Punting was strange twist of fate
FOXBOROUGH -- It came down to the punter, just like you suspected it might. You worried about the punter all season. You worried that the periodic shanks and occasional mishits would end up deciding a game. You feared that this was not a bullet that could be dodged for 17 straight weeks, and last night you were right.
Last night the punter cost someone a chance to stay alive in the AFC playoffs.
But not your punter.
Not Ken Walter. Not the 12th-ranked punter in the AFC. Not the 24th-ranked punter in pro football. Not the guy who was cut barely a month ago, then brought back for reasons that caused you to break out in prickly heat when you thought about it yesterday on the skate down Route 1 to Razor Blade Field.
The way things went in last night's 17-14 Patriots' victory over the Tennessee Titans, the punter decided the game, but it wasn't your punter. It was the other guys', the one who was first in the AFC and second in the NFL this season in gross punting, net punting, and every statistical breakdown of punting. Craig Hentrich, one of the highest-paid punters in football and this season's AFC invitee to the Pro Bowl, squibbed a punt 32 yards late in the fourth quarter of a tie game, and suddenly opportunity was upon the New England Patriots.
It was the kind of kick you worried all week might roll off the foot of Walter, who averaged only 37.7 yards a punt this season with a miserable net of 33.6, more than 4 yards fewer than Hentrich's season-long net of 37.8 yards.
Both Walter and Hentrich knew it would be a difficult night for men who make their living with their feet. With the windchill below zero and the temperature at game time in the single digits, the punters knew they would be kicking footballs that felt like they were lined with lead. The ball was as frozen as the night air.
Last night, at the worst of moments for the Titans and the best of moments for the Patriots, it was a problem for the AFC's best punter. A big problem.
First, Walter came through with the best punt of the night when he dropped the ball dead on the Titans 7-yard line midway through the fourth quarter. Walter nailed the ball perfectly, lofting it high and short, dropping it only 31 yards from the line of scrimmage.
Normally that's not the kind of distance you want, but in this situation it left the ball at the 7 with the game tied. After the Titans gained one first down, New England's stout defense shut them down and forced a punt from the 17-yard line.
In trotted the usually reliable Hentrich, confident he would do what he had done so many times before for the Titans: boom them out of trouble.
But with the cold winds of winter blowing on him, Hentrich did what Walter had just done. He dropped it dead, too. So dead it helped kill the Titans, as his 32-yard shank was caught by Troy Brown and returned 9 yards to the Titans 40. Hentrich's net was 23 yards, 14.8 yards short of his season average.
A game like last night's is fought by the yard and decided by the inch. The outcome often turns on such plays, so when Hentrich hit one of his worst punts of the season in one of the most important moments of the season, the stage was set.
The Titans' defense had been as harsh and stingy as the Patriots' all evening, and that continued on what would be the winning drive. The drive covered only 13 yards, which is not much of a drive at all.
It's more of a short walk around the block, but on this night it was long enough to send the Titans away on vacation, because those 13 yards of gains moved the ball to the Titans 27, setting up the Patriots' other troubled kicker with another chance to prove he is money when it counts.
Adam Vinatieri, winner of a snowy playoff game in Foxborough two years ago, as well as the Super Bowl that magical season, came on dragging his sore and tired leg and lined up a 46-yard field goal attempt. In last night's conditions, not even the most reliable kicker can be counted on from that distance, and this season Vinatieri has been inconsistent.
Vinatieri had already missed once, from 44 yards, and was 9 of 18 from 30 yards and beyond this season -- not shining numbers for a guy who has been one of the game's most accurate and reliable kickers for so many years.
So when he lined up to break the tie with 4:06 to play, there was not the most confident feeling in the stands as 68,436 fans held their steamy breath. There was hope, but not that sense of guarantee that used to exist when Vinatieri would come on.
And then the ball went off his foot, and it was money. Not perfect, but money, as the ball spun wildly through the uprights to make it 17-14. It would take one last defensive stand for that margin to hold, but the Patriots' defense was up to the task, so New England moved on to the AFC Championship game, which will be played at Gillette Stadium next Sunday against the winner of today's matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Indianapolis Colts.
The Patriots are going to play, and the Titans are going to watch, for a lot of razor-thin reasons. But, in the end, the biggest one was that on a night when he averaged only 27 yards a kick on four punts, troubled Ken Walter, the guy who made you worry so often, did his job when it counted better than the AFC's best punter.
Not by a lot, but by just enough. That's how the Patriots beat the Titans last night. They beat them by just enough.
That is how it goes this time of year. Games turn on the smallest of things. Heroes emerge from the most unexpected locations. And, as Craig Hentrich got to think about as the Titans flew home through the dark night, goats do, too.
