brady was scorching from the start. In the first half, he completed 15 of 17 passes for 172 yards with touchdown throws of 16 and six yards to Gronkowski.
Roethlisberger connected on beautifully placed completions of 43 yards to Darrius Heyward-Bey and 37 to Brown, who has gone an NFL-record 33 games with at least five receptions. Pittsburgh trailed at the half, 14-3.
The giddy home crowd grew ever louder, cheering wildly as Brady opened the second half with a one-yard touchdown pass to tight end Scott Chandler.
Not surprisingly, the Patriots quarterback was the focal point throughout.
A shop just outside the stadium sold T-shirts reading “Vindicated” over a football emblazoned with Brady’s No. 12. Within minutes of a Pittsburgh writer posting a photo of the shirt on Twitter, someone did some quick Photoshop work and re-posted it as “Vindi-cheated.”
Those type of jabs aren’t surprising to Marc Dicomes of Manchester, N.H., among hundreds of fans who wore Brady jerseys to the game.
“I never doubted him,” Dicomes said of the quarterback. “I always thought it was sour grapes. Belichick’s smarter than anybody, and the NFL was just making up for Spygate.”
Goodell spent the week in a Boston bar — sort of. The Frost Ice Loft downtown commissioned a life-sized ice sculpture of the commissioner, with him hunched over and holding up his hands to shield his face in shame.
“We’ll probably keep it up for awhile, definitely all through the weekend and maybe next week,” said Lori Guarino, the bar’s assistant general manager. “People here are loving it. It’s a great thought to have Goodell on ice.”
Patriots fans have been so steamed about the Brady suspension, they could have melted that ice in seconds flat.
“Tom Brady is treated like a god here,” Guarino said. “For him to be punished for something that can’t be proven was a big deal. When the suspension was lifted, you would have thought it was everybody’s brother or father or something.”
Brady got a big cheer from the half-filled stadium when he jogged onto the rain-soaked field to begin warming up. Several fans brought homemade signs with messages such as “Long May He Reign,” with the quarterback wearing a crown; “Mr. Trump, make Brady your VP”; and a large one featuring Belichick with his dead-eyed, emotionless stare over the words, “Let’s Party.”
And in the end, they did.