Week 2 of "Pat's Mat's" is below (and you can also check out the first of this year's "Letters to America". Tough loss, but there is, as many are pointing out, some silver linings. Just not silver and black...
A Bit Different Now: This week’s game was away, which matters more than if it were in an NBA type “bubble” but a lot less than it would if there were actual fans present. The relative emptiness of all the various venues over the past couple of weeks has led me to reflect on Gillette Stadium and Patriots’ Place, which I see about once a year, in the off season, and which still blows my mind each time I visit Bass Pro Shop or attend a July mini-camp practice session. The reason for this is simple. I know what was there before.
Now, in going back to the Greater Boston area Foxboro is not, I concede, the single most startling transformation of a location. To me that title is held by a strip of land a bit closer to the city itself. One of the last times we travelled to Massachusetts our plane got in the day before we were scheduled to head to New Hampshire, so we looked for a place to overnight that was close to the city but would allow us to make a break for the Granite State fairly easily. We found a Days Inn that was near the Somerville/Medford line, not your typical tourist destination but we could just jump on 93 and head North the next morning and it was reasonably close to the Orange line. I thought I knew the place.
“Oh, that’s near the Assembly Square Mall – as long as you don’t go anywhere near the Mystic River it’s OK”, says I. The reason for avoiding the Mystic River shoreline was, in my mind, fairly obvious. As far as I could recall there was nothing there except rats, places to dump bodies, abandoned cars and a number of mobile pharmaceutical dealers that could be most generously described as “unlicensed”.
Imagine my surprise when we pulled up to the Inn to discover that the entire area had been transformed into something called “Assembly Row” which included high fashion outlets, cinemas, bars serving drinks with fruit in them and restaurants where the food was green because it included avocado, not because it had been allowed to grow its own flora. There was a marina and boats floating in the river that looked like the one Tony Soprano had in the TV show. From what I remember the only thing floating in the Mystic previously would have been human bodies that looked like the one Tony Soprano had in the TV show. It was mind blowing.
I feel much the same way every time I go past Patriot Place. I remember Schaefer/Sullivan/Foxboro Stadium. Hell, I even remember Schaefer beer, which was the Schaefer Stadium of beer.
The old stadium was the laughing-stock of NFL venues, but, to be completely honest I didn’t really have much to compare it to, so that was not my take on it. All I knew I was that it sat in the middle of nowhere (which, at the time, I considered the area to be), the nearest known landmark was Walpole Correctional Facility, the largest Massachusetts state prison and that the benches in the jail were probably more comfortable than those in the stadium.
I went to college not too far away and it gave me an opportunity to see a few games (including when BC would play there during the Flutie era). Getting in and out of the stadium, even when it wasn’t sold out, was an adventure. But, you know what? When it comes to that it kind of still is. What was completely different back then was the quality of the parking lot. When NASA put the lunar rover on the moon there were fewer craters to negotiate than in the Foxboro parking lot. Less dangerous as well. I had some friends who worked at the harness racing track that was tucked in to the corner of the grounds (a whole other story) and I’d go down to pick them up every once in a while after work. The first time I went in I thought the place had been bombed. It was incredible.
Now when you go there it is like Disneyland, if Disneyland had more interesting stores. There is a freaking nature walk behind the Bass Pro Shop. Seriously. I took the attached picture of a giant snapping turtle accompanied by his little buddy there. If a snapping turtle had wandered in to the old stadium parking lot he probably would have ended up in the BBQ of one of the tailgaters.
Now you can eat, watch a movie, visit the plow that defeated the Dolphins and nearly gave Don Shula a stroke, buy all kinds of clothes and then go down to the Pro Shop and target shoot. I’ll tell you something – the only way you could have picked up designer sportwear in either the Foxboro Stadium or the greater Medford/Somerville Mystic River area when I lived there was either out of the back of someone’s car or off the corpse of someone who had “forgotten” to pay their bookie.
Times change.
Moral Victory? – The general consensus concerning the loss to Seattle on Sunday night was that “there are a lot of positives” to take out of the game. I don’t know – when the opposition QB throws for 5 touchdowns, including two absolute monster plays that really shouldn’t have been allowed, it’s hard to be that positive. Still, people are focused on the fact that Cam Newton can still throw, that the receiving corp looked very dangerous, that Julian Edelman might still make the Hall of Fame and that Stephen Gostkowski isn’t our kicker. (Hey – the guy has made two game winning kicks in two weeks. I know, it’s a bit like going 2-15 from the free throw line but the two you make being Ollie in Hoosiers, but still). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gEt3iNmLyw
The positive I took from the game was this. The Patriots secondary CAN’T be that bad. If teams plan on beating us by having their quarterback throw for five TD’s each week, then we’re gonna be OK. That’s because in order to do that they would need to have the equivalent of Russell Wilson on their squad, and there just ain’t that many Russell Wilsons out there.
Unfortunately, there is another guy just as good who is coming along very soon. There were indeed some positives to take from this game. I just hope that no one is thinking about how those will be applied to Mr. Mahomes before we deal with the little matter of the Raiders first. I think a certain coach with the initials BB will make sure of that.
Next Week – I’m in the middle of “The Dynasty”, Jeff Benedict’s new book and I’ll give a review when I’ve finished. Right now it’s on to Oakland, umm, L.A., ummm… Vegas, baby, Vegas.
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