I was in high school when the Patriots made their first Super Bowl appearance in 1986. The Pats finished 11-5 in the regular season under second-year coach Raymond Berry and veteran quarterback Steve Grogan. It was the best regular season finish by New England to that point. They then made an improbable wild-card run through the playoffs and beat Miami in the AFC championship to advance to Super Bowl XX and face the Chicago Bears. Having just “squished the Fish,” confidence was running high in New England that the Patriots would “Berry the Bears.”
Things didn’t go quite as planned.
These were the ’85 Bears, led by “da Coach” Mike Ditka and featuring superstars like Walter “Sweetness” Payton and William “the Refrigerator” Perry. My family didn’t tune in until the second half, and by that time the Bears were already up 37-3. The Patriots managed to salvage a touchdown in the fourth quarter, but then the Bears added insult to injury by sacking Grogan in the end zone for a safety. Reality hit New England like a freight train, as they lost 46-10.
That year became a high water mark for both the Patriots and the Boston sports scene in general, as both entered a slow decline before entering a Dark Age in the 90s. While the Celtics won the NBA championship later that year, their top draft pick Len Bias passed away from a drug overdose, disrupting the transition plan as Bird, McHale, and Parrish entered their sunset years. Later that fall, Bill Buckner let a ground ball slip between his legs as the Red Sox let Game 6 of the World Series slip away, before imploding in Game 7 to the Mets.
Meanwhile the Sullivan family, owners of the Patriots back then, went bankrupt and sold the team to Victor Kiam. Under Kiam’s ownership, the Patriots went 1-15 and became the laughingstock of both the NFL and the Boston sports scene. A running joke at that time was that the Patriots should be renamed as the New England Tampons — they had no second string and were only good for one period.
Thirty-three years later, it seems like waking up from a distant nightmare.
To anyone who watched the Patriots battle through the defensive grind of Super Bowl LIII and win their sixth championship, this all seems unbelievably far-fetched. No one in their right minds would believe that the team Robert Kraft inherited from Kiam was a bigger clown show than the Cleveland Browns of today.
Which just goes to prove two things:
To really appreciate the journey, you have to be there from the beginning. Sports fans say you’re not a true fan unless you’ve been there for them in the bad times as well as the good. They’re not wrong. New England teenagers who have only known the Pax Belichick take for granted, what we who had to endure Victor Kiam mouthing off about players “wiggling their waggle” in the locker room. Enjoy the fruits of victory today, for no one knows what tomorrow will hold. (Just ask the 49ers or the Cowboys.)
The road to success is paved with numerous failures. Even if you ignore the Pats’ checkered past and focus on the current dynasty, consider all the failures along the way:
- In Belichick’s first season as head coach, the Patriots finished 5-11.
- Tom Brady became the starting quarterback only after Drew Bledsoe took a life-threatening hit from Mo Lewis.
- When the Patriots won their second championship after the 2003 season, it began with a 28-0 shutout to the Buffalo Bills, led by former Pats Bledsoe and Lawyer Milloy.
- Before winning their fourth championship, the Patriots suffered a massive beatdown at Kansas City, where Brady was pulled from the game. Belichick was quick to move on to Cincinnati.
- During that Super Bowl, New England fell behind to the Seattle Seahawks, came back, and gave up an improbable deep catch by Jermaine Kearse, before Malcolm Butler snatched victory from the jaws of defeat at the 1-yard line.
- Two years later, Brady would be suspended the first four games of 2016 for his alleged role in DeflateGate.
- At the end of that season, the Patriots came back from a 28-3 deficit to the Atlanta Falcons to win the first overtime Super Bowl.
- At the start of this season, Super Bowl MVP Julian Edelman came back after missing the previous season from a torn ACL.
This is a lesson to which I can personally attest. After graduating from college paid with an ROTC scholarship, my plan was to become a career military officer. After the end of the Cold War cut those opportunities short, my fallback plan was to become an engineer. Eight years, six firings, and nearly two years combined of unemployment later, that proved to be another failure. I pivoted a third time into database programming and business intelligence, and that took me from the edge of bankruptcy to a six-figure career.
If there’s one thing I can say I have in common with Tom Brady, it’s this: we’re both in our 40s, and we’re not done yet.