The word's out: This team has staying power
FOXBOROUGH -- Rodney Harrison had the word for what happened to the New England Patriots yesterday but in reality it is a word that could describe what has been happening with them all season. They persevered.
Despite missing eight starters for all of the game and a ninth, cornerback Ty Law, for much of the second half, the Patriots persevered.
Despite gaining only 29 yards in the first half and failing to convert a third down until the third quarter, they persevered.
Despite having their defense on the field for 21 of the first 30 minutes and being outgained by 161 yards, they persevered.
Despite seeing their quarterback complete only one pass in the first half and but eight of 21 for the game, they persevered.
That is how the Patriots defeated the New York Giants, 17-6, yesterday at Gillette Stadium and it is how they improved their record to 4-2 with a key game coming up Sunday in Miami. They did it the hard way. They persevered.
The only time they haven't was on opening day, when the shock of the firing of Lawyer Milloy five days earlier was too much for them to handle and they were destroyed by the Buffalo Bills. That day they did not persevere. They disappeared, but they learned from that terrible experience. They learned that if they are going to win consistently this season it will not be about any one man or even any one unit. With a third of their expected starters on the sideline in street clothes they must play as they did yesterday if they are going to win consistently. They must play for each other and with each other.
"People come up with all these negative things," guard Damien Woody said following the Patriots' somewhat remarkable victory over a team that outgained them by 161 yards, held them to one third-down conversion in 11 tries and against whom they committed 10 penalties good for 110 yards.
"They ask about the penalties and the time of possession [a difference of more than 10 minutes] but they leave out one thing. We won. We don't care about that other stuff as long as we win. That's what it's all about."
Woody is right about that. So was Harrison when, after agreeing that yesterday's game was not a stellar performance by his team in many areas, he pointed out that they had won anyway. Because "we persevered."
That was indeed true. How else can you explain a 7-3 halftime lead for a team that gained only 29 yards and managed only one first down?
"It wasn't pretty but we got the job done today," Woody said. "A lot of things didn't go our way. We had some big plays called back. We had too many penalties. But in the end we persevered and things worked out. The first half was frustrating but when we came in the locker room we had a 7-3 lead. That was the key. We figured we'd played like crap but we still had the lead because our defense was playing lights out. All we had to do was stop shooting ourselves in the foot."
With that as their goal and their game plan simplified to a few plays, the offense came out in the third quarter and piled up 148 yards and scored 10 points on back-to-back drives that covered 63 and 85 yards, respectively, to mount a 17-3 lead by the end of the third quarter, which was, on this soggy afternoon, insurmountable.
It was insurmountable because New England's defense was unflappable despite missing three starting linebackers and starting nose tackle Ted Washington while also having to play for long stretches without Pro Bowl cornerback Law, whose battered ankle finally became more than he could overcome and caused him to spend much of the second half on the sideline.
Yet even with all those reasons to feel sorry for themselves, the Patriots chose another tack. They chose not the line of least resistance but rather the line of pure resistance. They fought back. They forced five Giants turnovers on a day when they sorely needed them.
They harassed and harried New York quarterback Kerry Collins into throwing when he wanted to hold the ball and holding the ball when he wanted to throw it.
They turned the Giants' rhythm passing game into one sour note after another by putting hands and bodies in Collins's face. Even though he managed to complete 35 of 59 throws for 314 yards, the Patriots intercepted him four times, twice by Harrison, once by rookie Eugene Wilson, and once by cornerback Tyrone Poole. It was enough to persevere.
Wilson is an example of what has gone on this season. Drafted in the second round with the intention of seeing him compete with veteran cornerback Otis Smith for playing time, Wilson instead was asked to replace Milloy a week after Milloy was fired by the Patriots.
One game into his pro career, Wilson was informed he was now the team's starting free safety, a position he had played exactly zero times in his career. The result?
So far at least, he's persevered.
"Things fell our way today," Wilson said. "We were flying all over the place. Today we were just the better team."
That, in a nutshell, has been the story this season. It is why the Patriots are 4-2 and in position to play for first place in the AFC East Sunday in Miami. They're not always the best team, frankly, but the better team on the only day that matters.
On game days they have found ways to win even when it seemed there was no way to win.
"Look at some of the guys we've got out there," one veteran Patriot who asked for anonymity said yesterday. "No knock on any of them. They're all playing well. But how many teams could lose eight or nine starters and win for very long?"
The season is still a long one so in some regard one has to wonder how much longer the Patriots can do these kind of things. But thus far someone like Tom Ashworth has come in and played tackle well enough that the Giants' All-Pro defensive end Michael Strahan doesn't just come in and have a field day at his expense. Someone like Dan Koppen has come in and played center well enough that Woody can be moved to guard to replace injured Mike Compton without the center of the line caving in. Someone like linebacker Matt Chatham has stepped in off special teams and not only replaced as key an addition as linebacker Rosevelt Colvin without the defense falling apart but was in position to pick up a forced fumble and return it 38 yards for the opening touchdown yesterday because he kept chasing the play, which is what you do if you persevere.
Players like rookies Dan Klecko and Ty Warren come in and replace four-time Pro Bowl nose tackle Washington and do enough that the center of the Patriots' defensive front doesn't get gashed wide open week after week. Linebackers Mike Vrabel and Ted Johnson go out for long stretches with injuries, so Tedy Bruschi and Roman Phifer move inside and more than hold their ground.
Individually and collectively through these first hard and sometimes painful weekends, the Patriots have persevered. It was no different yesterday.
The Giants had many chances in the first half to break the game open but instead they had the ball torn from their hands or intercepted before it could reach their hands.
They had more chances in the second half to get back into the game but they were stopped cold or forced into more turnovers. In the end, they did the opposite of what the Patriots did when the pressure was put on them.
They did not persevere.
They disappeared.
