Spygate to Stupidgate: Belichick Blunders

INDIANAPOLIS -- He was wearing a dark blue hoodie, stylish with a shirt collar, and my thought right now is that Bill Belichick should go back to the old tattered version. Because on Sunday night, in one of the most inexplicably arrogant brain cramps in the history of football and any other sport known to humankind, the coach who gave us Spygate introduced Stupidgate to the American lexicon.

There were the New England Patriots, three-time champions of the Super Bowl and Team of the Decade, facing 4th-and-2 at their own 28-yard line. They owned a 34-28 lead over the Indianapolis Colts. Two minutes and eight seconds remained. Armed with a capable punter and adept special teams, the Patriots could have pinned back the Colts and forced Peyton Manning, great as he is, to drive his offense about 70 yards. The Patriots' defense already had forced him into two interceptions. Two of the Colts' young wide receivers, Pierre Garcon and Austin Collie, were dropping the ball. This was the most obvious decision a coach could make on any level, NFL to Pee Wee.

Punt the friggin' ball.

But that's not what Tom Brady heard when he went to the sideline. "They said, 'We're going,' " he said of Belichick and his assistants. As in, going for it. As in, dumbing down when the situation called for the purest form of common sense. As in, being willing to commit football suicide in a game that could help determine home-field advantage in the postseason and, ultimately, whether the Patriots can return to the champions' podium after a five-year absence. They even used their final timeout to talk it over a little longer, at which time someone should've slapped Belichick in the face and conked him over the head. No one did.

So the Patriots proceeded to self-destruct, in a decision that some might consider karmic revenge for Spygate, and everyone will agree establishes new lows for imbecilic strategy. "You see that happen in video games: You go for it on fourth down when you're not supposed to and something bad happens," said Colts defensive end Dwight Freeney, as astonished as the rest of us. The play call was for Brady, operating from the shotgun, to quick-release a pass at the first-down marker for running back Kevin Faulk. But strong safety Melvin Bullitt, one of the young defensive backs whom Brady had picked on all night, rushed up and made the immediate hit on Faulk, who was bobbling the ball and wasn't given the forward progress he wanted. The Patriots needed a yard and a half. They gained only a yard.

The fans in Lucas Oil Stadium, the massive bricks-and-steel temple of Manning worship, exploded in shocked glee. Quieted by Brady and Randy Moss most of the night, they knew what was coming next. With two minutes left, Manning jogged into the huddle and told his offensive mates, while trying to contain his excitement, "Guys, obviously we need a touchdown. But let's not be in a hurry to score. I'm not interested in giving the Patriots the ball with 1:20 or 1:30 left.' " Because Belichick had wasted his final timeout to discuss his warped decision, the Colts could afford to run three or four plays, including a 14-yard pass to Reggie Wayne. With 36 seconds left, they had first-and-goal at the Patriots 1. Running back Joseph Addai didn't get into the end zone, but Manning calmly let the clock tick to under 20 seconds before dropping back, spotting Wayne in the end zone and hitting him with the game-tying touchdown with 13 seconds left. As a glaze of disbelief settled over the field and an estimated 12 million viewers -- at least those who hadn't turned off their TVs -- watched on Football Night in America, veteran Matt Stover kicked the extra point.

Your final score: Colts 35, Patriots 34.

Welcome to Bill Belichick's comeuppance, a wonderful day for anyone who has thought of him as a cheater and a boor. The hoodie had his initials, "BB," emblazoned on the front of his outer wear. Not since Bill Buckner has a "BB" in Boston sports blundered worse. Staring straight ahead and speaking in his trademark monotone, he took questions and didn't seem to regret what he had done, even though the Patriots are 6-3 and effectively four games behind the 9-0 Colts for playoff positioning in a rivalry where the home field means plenty.


"We tried to win the game on that play. We tried to pick it up right there," said Belichick, who lost for the first time as Patriots coach after leading by at least 13 points in the fourth quarter. "I thought we could make that yard. We could then either run out the clock or almost all of the clock. That's why I made the call. We had a good play. I don't know how you can't get one yard on that play. I guess we didn't."

Uh, did he not realize he technically needed two yards for the first down, not one? "Yeah, fourth-and-2," he said. So why did he keep saying he needed one yard?

And does he realize he'll be doubted at water coolers all over the land today? "Sure, they question everything," Belichick said.

Anything else he'd like to say in his defense? "Give them credit. The Colts made a nice play there," he said.

Give them credit? Belichick gave them a Christmas gift, wasting a wonderful effort by Brady that included 375 passing yards and three touchdowns, two to Moss in a time-machine throwback to their ultra-prolific, record-setting season in 2007. The focus should have been on Brady and how he has fully recovered from reconstructive surgery on his left knee, how he has thrown for 1,395 yards the last four games. Who knew he would be usurped by Belichick, who needs reconstructive surgery on his thought process? Sure, the Patriots have taken fourth-down gambles plenty of times, but they've never done so in such a high-profile situation where it made such little sense.

"That was coach being aggressive. I love that about him."
-- Tom Brady "That was coach being aggressive. I love that about him," Brady said. "That fourth-down play, that's one of your best plays, and you go to one of your best guys. We've got our offense on the field. We have over 450 yards of offense at the time. We've got a lot of great players on our offense. They stopped us. We had an opportunity to win the game right there. That's all we ask for as an offense. Coach has a lot of confidence in us, and we came up a half-yard short."

In the end, though, Brady couldn't hide his disappointment. "It's a bummer," he said. All night, he had reminded us that we'd started to underappreciate him amid all the well-justified gushing and gooing over Manning, who likely will be remembered as the greatest of all quarterbacks. If Football America has misplaced the breathtaking precision and mastery of Brady, he displayed again that he's a little more than just Gisele Bundchen's metrosexual husband. Basically, he and Moss eviscerated the injury-depleted and raw secondary of the Colts, who are without safety Bob Sanders, the former NFL Defensive Player of the Year, and cornerback Marlin Jackson for the rest of the season.

Didn't Brady try to talk Belichick out of the call? Nope. Nor did Faulk, who didn't exactly have Belichick's back when he said, "We execute. We're the employees. We do what he says." It's no fault of Brady that Manning won for the fourth time in his last five starts against the Patriots. But do praise Manning for taking advantage of the gift, not that anyone would doubt him in that scenario. Was he surprised by Belichick's call?

"Not really. Not much surprises me with New England," Manning said. "You kind of expect the unexpected. Obviously, you get excited to get the ball back when you stop them on third down. And I can't lie to you: When you see them going for it on fourth down, you get a little nervous because you realize you might get a shorter field but that the game might be over."

Jim Caldwell, unbeaten as the Colts' rookie head coach, was critical of Belichick's decision without realizing it. Initially, the Patriots' punt team ran on the field, allowing the Colts time to react. "They had started to substitute themselves," Caldwell noted. "They obviously changed their minds and said let's go for it. But the officials give you an opportunity to match up when there's that much confusion. So we had an opportunity to get our defense in."

It was a defense, by the way, that was appalled by New England's strategic arrogance. At first, like the rest of us, the Colts thought Brady would try to draw an offsides penalty. When the ball was snapped, the defenders were driven by anger.

"Wow," defensive end Robert Mathis said. "All you can say is wow. That's a lot of disrespect."

"Total disrespect," linebacker Clint Session said. "They disrespected us and they got what they deserved."

I can't disagree. And really, who can?