During their 18-year run that has resulted in nine Super Bowl appearances and five championship, the Patriots love to turn sleights into advantages
The Patriots have turned the idea they are being disrespected into an art form. Whether it’s Tom Brady talking about how no one thinks New England has any good players or Julian Edelman selling “Bet Against Us” t-shirt, the Patriots have constantly found new ways to believe that world doesn’t respect them after nine Super Bowl appearances under Brady and coach Bill Belichick.
The following is a brief history of some of their better moments:
1. January 2001 – The betting line in Pittsburgh
A week after the infamous Tuck Rule Game, the Patriots traveled to Pittsburgh for the AFC Championship. The Steelers had gone 13-3 during the regular season and had won nine of 10 games coming into the matchup. The Patriots were considered a quaint story, a team loaded with a bunch of cheap free agents, led by a former sixth-round pick at quarterback who had a good-looking face and cute, and a curmudgeonly coach.
The Steelers were a 10-point favorite, which is to this day the second-biggest betting line in AFC Championship Game history. Before the game, Belichick borrowed a page from Bill Parcells’ book on motivation and informed his team that the Steelers hadn’t been favored by this much in any game all season.
The Patriots’ version of the Disrespect Card was born.
2. January 2004 – Never Mind Reality
Once again in Pittsburgh, the Patriots played the disrespect card. In the locker room beneath Heinz Field after the game, New England linebacker/defensive end Willie McGinest was on a roll. The Patriots had just dispatched the Steelers and rookie quarterback Ben Roethlisberger in a game that was almost surgical in its precision. Brady carved up the Steelers’ blitz-heavy attack and the Patriots defensive stifled Roethlisberger.
McGinest has a group of roughly a half-dozen reporters standing around him as he and the rest of his teammates celebrated. As McGinest talked, his deep voice rose to talk over the shouts of joy and bliss from his teammates.
“Nobody believed in us, nobody thought we were going to win this game,” McGinest repeated several times in slightly different ways.
As he spoke, a reporter looked at McGinest and said, “Willie, what do you mean, you were three-point favorites?”
McGinest hesitated for just a moment and said, “That doesn’t matter.”
3. February 2004 – Let’s Have a Parade
Long before the “Philly Special” there was the “Philly Route.” As in parade route. On the morning of the first New England-Philadelphia Super Bowl match, Belichick discovered that the good folks back in Philadelphia had done some planning for a possible parade through downtown if the Eagles were to win their first title.
For his speech on the afternoon before the game, Belichick got a copy of the route, had it projected on a wall and proceeded to read it aloud to his team. He let Philly’s party planning work against itself. New England players listened silently as they soaked in the idea that City of Brotherly Love was being just a little presumptuous.
4. September 2007 – Spygate Revenge
Two games in the 2007 season, the NFL roiled with the news that the Patriots were secretly recording the signals of plays coming from the sidelines by opposing coaches. As fans around the country called the team a bunch of cheaters and tried to dismiss the three titles the team had won earlier that decade, Belichick ceased upon the moment.
The Patriots were 2-0 already when Belichick got up in front of his team and said simply, “They think you cheated.”
What happened from there is that Patriots went 16-0 and came within a miracle catch by New York Giants wide receiver David Tyree of becoming only the second team in the modern history of the league to go undefeated.
Of course, the Giants also used a little trash talking by the Patriots during the Super Bowl as their own motivation. Giants players said after the game that Patriots players had been inviting New York players to join their Super Bowl party after the game.
Turnabout is fair play.
5. January 2019 – Bet Against Us
During the two weeks leading up to their first playoff game, the Patriots listened as media people around the country remarked about the fact that the team had struggled on the road (they were 3-5 this season), how Brady had regressed statistically from his MVP season in 2017 (he had), and how Rob Gronkowski has obviously struggling with injuries in the final part of the season (he was).
Some people even went so far as to say the Patriots had no chance to win the Super Bowl. The Patriots took those remarks and somehow have morphed into how everyone is saying that they don’t have any good players.
On Tuesday, linebacker Kyle Van Noy even said it.
“Nobody thinks we can play and our guys are no good,” Van Noy said.
So far, the Patriots have used that theme to help propel them through two playoff games and back to the Super Bowl. In the process, they have become perhaps the greatest dynasty in NFL history.
Mind games work.