Very rarely is there ever anything ostentatiously ceremonial about opening day in other sports, like there is in baseball. Most of the time, you repeat the same rituals 17 times over the course of four months, with little variation.
But the games themselves can still be portents of things to come. They can also offer false promises that can leave you disappointed and frustrated.
And, they can be just, plain daffy.
Who can forget last year, when the Patriots shocked the up-and-coming Cincinnati Bengals in coach Jerod Mayo’s first game? Gee, people (myself included) mused. Maybe they’re not as bad as we think . . .
We were wrong, of course. They were worse. But there have been other years where opening-day games have revealed a lot.
My favorite one was an embarrassing defeat at the hands of the Buffalo Bills in 2003. The day before, coach Bill Belichick unexpectedly released safety Lawyer Milloy – one of their best players and a team leader. A stunned Patriots team lost to the Buffalo Bills and Drew Bledsoe, 38-0. Tom Jackson of ESPN famously said the Patriots players hated their coach.
Maybe. Maybe not. I’d have hated him if I’d played for him. But the players rallied around the hated Hoodie and went 14-1 the rest of the way, and ended up winning their second Super Bowl. Afterward, when Jackson tried to get an interview, Belichick told him exactly what he could do.
I’ve always thought the game set the tone for the year as it gave the Patriots impetus to play inspired football.
Cut to 2007, when a rejuvenated Randy Moss announced his presence by hauling in three touchdown passes as the Patriots beat the always-laughable New York Jets, 38-7. But that’s not why the game was memorable. It was also the game in which smartest-guy-in-the-room Belichick got caught filming defensive signals from the sidelines (verboten!). Spygate was born, the resulting 16-0 season had a surreal feel to it from start to finish – which finished with the New York Giants handing them their only loss at the worst possible time – the Super Bowl.
We have to go back to 1994 for one of the great shootouts ever – a 39-34 defeat to the Miami Dolphins in the Orange Bowl (big deal, you say; the Patriots always lose down there). But second-year quarterback Drew Bledsoe threw four touchdown passes and Miami’s Dan Marino threw five. The field was a mess because it was pouring rain for most of the game. Guys were slipping and sliding all over the place. Very entertaining, but ultimately very disappointing.
But in only his second year coaching here, Bill Parcells led the team to the playoffs, where he lost to pupil Belichick and the Cleveland Browns.
For those who believe idiot kickers should just shut up and kick, I give you Mike Vanderjagt of the Indianapolis Colts, who won that moniker from Peyton Manning after saying something typically stupid.
This was 2004 – the first time the two teams had seen each other since a memorable AFC final the previous January. It was a seesaw game in which the Patriots led, 27-17, with five minutes to go when Brandon Stokely caught a TD pass from Peyton Manning. After a three-and-out by the Patriots, the Colts came right back and looked to go ahead until Wille McGinnest stuffed Manning in the backfield.
The sack gave Vanderjagt a relatively makeable 48-yard field goal attempt – which he kicked so far to the right, it landed in neighboring Walpole. The Patriots lucked out, went 14-2 for the season, and won their second straight Super Bowl.
Finally, we go back to Sept. 19, 1971 for quarterback Jim Plunkett’s debut – a 20-6 win over the Oakland Raiders. This was John Mazur’s first and only full year as coach (he flat-out quit halfway through the 1972 season).
This was during one of the many Patriots’ theatre-of-the-absurd eras. During preseason, the team received running back Duane Thomas from the Dallas Cowboys in a trade. Thomas was never a happy guy, it seems. When the Pokes won the Super Bowl, Thomas scoffed at the suggestion that the team had just won the “ultimate game.”
“If it’s the ultimate game,” he asked,”then how come they play it again next year?”
He got into a tiff with Mazur the second day of camp and the trade was rescinded. Then, during the first preseason game at brand-new Schaefer Stadium, the toilets backed up. This led to the famous “great flush,” when all of the water closets in the stadium were flushed at the same time to test the water pressure.
This hardly seemed like the greatest atmosphere for top draft pick Plunkett to begin his career and nobody was very optimistic.
So, what happened? The Patriots beat the Raiders and actually had a decent (6-8) season.
The Raiders are here Sunday. Things couldn’t possibly be that absurd again, could they?
