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Borges: Artist Palmer Murphy casts Bill Belichick in role of doorknocker

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If Palmer Murphy didn’t like Christmas movies he never would have made the connection, but then again, if he didn’t grow up watching the “Prestone Giants Journal” in New York he might not have either. Really, who would look at Bill Belichick with a headset jammed around his ears and think “Jacob Marley?”

Because he’s a sculptor living in Westerly, R.I., with an artist’s fine eye, Palmer Murphy did. He saw a vision. So did Ebenezer Scrooge when he saw Marley’s face on his doorknocker that wintry Christmas Eve night Charles Dickens brought to life, but unlike Ebenezer, Palmer didn’t say “Bah, humbug!” or think he’d seen a ghost. He saw art.

Not long after seeing the film version of “A Christmas Carol,” Murphy was watching the Patriots do battle on TV and there was Belichick, hooded and with his headset on. Most people saw a coach but artists see what you and I do not.

“He flipped that Bose microphone down and I thought, ‘He looks like Jacob Marley’s doorknocker,’ ” Murphy said yesterday. “I did a few drawings and showed them to some friends. They liked it and got a laugh out of it. So I went to work creating a door-Belichick. I thought somebody might like it. If you’re a fan it’s a piece of art, and if you want to knock Belichick you can do it on your door any time you want.”

Murphy’s sculptures are owned by collectors worldwide. He’s done ones of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle (do we see a theme here from this transplanted New Yorker?), Tom Seaver and many others. He’s done commissioned limited-edition corporate pieces, a series of prototypes for miniature soldier companies that included likenesses of Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln and was retained by HBO to sculpt a bronze memorial plaque commemorating six firefighters from Ladder 10 killed in 9/11.

A few years ago, he even gained national notoriety when he created a bronzed Bernie Madoff piggy bank.

“You could put your money in but you couldn’t get it out,” Murphy said.

Murphy also once created a 50-pound bronze sculpture of Sugar Ray Robinson for HBO Sports that was awarded to Bernard Hopkins when Hopkins unified the middleweight title by upsetting Felix Trinidad in 2001. Although the trophy was on display at the pre-fight weigh-in, Hopkins never received it as planned in the ring at Madison Square Garden, an occurrence that came with the usual boxing intrigue.

“I spent 400 or 500 hours on that,” Murphy said. “They kept it locked in a safe. When Bernard upset Felix, the promoter, Don King, was so upset they couldn’t find the key to the safe. Bernard believes they’d already put a plate on it with Trinidad’s name. I don’t know about that but he got it a couple weeks later at Gallagher’s Steak House in front of about eight people.”

Murphy’s fascination with Belichick began in the 1980s when he was the New York Giants defensive coordinator under Bill Parcells. It was there that he was first recognized as a budding strategic genius and from time to time would appear on MSG Network’s “Prestone Giants Journal’’ with host Sam Rosen to discuss the defenses he concocted. Murphy, a Giants fan, was an avid viewer.

“I used to wonder, ‘Who is this kid?’ ” Murphy said. “Back then he was a mad genius. Now he’s a senior citizen. You can’t help but admire the guy’s accomplishments.”

In this case, admiration turned into drawings of a one of a kind doorknocker. After studying a parade of pictures from all angles, Murphy first crafted a clay model of his vision. Jacob Marley had been transformed and Belichick’s headset had a new use.

“It’s the knocker,” Murphy said. “I thought it would take no time at all to make. I just did it because I liked the concept.”

Art, like an artfully built football team, takes time, however. If you are interested in precision, as both Belichick and Murphy clearly are, the hours tick away as you tinker and refine your ideas.

Murphy estimates he put in over 80 hours crafting the image of Belichick’s head. The microphone alone took him another 10 hours at least.

“You start to ask yourself, ‘Why are you doing this?’ ” Murphy said.

He was doing it for art and for a few laughs, and he created both. When it was done, he spoke with Dan Kendall, founder of Sincere Metal Works in Chelsea. Kendall, an old friend, agreed to cast two copies of it in bronze and by April the job was done.

“They’re Patriots fans and understood the concept,” Murphy said. “It’s amazing to me how people identify with a team or a guy. Certainly a lot of people do with Belichick. When he was with the Giants, I was one of them.”

So now what? What do you do with a doorknocker likeness of the most successful football coach in NFL history?

Murphy isn’t sure, but through Kendall one copy landed at the Patriots offices in Foxboro. He hasn’t heard from Belichick or the team and has no idea if the man now preparing the Patriots for their eighth Super Bowl appearance in his 18 years as coach knows he bares enough of a likeness to Jacob Marley that he inspired a sculptor to put his face on a doorknocker.

He doesn’t know where this might lead, either, but he’s sure of one thing: Art ain’t Tupperware.

“It’s not something that’s going to be mass produced,” Murphy said. “I just did it in the spirit of fun and living history. It’s a one-of-a-kind piece of art.”

Murphy decided to put his prototype on eBay on Friday to see what happens. After all, you never know when a knock on the door might come.

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KNOCK FIRST: Sculptor Palmer Murphy shows off his Bill Belichick doorknocker.

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Sculpture of Bill Belichick created by Rhode Island artist Palmer Murphy
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Borges: Patriots well-schooled in preparing for Super Bowl hysteria

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FOXBORO — Like every kid who ever played flag football, Duron Harmon dreamed about playing in the Super Bowl. What he didn’t dream about was locating hotel rooms and bartering for tickets.

But when you get there — or if you’re smart, the week before you get there — that’s as much a part of the Super Bowl Experience as watching the Philadelphia Eagles offense on an endless loop of videotape.

The Super Bowl is a national holiday for everyone but the players and coaches involved. For them, it’s a balancing act. It’s the final work day of the year, but the two weeks leading up to the moment Harmon and his teammates will run onto the turf at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis can be a hectic collection of days of preparation and nights of learning what life is like for workers at TripAdvisor, Ace Ticket and Travelocity.com.

Fortunately, Harmon and many of his teammates are veterans of this hysteria before the hysteria. This will be his third trip to the Super Bowl in four years, so he knows the drill. Yet even for Harmon and his teammates, apportioning hotel rooms, tickets and handling other logistics for family and friends can be fraught with as much danger as sorting out how to handle Nick Foles or, in the case of the Patriots offensive line, coping with guys like Fletcher Cox, Brandon Graham and Nigel Bradham.

“Getting everything done as fast as possible I should say,” Harmon said of the approach he takes to the tasks before The Task. “Going through it the first time, I didn’t realize how fast everything comes up on you with tickets, hotel rooms, trying to get your families and your friends there and trying to make sure everybody is OK. So I would say just getting everything done, getting the hotel rooms situated before I even go out there so that when I get out there I can focus strictly on the Philadelphia Eagles.

“You try to use the days you have off to try to gather all the information you need for your families to make sure everything is situated. Then when you come in (for practice) it’s all business. It’s all getting prepared for the Eagles. This is the best team we’re going to play all year. I know we say it each and every week, but these are the only two teams left standing. It’s the best of the best, so we’re going to have to put everything we have into it.

“Can’t be worrying about the extra extravaganza stuff with the Super Bowl. You’ve got to kind of leave that to your families, leave that to your wives. Let them take care of that, you just focus on the only thing that matters and that’s winning the football game.”

Yet even finding time for that most essential of duties takes not only planning but an inordinate amount of focus that can — and has for some — become a distraction as difficult as your opponent. The first time the Patriots went to the Super Bowl under Bill Belichick in 2001, some of his veteran players were not happy. It wasn’t a problem with the game plan to thwart the heavily favored St. Louis Rams. It was that some rookies got far larger rooms in New Orleans than some veterans.

That might sound like a trivial distraction, but the real distractions are often in the details — or in the square footage of a room.

Belichick immediately understood no distraction was too trivial to ignore, especially after team captain Lawyer Milloy informed him during a walkthrough practice that he heard rookie Richard Seymour crowing about the vastness of his room while Milloy could barely fit his suitcases in his.

Belichick responded in his usual way saying, “Really, Lawyer?”

But when Milloy got back to the hotel, the concierge was waiting for him with a new key. Milloy later recalled he opened the door to a room that was “big as hell” and overlooked Bourbon Street. It had a Jacuzzi, room to wander and, in the corner, of all things a treadmill.

That night Belichick approached Milloy at dinner and asked if he liked his room. Milloy said he did but couldn’t understand why it had a treadmill in it.

“Because it was my room,” Belichick said as he walked away.

For the rest of the week, every time Belichick saw Milloy he’d ask, “How’s my room?”

The Patriots upset the heavily favored St. Louis Rams at the end of that week, 20-17. Did sleeping in Belichick’s room help?

“It didn’t hurt,” Milloy joked years later.

One cannot always count on his coach giving up his suite to avoid distractions, of course. After all, there’s only one head coach and well over 50 players to contend with plus their families. So what is the best way to handle the logistical problems of family and friends?

“Be prepared to say no,” says Matthew Slater, who is heading to his fourth Super Bowl in 10 years. “You have to tell people no unfortunately and then just remember we’re going down there for one reason. I know there’s going to be a lot of hoopla and what not, but our focus needs to be on the game, our preparation and going down there and playing our best game of the season.

“Everybody thinks we get free tickets. It can become a distraction if you let it linger. Obviously, there are a lot of people that have stood behind us as players that we want to have be a part of this experience with us, but at the same time we’re only going down there for one reason. This is work for us.”

Indeed so, and there are many ways to prepare for this job that do not directly involve the Eagles. The first is the personal logistics of family and friends, but there is another issue that veteran safety Devin McCourty believes is equally important this week. It is the imparting of a hard lesson he learned six years ago at Super Bowl XLVI. Although it was the first of his four trips to the NFL’s most important game, it remains the one seared in his memory.

“To win that AFC championship is huge,” McCourty cautioned. “You have fun, celebrate that, but you can’t forget that winning that game allows you the opportunity to play in the biggest game of the year and how you want to be prepared. You don’t want that confetti falling as you’re walking off the field and the other team is winning. It’s a terrible feeling. There’s no words you can say.”

None at that point, but in the days leading up to the biggest game of your life it seems there are a few words as important as “Philadelphia Eagles.” They’re “no,” “the tickets are all set” and, at least in Lawyer Milloy’s case, “What’s up with the treadmill?”

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SEEN THIS SCENE: Like a true pro who has been this route before, safety Duron Harmon knows how to block out the distractions that come with the Super Bowl. Staff photo by Nancy Lane
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Borges: How middle of field transformed into an indefensible area vs. NFL offenses

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One can debate all day whether it’s Tom Brady or his fleet of possession receivers who open up the middle of the field against one seemingly helpless opponent after another and never get to the real culprit. That’s because Mel Blount retired 35 years ago.

For all the well-deserved praise and suspect numbers Brady, Wes Welker, Danny Amendola, Julian Edelman and Rob Gronkowski have piled up slicing open defenses with shallow crosses, dig routes, three-step slants and seam routes, the truth is none of them opened up the middle the way the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Hall of Fame corner did in 1978, with an assist from Ty Law in 2004.

Those may well be the two most significant dates in the passing game since Oct. 25, 1906, which is the afternoon “Peggy” Parratt of the Massillon Tigers completed, fittingly, a short throw to Dan Policowski (playing under the assumed name Dan “Bullet” Riley for reasons lost in history). It seems right and just that the first thrown pass in pro football history was a form of what Bill Walsh called “the extended handoff,” meaning a short throw into what has become the wide-open plains in the middle of the field.

In recent years some have come to call this the dink-and-dunk offense. It’s hard to argue otherwise, but whatever you call it Brady runs the greatest one since the middle of the field was opened up like a can of sardines. Blame Blount and Law for that.

Andre Tippett can still hear former Patriots defensive coordinator Rod Rust’s gravelly voice reminding him and his linebacking teammates that one thing best not happen in the middle of the field in his day.

“When we were playing in the ’80s, if some joker tried running across the middle you put a hit on him,” the Hall of Fame ex-Patriots linebacker recalled during a discussion about how the middle of the field has changed. “Rod would say, ‘You better put a body on any (expletive) crossing the middle or I’ll put your body on the bench.’ You would mug guys in the middle, especially wide receivers.

“If they tried to pick you like they do today, you’d blow his ass up. They’d only run that pick once. You did not run a crossing route with somebody like Kenny Easley or Ronnie Lott or Steve Atwater at safety. If you came across the middle and Chuck Cecil was there, he would take you out.”

Cecil was a Pro Bowl safety with the Packers, Cardinals and Oilers known as “Scud” because he came in like a missile and blew up receivers who tried to cross the middle, often leading with his helmet. He once made the cover of Sports Illustrated under the headline “Is Chuck Cecil Too Vicious for the NFL?” If he was playing today, he would not be playing. He’d be suspended.

But that aspect of pro football has been radically changed in the past three decades. Today Brady and his receivers make a living running shallow crosses through the middle without the slightest fear of retribution. This wasn’t always how the game was played, as we were all reminded in the AFC Championship Game when Jacksonville strong safety Barry Church went old school on Gronkowski after he caught a pass in the middle. Church knocked him silly, dislodging the ball from his hands and synapses from his mind. That kind of hit was the norm until about 10 years ago, and one can see why it dissuaded quarterbacks from calling those plays and receivers from running them.

“I used to teach defenders to face the crossers and just eliminate them,” recalled former Bears linebacker coach Dave McGinnis, who was also a successful defensive coordinator during his over 30-year NFL coaching career. “You could eliminate the cross under five yards the Patriots run by stepping up and ‘Cujoing’ their asses. Today you cannot and that’s expanded the (passing) game horizontally. The anchor points of your defense have expanded. All you can do now is ask the defender to stay on a guy’s hip but even if he does it’s usually a completion.

“For most of the history of the game, if you tried to throw inside the hash marks you’d kill the receivers whether they had the ball or not. Clothesline ’em. Hit ’em in the head. Disrupt ’em. Let them know if they ran in there they were not going to run back out feeling very good. That’s what pass defense was. Today they’ve cleared the air space.”

The changes that Brady has feasted on for nearly 20 years are a reality based on safety issues and a desire that began in 1978 to add offense and limit defense. If that is the goal it has worked brilliantly in the latter case, allowing Brady and many of his peers to amass passing numbers like none seen before while slightly-built receivers like Amendola and Edelman make handsome livings in what used to be the most dangerous place in football.

In 1977, the average yards passing per game was 141.9 on 25 attempts, the final year of an era seen as the nadir of the passing game. Following that season the 10-yard chuck rule was reduced to 5 yards. It was known as the Mel Blount Rule because Blount was one of the most physical corners in a game then filled with them. If he got his hands on you, you were doomed.

And if safety Donnie Shell appeared to help out as you tried to cross the middle, you were concussed.

A year later, NFL offenses averaged 158.8 yards passing on 26.4 attempts, a more than 10 percent jump in passing production from the previous season. By 2017, the NFL average was 224.4 on 34.2 attempts, an increase in passing yards of 58 percent from the game played in 1977.

That change is not the sole reason the middle of the field is now as wide open as the Holland Tunnel. The second reason is the Ty Law Rule, an Indianapolis Colts-inspired “emphasis” from 2004 on firmly enforcing not only the 5-yard chuck rule but tightening restrictions on hand fighting and more firmly enforcing contact on receivers away from the ball.

What has resulted is the sight today of Patriots receivers wide open across the middle against defenses that can, frankly, no longer defend themselves.

Nate Burleson played 10 years in the NFL, beginning in 2003, the year before the Ty Law Rule was added. He caught 457 passes and was named to the Seahawks’ 35th anniversary team before moving on to analyst work on NFL Network. He recalled several years ago the difference between his early days in the NFL and today.

“I remember going across the middle my rookie year and thinking, ‘I’d better keep my head on a swivel because anybody can come and knock me off,’ ” Burleson said. “Nowadays, you can pretty much run around as much as you want, and a guy can’t put his hands on you past five yards.”

Talk of Fame Network asked Jerry Rice what he felt the impact of today’s game would be if he was still playing. The all-time leading receiver, who retired with 1,549 catches, said if he was playing now he’d have over 2,000.

“No doubt,” he said. “No question in my head.

“Oh my God!” Rice exclaimed. “With all the new rule changes? Back in the day even if the ball wasn’t coming my way I was still getting hit. They didn’t throw flags or anything like that. If I played with the rules today man I could have a field day . . . I played in an era I really loved but it was all about contact.”

The further you go back in history the more you hear voices like Lions Hall of Fame linebacker Joe Schmidt, who after retiring coached Detroit for six years (1967-72). The game he sees today is not one he enjoys.

“My opinion, which people may not like, but I think football is deteriorating,” Schmidt told me during a Talk of Fame interview. “You’re not permitted to touch the quarterback. He’s making $25 million. If I was making $25 million, they could hang me up and just hit me any time they wanted!

“The guys on the offensive line . . . all they do is push and shove each other. There are poor tacklers all over the place. Some kids can’t tackle, the secondary especially. Football, I think, was devised to physically outdo the other guy. I don’t necessarily think that’s the case now.”

Certainly it isn’t in the secondary. Former Patriots defensive coordinator Eric Mangini still recalls the hit linebacker Bryan Cox put on Colts receiver Jerome Pathon in Brady’s first start after the 2001 injury to Drew Bledsoe. At the time, Peyton Manning’s Colts were predicted to dismember New England, but the Patriots won 44-13 on a day when Brady completed only 56.5 percent of his throws. But that hit by Cox set a tone for the Patriots defense that resonated for years.

“That one hit changed the formations we got from Indianapolis dramatically,” Mangini recalled. “We were built to play in a phone booth. Once we established there would be a cost to coming inside, it was huge for us. You could gain something from the threat. How many chances do you want to take?”

For decades a hit like Church’s would have brought hosannas rather than calls of dirty play and intent to injure. Church’s intent was no different than Cox’s in 2001 — to bring down a guy who believed he could run unabated through the defense and do it hard. Church was flagged, which is standard today, but for decades those kind of hits were meant as a deterrent to what is now the norm — an indefensible game of pitch-and-catch where the quarterback knows the middle will be wide open not because of scheme but because of governmental fiat.

After the mandated “re-emphasis” with the Ty Law Rule in 2004, there was an immediate 10.5-yard per game average increase in passing yardage even though attempts went down slightly (31.9 from 32.2). That growth has continued almost unabated ever since, reaching the all-time high of 241.5 average passing yards per game in 2016 before sliding back to 224.4 this season.

To argue that today’s passers are more efficient than their predecessors is, on one level, statistically beyond argument. There is only one passer who played prior to 1977 (Hall of Famer Dan Fouts) in the top 65 quarterbacks in career average pass yardage per game. Johnny Unitas is 67th at 190.7. Do you really believe Drew Brees, the all-time leader at 282.9, is nearly a third better passer than Unitas?

Let’s leave the last word on that to someone who actually saw both in their prime. Upton Bell is a former Colts personnel director and Patriots general manager. He has high praise for Brees and feels Unitas and Brady are the two best quarterbacks in NFL history. But he also understands why the latter is torching defenses in record numbers.

“If you ran the routes they’re running today you would live to regret it,” Bell said. “The middle used to be no man’s land. Now it’s Disneyland.”

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UNDER WRAPS: Ty Law manhandles Colts receiver Marvin Harrison during the 2004 AFC title game in Foxboro.

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New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski collides with Jacksonville Jaguars strong safety Barry Church and was taken off the field during the second quarter of the AFC Championship game at Gillette Stadium on Sunday, January 21, 2018. Staff photo by Matt Stone

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RUNNING FREE: Rob Gronkowski breaks away across the middle of the field during the Pats’ playoff win over the Titans.

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Linebacker Andre Tippett (56) of the New England Patriots sets for play against the Houston Oilers in 1992. (Al Messerschmidt via AP)
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Borges: Ray Lewis dishes out advice on how Tom Brady can be beaten

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BLOOMINGTON, Minn. — Al Davis had a theory on why teams and organizations succeed or fail, and it always started from the same place.

The top.

“A fish rots from the head,” Davis used to say. “So does a football team.”

In the case of the Patriots it’s obvious where the top is. It’s inside Tom Brady’s head. But how does an opponent get inside it?

Ray Lewis is one of the few defenders who can argue he got the best of Brady when it counted most, and he thinks the same way as Davis did. If his old friend Jim Schwartz, the Philadelphia Eagles’ defensive coordinator, wants to beat Brady in Super Bowl LII, Lewis believes Schwartz must deeply understand what Davis and Lewis both knew.

“You cannot beat New England unless you get to the head and the head is Tom Brady,” Lewis said last week on Talk of Fame Network’s weekly SB Nation radio broadcast. “So I think Philly is going to have a tough task on how do they dial up blitzes without letting him know what coverages you’re in or doing. That’s one of the successes we had against Tom over the years.”

One reason Lewis believes the Ravens had consistent postseason success against Brady is not simply that they got to his head. It’s that they got inside his head.

Lewis and the Ravens studied Brady as much as Brady studied them. They began to understand how he thought, what he was trying to do and, most importantly, how he would have to go about it.

Lewis is eligible for the Hall of Fame for the first time this year. It is generally believed the two-time Defensive Player of the Year will be a first-ballot Hall of Famer when the vote is taken Saturday in Minneapolis. But before that, Lewis expounded on both his respect for Brady and his theory on what a team must do to beat him.

“Listen to this — the concept Tom Brady is running, he has not changed his concepts one time,” said Lewis, whose own concept left him 2-1 against Brady and the Pats in the playoffs, both wins at Gillette Stadium. His only playoff loss was a 23-20 AFC Championship Game defeat in which kicker Billy Cundiff missed a last-second 34-yard field goal that would have forced overtime.

“You know what that tells me? Nobody is studying his concept. It took people like myself, and it took people like the Giants and people who’ve had success against Tom Brady (and) who had a veteran-run group that can make adjustments on the fly, on the field, (to beat him).

“I’ve been trying to think about why they are so successful. They are a player-driven offense. What does that mean? Tom Brady does not look to the sidelines to get the plays he’s going to call. Tom Brady knows exactly what he’s going to do. When I had my defense in Baltimore for so many years we didn’t have to look to the sidelines to get the next defensive call to make a call.

“You have to play the game on the field. You have to be an on-field general (to match Brady’s thinking). That’s why a bunch of these young, talented defenses struggle so much.”

One of those was the Jacksonville Jaguars. They came into the AFC Championship Game as the top-ranked pass defense and the AFC’s No. 1 defense overall. For three quarters, Jacksonville held Brady at bay but then, when the game was on the line, he concocted two fourth-quarter drives to beat the Jags, even though he’d lost his most dangerous weapon, tight end Rob Gronkowski, to a concussion.

When Lewis saw the Jaguars slip into soft zones in the final quarter after being successful with a more aggressive approach, he thought “concepts.” He also thought “what are they doing?”

“Watching the other night you see nice young talent in Jacksonville but when it came down to it the consistent experience of that (New England) organization, as well as him. . .” Lewis said, his voice trailing off as if the name “Brady” was unnecessary and self-explanatory.

“Tom Brady is a special, special player. They come around say every 15, 20 years and when you see it it’s something to sit back and watch because it’s going to be 15, 20 years before it comes back around. The ultimate respect, man. Absolutely amazing.”

Yet for all the respect Lewis he also knows Brady can be beaten because he did it, not only holding a postseason advantage but being part of a defense that forced him to throw seven interceptions in those games to only three touchdowns.

The way to do that, the way the Eagles will have to do it to succeed Sunday, is with a controlled aggression, layered over with confusing and ever-changing schemes designed to bait Brady into one concept while actually presenting him with another, then changing those concepts as the game moves along. Then, when the moment comes as it did for the Jags, you strike. Or lose.

“Jacksonville had the opportunity, when Gronk went down, to blitz the New England Patriots,” Lewis said. “I do not know why (the Jags) never blitzed the New England Patriots. You cannot beat New England unless you get to the head.”

Will Schwartz get his defense inside the head? Lewis isn’t sure but he knows one thing. He won’t do what the Jaguars did when their moment of truth came.

“One thing about Jim Schwartz,” Lewis said. “Jim Schwartz was in Baltimore with me for many years and one thing about Jim is we always said ‘If you’re going to get beat, you got to get beat swinging.’ ”

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Borges: Brandin Cooks a master at drawing penalties that help Patriots

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BLOOMINGTON, Minn. — Brandin Cooks averaged 16.6 yards per catch this season but about 32.6 yards per pass interference drawn. So what is his real aim when he breaks the huddle and toes the line of scrimmage?

Is it to make the big catch or is it catching a defender in the act of committing Cooks-induced mayhem, beating him with a referee’s flag more than with his own soft hands?

In some ways the answer is both. The emphasis is always on the former of course because Brandin Cooks is here to make plays but some of Cooks’ biggest this season have not been receptions. They’ve been plays like the 32-yard pass interference call he drew on Jacksonville Jaguars cornerback A.J. Bouye with 77 seconds left in the first half that handed the Patriots offense the ball on Jacksonville’s 13-yard line. Soon after the score had gone from 14-3 to 14-10. It was the beginning of the end of Jacksonville’s Super Bowl hopes.

Cooks at times seems more a master of slowing up just enough to force a defender to collide with him when Tom Brady takes a deep shot downfield than of blowing by those defenders and catching the ball on the run. To be fair, Cooks has done enough of the latter to post his third consecutive 1,000-yard receiving season and his first with the Patriots but still you wonder at times as he seems to put the brakes on and cause a collision if he’s as much about guile as glue fingers.

His 1,082 yards and 16.6 yards per catch average for a receiver new to the Patriots system has been, in Brady’s view, admittedly unusual and a welcome occurrence, though. In fact, Brady himself pointed that out yesterday during a Super Bowl media session.

“What he’s done for our team in his first year is really incredible,” Brady said. “I haven’t seen it very much from anybody (in their first season in the Patriots system) to come in and make the kind of contribution that he’s made in his first year. He does it in his own style too. He’s not trying to mimic anybody. It’s just him.”

Actually, Cooks admitted it isn’t just him. From the moment he first arrived from New Orleans after posting back-to-back 1,000-yard receiving seasons working with Drew Brees, Cooks was all ears as much as he was all hands.

He would sit with Brady and watch film, run patterns for him after practice, ask questions more often than offer opinions. That is not always the case with deep threat receivers. In general they have a diva way about them, a self-absorbed quality that often leaves them seeing things on a route the quarterback does not.

Cooks may have, at times, felt the same way early in the process of evolving into what he has become this season but from the start he understood what many of his predecessors like Joey Galloway and Chad Johnson did not. Perhaps in other places the divas sing but here they listen to someone else’s music making first.

“It was important my knowing what he wants,” Cooks said of adjusting to Brady. “Where he wants his guys to be. I wanted him to know he can trust me.”

One way to accomplish that is to make the kind of plays that give you a 16.6 yards per catch average and draw the kind of game-changing penalties Cooks has. But there is another way. One that is perhaps equally as important as making plays and being available after practice to put in the extra time that creates a syncopation between quarterback and receiver.

Maybe much of the time you just have to be quiet and listen.

“I just listen to him,” Cooks said of Brady. “If he sees it one way then that’s the way it is.”

As their connection has grown Brady has more and more seemed to take random downfield shots, lofting throws up to Cooks not only when he’s behind the defense but when he’s in position to lure that defender into the kind of critical mistake that can change a game without the ball ever ending up in his hands.

Is this happenstance or not? Cooks smiled broadly as he considered the question yesterday before saying, “It’s just all part of the game. I don’t really pay attention to (flags). Things happen so fast it’s not like you go out there and purposely try and do that.”

Perhaps so but when asked if he’s surprised when the flag comes out and the Patriots have picked up large chunks of real estate without having actually hit a chunk play on the defense, Brandin Cooks smiled again. Broadly.

“No,” he said. “I ain’t surprised.”

After one game less than a season working with Cooks, neither, it seems, is Tom Brady.

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Borges: Eagles assistant John DeFilippo born to be a coach

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BLOOMINGTON, Minn. — As with most NFL coaches John DeFilippo’s road to Super Bowl LII began on a bus.

The coach’s life is a peripatetic one. If you don’t like to pack and unpack choose another profession. DeFilippo was well aware of this long before he first boarded a bus in Harrisonburg, Va., in the spring of 2000, riding for seven hours to the Bronx to study film of the Fordham quarterbacks he would soon be coaching for the princely sum of $5,000 and a dorm room.

Back and forth he rode every other weekend from the campus of James Madison University, where he was about to graduate into a life of constant change. This was the life he’d chosen.

Or did it choose him?

The 39-year-old son of former Boston College athletic director Gene DeFilippo is today the quarterbacks coach of the Philadelphia Eagles.

Like coaches, AD’s with big-time aspirations become masters of packing. So it was with Gene and his son, who lived in four states by the time he was 8. As his father was wending his way up the long road to big-time college athletics, his family followed. Often his son was in tow at practices, games and most of all in darkened film rooms. It was in the latter where he found love.

“I love football,’’ DeFilippo said yesterday, the joy of the coach’s life written on his smile. “I love matching wits with the best football coaches in the world. I love the highs, the lows. Going through a two-, three-game losing streak and finding a way out.

“Every day there’s a mental and physical challenge. During the season I don’t sleep much. I go to bed around 2 and I’m up at 4:30 to work out. I love the challenge of getting up every day, telling myself I’m too soft to get out of bed, then doing it. There’s a lot to be said for the challenge of that.”

As challenges go that was nothing compared to the one he faced on Dec. 10. That’s the day the Eagles lost their potential MVP quarterback when Carson Wentz blew out the ACL in his right knee diving for a touchdown against the Los Angeles Rams. Because the score was negated by a holding call, Wentz stayed in four more plays, his final one a 2-yard touchdown pass to Alshon Jeffries that helped produce a 43-35 win that clinched the NFC East title but seemed to end the Eagles season.

The next day DeFilippo’s dad called to see how he was doing. The response he got was what he would expect from a coach’s son turned coach.

“He said, ‘Dad, it’s next man up,’ ” his father recalled. “He said they weren’t feeling sorry for themselves. They had leaders. They were going to get Nick (Foles) ready to play. When I heard that I thought, ‘My son has arrived.’ I didn’t tell him this but I also thought it was a great attitude to have but you just lost a contender for MVP! It was the only attitude you can have as a coach but as a dad you worry.’’

Not to worry, a lifetime of bus rides, dorm rooms and packing crates had prepared his son to prepare Nick Foles. The result is a 4-1 record in which Foles has thrown eight touchdown passes and two interceptions. In the NFC title game two weeks ago, the Eagles blistered the league’s best defense, breaking the hearts of Vikings fans who hoped their team would become the first to host the Super Bowl.

Foles threw three touchdown passes in a 38-7 demolishment of Minnesota and DeFilippo could not have been prouder. But that game is in the rear-view mirror as are the nine places he’s worked since boarding that bus.

“I learned a ton about myself, about adversity, about being an offensive coordinator,” DeFilippo said. “I got three years of experience in one year. It forced me to decide what I believed in. When the next job came, adversity wasn’t new to me.”

After two years as quarterbacks coach of the Oakland Raiders, the staff was fired and DeFilippo was without work. He finally landed a job as “assistant” quarterbacks coach with the New York Jets. It seemed an odd title.

“I was really a glorified quality control guy,” DeFilippo said. “I didn’t know why I was in New York working ungodly hours.”

His father remembers that as the one time he thought his son might take the advice he’d given him as a kid about coaching. He’d hoped he wouldn’t go into it because coaching can be a lonely life.

His son understood but says, “I always hear my dad but I don’t always listen to him. I was very determined to coach. I loved being around football coaches and players. When I was a kid I didn’t just watch the game, I studied it.”

But when he first arrived with the Jets the shining optimism that has always characterized his world view dimmed. He was in his sixth job and unsure where it was leading. It was then that he saw a light burning late in another coach’s office. Soon the two of them began to chat, coach’s sons who had walked the same path.

Mike Pettine was the Jets’ defensive coordinator and the son of a high school coaching legend. They bonded over cigars, Italian food and an obsession with an oblong ball. The following year DeFilippo left for San Jose State to eventually become offensive coordinator, meet his future wife and follow his success there to a return to the Raiders in 2012 for a three-year run. Then the phone rang and it was Pettine, who was now head coach of the Cleveland Browns and looking for an offensive coordinator.

“You never know why you’re at a place,” DeFilippo said. “There was a reason I was with the Jets. I was there to meet Mike Pettine.”

Pettine was impressed with his mind for offense and his disposition and way with players. Those are traits he’s carried into the quarterback room in Philadelphia, where he imposes body language fines as a reminder that a leader’s shoulders cannot slump.

“Our quarterbacks are taught not to exude bad body language,” DeFilippo said. “I tell them everyone is watching. The players are watching you. The coaches are watching you. Ownership is watching you. We want to exude positive.’’

In the 17-plus years since first stepping on that bus in Harrisonburg to get a jump on his career, there has never been a need to fine John DeFilippo for his body language.

“I remember as a kid we’d be watching a game and him saying, ‘Dad I’m going to coach in the NFL one day,’ ” his father said. “There was no discouraging him. If you can find something you love to do that’s a blessing. It’s a good thing to dream.”

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Borges: Patriots’ longevity with same cast unrivaled among top NFL dynasties

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BLOOMINGTON, Minn. — One can argue the reasons why, but one no longer can argue the point that any NFL franchise has ever had a longer-running period of sustained excellence than the Killer B’s — Bob, Bill and Brady. Remove any one of them, as is likely to happen with the Patriots fairly soon, and things surely would have been different. They likely would not have had a nearly 20-year reign in the NFL.

Although each decade seems to produce one team that dominates, the Patriots have done it twice. They dominated the decade of the 2000s, and if they can win Super Bowl LII on Sunday at U.S. Bank Stadium, they will have done the same in the decade of the 2010s, with several seasons still to be played.

Paul Brown can’t claim that. Vince Lombardi didn’t do that. Chuck Noll was unable to keep it rolling that long. Bill Walsh couldn’t do it either, not even with the help of two Hall of Fame quarterbacks and able replacements George Seifert and Steve Mariucci after he retired.

Tom Brady has been the Patriots’ starting quarterback for a remarkable 16 of his 18 years (the 2008 season is excluded because he was lost in the season opener to a major knee injury). Every year, his coach and the system he runs have remained unchanged. The result has been a remarkable 15 division titles, eight Super Bowl appearances and five championships and counting. That the two leaders of this dynasty — Brady and Bill Belichick — have remained conjoined so long contrasts sharply with their dynastic predecessors.

Brown’s dynasty can be looked at in two ways. One can say it ran from 1946-1955 when he combined with quarterback Otto Graham to appear in 10 consecutive league championship games, winning seven. During that stretch, Graham proved himself to be the greatest winner of all time (sorry, Tom), posting a 57-13-1 regular-season record and an overall mark of 66-16-1. That’s a winning percentage of .795 to Brady’s .777 (196-55 regular season; 27-9 post-season) and seven league championships to five. And that’s not counting winning an NBA title in March 1946 while playing for the Rochester Royals.

Or one can say it actually extended to 1962, making it a 17-year run in which Brown went to the championship game 11 times in the first 12 years (7-4). Graham had retired by the end, however.

Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers of the 1960s had a nine-year run in which they won five world titles, including three in a row (1965-1967). With Bart Starr running things at quarterback, Lombardi was 96-34-6 plus a 9-1 playoff record that remains the best postseason winning percentage of all-time (.900). Things came to an end the opposite of how they did in Cleveland. This time it was the coach who left the quarterback, but the upshot was the same. The dynasty faded.

The Pittsburgh Steelers’ dominance of the ’70s began with the marriage of Noll and Terry Bradshaw and ended with their messy divorce in 1983. Noll lasted 23 years as a head coach but had only eight years of sustained dominance (1972-1979), which is why his overall record was a less-than-glowing 193-148-1 (.566) and he was 16-8 in the postseason.

With Bradshaw at quarterback, the Steelers were 107-51 in the regular season, 14-5 in the playoffs, and won four Super Bowl titles in six years. Noll coached eight more years but never approached his previous accomplishments with Bradshaw, going 60-67 in the regular season and 2-2 in two trips to the playoffs, winning no more championships.

The only other team to approach what the Killer B’s have done is the San Francisco 49ers under Walsh and his immediate successors, Seifert and Mariucci. One can argue the 49ers’ dynasty stretched 21 years, from 1981-2002, during which they won 14 division titles and five Super Bowls with two quarterbacks, Joe Montana and Steve Young. One also could say it ended with their last Super Bowl in 1994, making it a 14-year dynasty. Either way, statistically it is the one that most approaches the Patriots.

Walsh’s end of things ran 10 years, and he had Montana for all of them, although for part of the time, he also had Young. Montana won four Super Bowls, three with Walsh and one with Seifert, and was 100-39 in the regular season and 14-5 in the postseason.

Seifert was 98-30 in the regular season and 10-5 in the playoffs with first Montana and then Young at quarterback, winning two Super Bowls before he retired. Some might argue the dynasty ended there, but in fairness, Mariucci made it to the playoffs four times in his six years with Young. He didn’t win a title, but the 49ers remained a potent force until he left.

The Brady-Belichick dominance has lasted twice as long as Lombardi-Starr and Noll-Bradshaw, nearly twice as long as Brown-Graham and is even (at worst) and several years superior (at best) with the 49ers, the differences being the Pats have appeared in three more Super Bowls and won one more division title and did it all with the same quarterback-coach-owner.

So who has built the greatest dynasty in NFL history? Even if they don’t win their sixth Super Bowl on Sunday to put Brady ahead of all quarterbacks and pad Belichick’s record above all coaches, nobody has done it better for longer with the same three guys at the top as the Patriots. Who ever would have thought that possible when Kraft purchased the team out of chaos and financial ruin in 1994?

Not even the guy who wrote the check then.

“I just wanted to win one (Super Bowl), but you know it’s addictive,’’ Kraft said this week when asked about his team’s success. “We’ve been very fortunate to have a head coach and a quarterback together for 18 years. I’m not sure there’s another team that has ever had that for that long. It’s a real privilege to keep it together.’’

How much longer Bob Kraft can do that remains to be seen, but whenever it ends, you’re going to be waiting a long time to see somebody come along and match it.

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Borges: Jim Schwartz out to one-up his teacher, Bill Belichick, on Sunday

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BLOOMINGTON, Minn. — Jim Schwartz understands nothing the Cleveland Browns ran in 1993 will be of much importance in Super Bowl LII. But everything he learned there will.

The Eagles’ highly successful defensive coordinator will match wits Sunday with his first football mentor, Bill Belichick, trying to outthink the game’s greatest thinker. The man who first opened the door to the NFL for him is the one who gave him the foundation for all he has accomplished since, a fact Schwartz willingly acknowledges while pointing out that the X’s and O’s have changed since those days, but the approach to them has not for either of them.

“None of our players care that in 1993 he hired me as an unpaid intern in Cleveland,” Schwartz said this week. “Those were my formative years in the NFL and the lessons I learned certainly carried me forward as far as preparation and system go. But if you go back and look at the schemes teams used back then, including the Cleveland Browns, there’s not a whole lot of overlap with what the Philadelphia Eagles are doing now or even what the New England Patriots are doing now.

“I do think the ability to change, to stay up with the times, were certainly important lessons (from Belichick). That’s one of the hallmarks of Bill Belichick. He adapts to the times. He adapts to his players. That was a great lesson to learn.

“At the time you don’t really think about special people you’re around. You’re in the moment. You’re working. It’s one of those things you look back 20 years later and see the success everyone’s had (from a staff that included Nick Saban, Ozzie Newsome, Kirk Ferentz, Pat Hill, Eric Mangini, Thomas Dimitroff, Scott Pioli, Mike Sheppard and Mike Tannenbaum). It wasn’t by mistake. We all owe it to Bill Belichick. He shaped everyone’s career. We’re all better at our jobs because of the program Bill had in place.”

Belichick has gone on record long ago about his respect for Schwartz, but was effusive Monday night, saying, “I can’t say enough good things about Jim Schwartz. He’s one of the smartest people I know . . . A good, good football coach. I couldn’t say a bad thing about Jim Schwartz.”

The truth behind that is in the numbers, numbers that appear to make Super Bowl LII a dogfight between equals, both on the field and in the coaches’ booth. Of the 51 Super Bowl champions, 40 ranked in the top 10 in the league in defense. Forty-four ranked in the top 10 in scoring defense. The Eagles rank fourth in both with Schwartz as coordinator.

Since Carson Wentz went down with a knee injury in Week 14, his defense in the last four games has not allowed more than 10 points in a game. They have given up only 17 points in two playoff wins.

Belichick’s defense also ranks in the top five in scoring defense but is 29th in total defense, the second lowest ranking of any Super Bowl finalist. More ominously, the lowest was the one belonging to the 2011 Patriots. That unit was 31st in total defense but was powered by an offense that had scored 513 points. It was beaten by the New York Giants, 21-17. The Giants’ calling card was defense.

For the Eagles to do what the Giants did demands Schwartz prove the lessons he learned in Cleveland and beyond have not been forgotten. It is highly unlikely a backup quarterback, even one as proficient as Nick Foles, will beat Tom Brady if a shootout develops. That’s why he keeps reminding his players this game is not solely about the Patriots. It’s about them.

“They’re not going to start them with seven points because he’s got five Super Bowl rings,” Schwartz said of Brady. “We can’t make it all about our opponent. The team that’s able to play within their personality best is going to be the team that comes out victorious. Every game stands on its own. The team that plays best Sunday will win, not the team that’s built the best resume.”

The words were Schwartz’ but you could hear the echo of Belichick in them. It’s not about who you’re playing, it’s about how you play. Do your job. Stick to your beliefs in the face of adversity while at the same time being open to change.

No, success Sunday will not be just about the X’s and O’s. It will be about the rest of what he learned 25 years ago in Cleveland.

“We didn’t experience a whole lot of success but Bill was on the right track,” Schwartz said. “He’s proven that. The biggest thing was preparation. Bill taught us everything that touched the team was important. There’s no detail that’s unimportant. You need to plan for every possibility.”

Schwartz started in Cleveland as a gofer, as most of Belichick’s disciples have. He soon graduated to football tasks, beginning in personnel, then working for Saban after the latter realized he had some coaching experience. To work for free, Schwartz passed up several small college coaching opportunities. That was a choice that changed his life.

Now, 25 years since he first arrived in Cleveland and was handed the keys to a van and a list of smokes to go purchase, Jim Schwartz is preparing for the biggest game of his life. Scowling back at him will be his professor, a guy some call a genius. It’s a term Schwartz blanches at.

“One thing I don’t like about that label ‘genius’ is it makes it seem like it comes easy,” Schwartz said. “Bill’s a product of a lot of hard work. I saw it firsthand.”

What Schwartz also saw were sides of Belichick his mentor tries to hide. One is wide knowledge of things outside football.

There was the day one offseason when Belichick was leaving the office to go coach his young son’s soccer team.

“I asked him what he knew about soccer,” Schwartz said. “He said, ‘More than a 4-year-old.’ That’s one misperception about Bill. He has a lot of depth to him. He knows a lot about a lot of things.”

So does Belichick’s pupil, but what he knows best is how to coach defense. Sunday night we’ll find out how well the student absorbed the master’s lessons.

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THEN AND NOW: Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz (above) meets the press at the Mall of America. Schwartz was the Lions head coach in 2010 when his team lost to mentor Bill Belichick and the Patriots on Thanksgiving Day. Staff photo by Nancy Lane

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Borges: Dante Scarnecchia still passionate about teaching offensive linemen

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BLOOMINGTON, Minn. — There is an art to teaching, as there is to offensive line play, and Dante Scarnecchia has long been a master of both. But when he came out of a two-year retirement last season to reclaim command of the Patriots offensive line he found himself not feeling quite right.

Like one of his players coming off a long absence, his timing wasn’t there and his reactions had been slowed by 24 months of woodworking, playing with the grandkids and civilian life. The lesson plan was still good and the knowledge was still there, but something was slightly off kilter.

“Last year I had to knock some rust off,” the Yoda of offensive line coaches admitted. “A meeting would be over and I’d think, ‘Why didn’t you say that?’ It took about a month to get that right.

“I feel much more comfortable this season. I’m better right now than I was last year. I’m having more fun this year than last year.”

Considering he was widely regarded as one of the NFL’s best assistant coaches a year ago, that’s saying something, but what it says that’s most important to the Patriots is that it’s highly possible Scarnecchia will return in 2018 for another year of molding young men into a cohesive unit that works as one and whose main job, as Scarnecchia has long told his linemen, is “throw yourself in front of the bus.”

That might seem an odd exhortation but when you are charged with protecting one of the best quarterbacks the game has ever seen, Scarnecchia believes it’s best to keep things simple.

“We’re protecting that spot where Tom (Brady) wants to be,” Scarnecchia said of the essence of pass protection. “Tom is the guy who moves within that pocket. We create it.

“Everyone in the league that plays us says their line needs to pressure Tom up the middle. We know it. We know with Tom he’ll get the ball out too so all we have to do is throw ourselves in front of the bus.”

Tonight it will be the Philadelphia Eagles’ bus, a one-ton load led by defensive tackles Fletcher Cox and Tim Jernigan and defensive ends Brandon Graham, Vinny Curry, Derek Barnett and Chris Long, that will be attempting to get to Brady before he can get to them. Their job is to make Dante Scarnechia miserable and all that stands in their way are five guys willing to throw themselves in front of that bus.

Scarnecchia has been preparing young men for that selfless task for 16 years, but he’s been coaching in New England twice as long as that, a tenure as remarkable in its length and consistency as is that of his boss, Bill Belichick, and the man he’s charged to protect, Brady. That he walked away two years ago was shocking. That he returned to it was not.

“We all love teaching the game,” Scarnecchia explained. “I still enjoy watching a young player develop and learn. The game is exhilarating. It’s challenging. It can be heartbreaking, too, but I still have the passion for it.”

Scarnecchia, who will turn 70 10 days after tonight’s Super Bowl, did not look or sound like someone pondering a second foray into retirement. He used the word “happy” more than a half-dozen times in a 40-minute conversation. The words “football” and “teaching” often accompanied it.

Few coaches actually retire. They may be out of work but in their minds they’re just waiting for the next job. It’s why ex-Packers coach Mike Sherman left his porch overlooking the water in Dennis after a two-year hiatus and accepted the head job of the CFL Montreal Alouettes. It’s why former Pats defensive coordinator Dean Pees lasted 28 days in his second effort at retirement before agreeing to move to Nashville from his retirement home in Michigan to coordinate the defense of Titans coach Mike Vrabel.

Obsession? Addiction? Joy? Call it what you want, but be glad Scarnecchia still has it.

“Look at Pees,” Scarnecchia joked. “At least I lasted two years.”

Today will be the end of Scarnecchia’s 32nd year as a Patriots coach and 34th in the NFL. It’s the ninth time he’ll be standing in his favorite sideline spot far away from the chaos of the bench in a Super Bowl setting. To say he’s been blessed from a coach’s perspective would be an understatement, but that is only true if when the final gun sounds he’s on the right side of the score.

“I was on the field four times when that confetti coming down was in the wrong color,” Scarnecchia said. “It is the emptiest feeling in the world. It’s a terrible feeling. I have four AFC Championship rings. Those are really beautiful rings. But I could never wear an AFC Championship ring. That’s something I believe in strongly. That we’re here is not enough.

“This isn’t Little League, where everyone gets a participation trophy. I’ve got grandkids. I think it’s great they get trophies. I celebrate that. But this is pro football. There’s only one trophy.”

To win a fifth (he missed the Super Bowl win over Seattle), his forces must keep the fourth-ranked defense in football from wrecking Brady’s day. They must stick to their techniques and beliefs, both of which they learned from Scarnecchia.

“I believe in technique and I believe in being selfless,” Scarnecchia said. “I think I’m still demanding, but as you mature as a coach you’re a little more understanding. When you’re young you’re so worried that every mistake or bad play is a reflection on you. Then your ego gets involved and you’re not coaching as well anymore. You’re hollering and acting out. Ego is a bad thing.”

That is never truer than in the offensive linemen’s room. That doesn’t mean Scarnecchia doesn’t holler, upbraid and demand however. It just means it may take a bit longer to reach that point than when he first started three decades ago.

At one point this season, he grew so irked at guard Shaq Mason, who has become one of his most improved interior linemen, he turned to center and team co-captain David Andrews and barked, “You coach him! I can’t do it anymore.”

A few minutes later he was back instructing Mason as if nothing had happened but his young charge got the point. You play the right way or you don’t play. That doesn’t mean you make every block but it means you do things right.

The week before the AFC title game, Scarnecchia was not happy about the way his players were practicing. He was seeing too many small slipups in technique. A hand not placed where it should be. A set not properly balanced. Minor mental errors that were perhaps the result of fatigue at the end of a long season. Understandable perhaps but if they persisted he knew where it would lead.

Finally he exploded, making clear in loud and colorful language that their lack of attention to detail best stop right now, gentlemen, because if technique slips in the NFL, even during a practice, Tom Brady doesn’t just get tackled. He gets flattened by a bus.

“You don’t use the right technique those defensive linemen are grabbing you, pulling you, getting their hands in your facemask and bending your head back,” Scarnecchia said, the smoke rising at the thought of it. “Why should we be nice to them?

“These are all great kids. They work hard. They don’t complain. They’re selfless. They try their best. But in this game you have to realize there is only one winner. You can’t just feel happy to be here. You can never take anything for granted.

“If you jump offside at practice, you run. That means you lose practice time. Our players will never say, ‘that’s all right,’ if one of them commits a penalty, because it’s not all right!”

To muster up that kind of passion after 32 years is why Dante Scarnecchia is on any list of the best offensive line coaches in history and you don’t have to go too far down to find his name. It’s also why, regardless of what happens tonight, the teacher will be at the head of the class next spring looking for five guys willing to throw themselves in front of the bus all over again.

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Borges: Eagles skewer Patriots defense, which finally broke at the worst time

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MINNEAPOLIS — The wrong colored confetti flew down from the roof of U.S. Bank Stadium last night because a defense that has been suspect all season finally turned criminal and killed the Patriots.

The New England Patriots reached Super Bowl LII with the second-lowest ranked defense in Super Bowl history behind it. They also did it with the lowest ranked defense all-time in 2011. Both times they lost because, well, if you can never, ever stop your opponent, not even Tom Brady can save you.

The Pats entered their Super Bowl LII showdown with the Philadelphia Eagles armed with the best offense in football and the 29th-ranked defense. When they tried that in 2011, they faced the New York Giants with the 31st-ranked defense. Despite having scored 513 points that season they were beaten, 21-17.

Last night, they came to Minneapolis armed with the league’s No. 1-ranked offense, a unit that also finished second in the league in points scored with 459. But their defense gave up yards at a ridiculous rate all year, and last night that fatal flaw finally caught up with them.

Led by second-string quarterback Nick Foles, the Eagles piled up 538 yards in what became a 41-33 beatdown in which the Eagles scored eight of the 10 times they had the ball, including on their final five possessions.

Not even a 505-yard, three-touchdown performance by 40-year-old Tom Brady could hold off the Eagles, whose fourth-ranked defense had plenty of its own struggles but did just enough, barely, to give them breathing room they needed to win their first Super Bowl title.

“For us, it was all about one stop we had to make,” said Eagles defensive end Brandon Graham, whose strip sack of Brady with 2:09 to play basically iced the Pats. “We went out there and made that one stop. Our offense carried us today, but when we needed to make a stop our defense came through.”

It did and the Patriots’ did not. There was no real surprise in the amount of yardage the defense surrendered. After all, this has been going on all season. The Patriots ranked 29th in total yards allowed this season, 31st in yards allowed per play, and their 30th-ranked pass defense showed last night.

And it will forever remain a curious question as to why their second best cornerback, Malcolm Butler, was left standing on the sidelines all game, his darkened helmet mask hiding his face. Butler, the hero of Super Bowl XLIX three years ago, did not play a single defensive snap, a decision that proved costly. The Patriots mumbled it was a “coach’s decision” — and that was obvious. What was also obvious was, despite Bill Belichick’s often heard mantra, it was not a decision made “in the best interest of the team.” At least not in the best interest of the defense Foles lacerated.

Early in the game, he and wideout Alshon Jeffery turned Butler’s replacement, Eric Rowe, inside out time and again, beating him until something had to be done. Apparently that something was not to let the Butler do it.

“Malcolm Butler didn’t play?” said an astonished Chris Long, the Eagles defensive end who a year ago won a Super Bowl wearing Patriots colors. “That’s tough, man. Golleee! I didn’t know that. He’s a hell of a player.”

The Patriots certainly could have used one, but instead the decision was made to switch Stephon Gilmore on Jeffery, and he did a great job. But that left weak links like Johnson Bademosi and Jordan Richards too often in coverages, or strong safety Patrick Chung in unfavorable matchups that Foles exploited.

The worse it got, the stiffer Butler stood on the sidelines. During the playing of the national anthem he’d begun to weep, and some believed perhaps he was overcome with the thought that this might be his last game as a Patriot.

As it turned out, the AFC Championship Game was his last — and that decision cost the Pats dearly.

Up and down the sidelines Butler paced, often standing a few feet behind Belichick or his son/safeties coach, Steve. They never looked at him and he never spoke to them.

From time to time, Butler went over to encourage Rowe and the other defensive backs who kept getting torched in the worst of situations, situations not aided one bit by a nonexistent pass rush. Brady kept trying to get them back in the game. He even briefly got them a second half lead, but the defense couldn’t hold it.

On this night. they couldn’t hold much of anything, least of all a flock of soaring Eagles.

Finally, Brady ran out of time, and perhaps the Patriots’ dynasty has as well. You cannot survive with a defense that can apply no pressure on opposing quarterbacks forever. You cannot survive with a secondary that too often gives up yards in chunks as big as an iceberg. And you cannot survive when your second best cornerback is left to stew on the sidelines in a game in which you’ve giving up 41 points.

You can’t always rely on opponents’ mistakes, or referees’ kindness, or replay officials’ stubborn refusal to understand that replay was installed not to make mistakes but to correct them. You cannot rely on outside sources or a magical quarterback if you can’t stop the opposition at all,and that was the circumstance last night.

Yet the total collapse of the Patriots defense was stunning in its completeness. The Eagles trampled them for 164 rushing yards and skewered them in the passing game for chunk plays of 55, 36, 34, 26, 24, 22 twice and 21 yards — and expect to win very often.

It was a stunning display of futility that allowed the Eagles to convert 10-of-16 third downs, and twice on fourth down tries. Even that might have been overcome by Brady’s obvious brilliance had they maintained a constant ability to save themselves with a stingy red zone defense that had allowed them to finish fifth in points allowed despite their largesse. They were better there, holding the Eagles to only a 50 percent conversion rate. But the points kept coming, including a bold fourth-and-1 call at the Pats 1-yard line in which Foles suddenly split wide and Philly ran a trick play that ended with former college quarterback turned tight end Trey Burton taking a flip on a reverse, running to his right and then lofting the ball to a wide-open Foles in the flat for the touchdown.

“You really want to know what we call it?” Eagles coach Doug Pederson said. “Philly Special.”

It was indeed special on a night when the Patriots defense was not. It was their Achilles heel and last night it snapped. With it, went the Patriots’ season.

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New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady gets stripped sacked during the fourth quarter of Super Bowl LII against the Philadelphia Eagles at the U.S. Bank Stadium on Sunday, February 4, 2018. Staff photo by Matt Stone

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TORCHED: Eric Rowe gets beat for a touchdown by Alshon Jeffery in the first half of last night’s game. Rowe started and played in place of Malcolm Butler (inset, 21). Staff photo by Matt Stone
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