FOXBORO, Mass. In what is turning into a contest of one-downsmanship more intense than any in NFL history, the New England Patriots and the Jacksonville Jaguars today escalated their war of words over which team gets less respect as they prepared for their first-round playoff game.
"Last year when we won our third Super Bowl people told me I could be president if I wanted," Patriots quarterback Tom Brady reminded a crowd of reporters at his locker. "I'm still waiting," he said bitterly.
Jaguars quarterback Byron Leftwich, who has missed five games with a broken ankle, scoffed at Brady's complaint. "He doesn't know what disrespect is," Leftwich angrily asserted. "Saturday night I limped into a Denny's in Jacksonville and they offered me the Senior Citizens' discount--now that's disrespect."
Brady said his life has not been the storybook tale most people assume. "Sophomore year at San Mateo Serra High, I ran for class sergeant-at-arms and lost. It takes more than a decade to get over that kind of disappointment."
Jaguars cornerback Rashean Mathis said he would use Brady's poor self-image against him. "You see it in a quarterback's eyes when they have low self-esteem. That's when you can cheat a little and get an easy pick."
Brady claimed his early years were so discouraging that the Warren Zevon song "Poor, Poor Pitiful Me" was written about him. When a reporter pointed out that Brady was born in 1977, while the song's copyright date is 1973, Brady became defensive. "See," he said. "There you go again!"
The winner of Saturday's game will receive the NFL's Rodney Dangerfield Award, given annually to the team that makes the most effective use of alleged disrespect as a motivational tool in the playoffs.
FOXBORO, Mass. In a sharply-worded warning, NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue cautioned New England head coach Bill Belichick to "keep his offense out of the single-wing era" after the Patriots used a long-moribund technique to score an extra point against the Miami Dolphins today.
Belichick called aging Boston College quarterback Doug Flutie's number for a dropkick extra point, and in his post-game press conference threatened to revive other early twentieth-century plays if necessary to reach the Super Bowl for the third year in a row, and fourth in the last five.
"We're looking at the quick kick, the Statue of Liberty, and the student-body sweep," Belichick said. "We'll use every socket wrench in the tool box."
There had not been in a successful drop-kick in the NFL since 1941 before Flutie connected in the fourth quarter of New England's season-ending loss to the Miami Dolphins. Tagliabue said he would ask league officials to monitor the Patriots' offense next week against the Jacksonville Jaguars to ensure that they are not unfairly reviving plays that have fallen into well-deserved disuse.
"Belichik thinks he's a genius because he's read a couple of football books instead of just the waffle-house menus other coaches carry on the sidelines," Tagliabue said. "We have a pro football Hall of Fame in Canton for people who are into history. Fans don't want to watch that stuff on TV."
Tagliabue particularly cautioned Belichik against using the Flying Wedge, which was outlawed by President Theodore Roosevelt after several student fatalities in the early years of his administration.
For his part, Belichick was unapologetic. "As Victor Hugo used to say when we were assistant coaches with the Browns, 'There's nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come and gone.'"
Con Chapman is a Boston-area writer. He is the author of "The Year of the Gerbil: How the Yankees Won (and the Red Sox Lost) the Greatest Pennant Race Ever," a history of the 1978 AL East pennant race, and a number of plays, including "Number One Hockey Mom," "Please, Pope," and "What Mickey Belle Isle Told You," a trilogy about hockey (JAC Publishing). His work is available on Amazon Shorts (at 49 cents a dowload), and he writes on sports for Flak Magazine.
