COLUMN: Steve Solloway

Yes, these guys are the real survivors

Copyright © 2004 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.

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FOXBORO, Mass. - Two football teams played under the pelting rain at Gillette Stadium Sunday afternoon. Two teams endured the blustery crosswinds and the slop that was the field.

One team won. The same team that somehow adapts to new and extreme problems every week. The New England Patriots are better than any of the season's new reality shows.

"It's football, man. That's all it is," said Willie McGinest, the veteran linebacker who, as usual, had a hand in the Patriots beating the touted Baltimore Ravens, 24-3.

Coach Bill Belichick called it old-fashioned football. You called it mud football when a November rain turned the nearby sandlot field into glop.

When the ball was slick and squirted out of your hands. When you fought to stand, let alone run. When you slid into the ballcarrier rather than tackling him. When mud caked everything, making you feel 10 pounds heavier.

"Yeah," said McGinest. "When you used to put on your old clothes and play in the rain when you were little. You had fun. It was football."

Only one football team had fun Sunday. One team jumped up and down like little boys in the rain. The other simply walked off the field, shoulders slumping.

Two teams played in the mud Sunday. One team won. The Patriots always win, it seems, no matter the circumstances.

"We adapt," said linebacker Tedy Bruschi, grinning, knowing he was revealing no secret.

Got a shortage of defensive backs? Convert a wide receiver. Hello, Troy Brown.

Need more big bodies to block on offense? Send Richard Seymour, the defensive end, into your backfield. Tell Corey Dillon to run behind him.

Need another big body to block and maybe catch a pass? Send linebacker Mike Vrabel into the offensive huddle.

The opposing defense have you covered here? Then move the ball over there. It sounds so simple and it is.

It's snowing outside and the frozen field feels like concrete. It's raining and the field is soup.

"Sometimes you don't know where to plant your foot," said Adam Vinatieri, the field goal kicker who has taught himself to be oblivious to the conditions. You remember his winning field goal against Oakland in the so-called Snow Bowl three years ago.

Sunday the rain turned the swath of field between the hashmarks into mud.

"I couldn't find any solid footing," said Vinatieri. "It was tough."

So why was he grinning?

Three years ago, late in that magical first Super Bowl season, Belichick rented a movie theatre in nearby Rhode Island. He and his team watched the true story of Sir Ernest Shackelton and his expedition marooned on the ice at the South Pole.

Rescue? No one knew they were lost. The men survived by adapting.

We live in a world of short memories. Somehow that night at the movies endured.

Drop Tom Brady and Vinatieri and Bruschi and the boys into the heart of the Allagash for a winter. Tell them to build huts or yurts or whatever for shelter. Tell them to forage for their food.

Watch them walk out in the spring.

Sunday, the weather worsened in the second half. In the stands, yellow slickers predominated, rather than Patriots red. Puddles formed. The wind got stronger.

"Guys are slipping," said Brady. "You're playing with a muddy ball. You're trying to throw it hard because of the wind, but the harder you throw it, the harder it is for the receivers to catch it.

"You need to put some touch on it to (allow the receivers the chance to) catch it. But you can't put too much touch because the ball slips out of your hand."

Brady found the happy medium. Not often, but enough to keep the Baltimore defense from keying on Dillon, who did rush for 123 yards.

Early in the fourth quarter, Vrabel rushed Baltimore quarterback Kyle Boller, who ducked under Vrabel arms and ran away, only to be caught by Bruschi, who slapped the ball loose.

Jarvis Green fell on it in the end zone for the Patriots' final touchdown. "Every Friday we practice scoop and score," said Green. "I picked it up. It was slipping out of everyone's hands. I wasn't going to let it slip out of mine."

Green grinned. When Brady entered the locker room after the game, it seemed everyone was smiling.

"We had fun," said McGinest, "because we won."

Staff Writer Steve Solloway can be contacted at 791-6412 or at:

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