Milloy: Not a happy return

Milloy was coming to play a football game in Foxborough, something he'd done for seven falls and seven winters, but this time he was not driving a luxury automobile into the players' parking lot and walking into a spacious locker room. This time he was on a bus with a group of guys who soon would be booed the moment their heads poked out of the cramped visitors quarters at Gillette Stadium.

As the bus closed in on a place that was no longer home, an ex-Patriot felt for the first time what it meant to be an expatriate.

"During the week I didn't really think about it," the former Patriots defensive captain said of his first return to Foxborough since being released in September and landing in Buffalo. "But on the way here it really did start to get weird for me. As we got close to the stadium I had to hold back the emotions. I didn't want my teammates to see me like that. It was the final step of closure. I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to the fans before, but now it's over."

It ended the way Milloy's time in Buffalo began, with a 31-0 whitewashing. Four months ago it was Milloy's new team that was on the right side of that score, but yesterday everything was reversed. Milloy found himself in the "wrong" locker room and his team on the wrong side of that identical score. The irony of that was not lost on a guy who had been for so long the heart of the Patriots' defense.

"The irony is we beat them 31-0 and . . . boom . . . there it is, 31-0," Milloy said. "It was kind of crazy.

"They beat us fairly handily. They're playing the best ball in the league. They were the better team. As far as home field [for the AFC playoffs], they deserve it. It's their 12th man. It's hard to come and play here."

Yesterday it was hard for Milloy, who ended a long year dating to the day he received the shocking news that if he did not take a massive pay cut he would be released five days before the opening game. Milloy dug in his heels and refused, ending up getting a $2.5 million raise for his boldness and a new address with a team that had bright hopes when the season began but ended with a disappointing 6-10 record that left Milloy trying to explain the difference between his former teammates and his new ones.

"We don't know how to win the close games," Milloy said a half hour after his final one this season had ended anything but close. "We didn't get the job done in those situations. We've got to become more situationally aware.

"The way this season went for us was definitely a shock. We opened the year beating them, 31-0, and now we lose to them by the same score. That puts the exclamation point on the difference between us. I'm ready to go home for a while and just get away from football."

Before he left, however, Milloy was asked what he thought the future might hold for his longtime friend Ty Law, the Patriots' Pro Bowl cornerback whose contract is now among the most expensive in the organization and hence ripe for the same kind of fiscal review that led to Milloy's departure.

Milloy, who remains close to the fans and his former teammates but not to management or the coaching staff in New England, didn't need any time to think about things might go for his best friend in football.

"They treated me a certain way," Milloy said of the Patriots management. "I'm glad Ty had the year he had because it will make his argument [to retain his present contract] stronger, but they'll do what they want to do. But they're definitely dealing with the same type of person [as Milloy]. Whatever they decide, Ty will be OK. I'm sure the Patriots think they'll be also. We'll see. I know Ty will end up all right either way."

As Milloy spoke, he slipped into a throwback Denver Broncos jersey with Steve Atwater's name on the back. Atwater was a knockout artist at safety for the Broncos for many years, a guy who played with the same kind of abandon Milloy always has shown. After a slip in production last year that Milloy claimed was the result of changes in the demands of his job rather than any dropoff in his abilities, he has returned to the same kind of player he was most of his career in New England. The kind of player Atwater was in Denver.

"There's only a few guys who played before me who I respect," Milloy said. "I don't wear many names on my back. I'm pretty proud of my name. But Atwater and Ronnie Lott are two guys I would wear on my back."

As Milloy prepared to leave the visitors' locker room with his new teammates, he greeted some familiar faces. Clubhouse guys. Reporters. An ex-teammate or two. Then he turned to leave an old house for the last time, knowing that after this nothing would be there for him but old memories.

"I'm a Buffalo Bill now," he said. "And I'm proud of it."