Over and Rout

RAVENS 33, PATRIOTS 14
Over and rout
Slow-starting Brady and Patriots lose a playoff game at Gillette to rampaging Ravens
By Adam Kilgore, Globe Staff | January 11, 2010
FOXBOROUGH - Disaster always had stayed foreign to these Patriots, some evil force that only other teams needed to worry about. They might not win. They never would collapse and embarrass themselves. They never would let five minutes unravel their entire season.

And then yesterday came, and the Baltimore Ravens swaggered into Gillette Stadium, and disaster struck. The Patriots allowed a touchdown on the first snap. Their crowd booed them. Tom Brady crumbled. In their first playoff game of the new decade, the Patriots may have lost the final bit of the dynastic mystique they created in the last one.

The Ravens ended the Patriots’ season with a 33-14 victory that will not be remembered for the final margin, but for the stunned silence at Gillette by the end of the first quarter. The Ravens outscored the Patriots, 24-0, in the opening period, overwhelming them with brute force on offense and defense. The final three quarters were little more than calisthenics.

“We didn’t come to play, point blank,’’ defensive tackle Vince Wilfork said. “We never had a chance from the first play to the last play. We didn’t even play like it was a playoff game. More like a preseason game. We got beat up today. For them to come in here and do what they did, they could basically have been playing out there with a JV football team and they probably would have given a better effort than we did.’’

The mauling Ravens defense made Brady its primary target, stripping him once and intercepting three of his passes. In his return to the postseason after spending 2008 sidelined by a knee injury, Brady lost in Foxborough for the first time since Nov. 12, 2006, and lost in the playoffs at home for the first time in nine games.

The Patriots had not lost at home in the playoffs since Dec. 31, 1978, and you also would need to scour the history books to find such a thorough defeat. The Ravens held the Patriots to 196 yards while Ray Rice ran for 159 himself. Baltimore needed quarterback Joe Flacco to produce only 34 yards passing to score 33 points.

The effort underscored a trying campaign for the Patriots, who won the AFC East but endured more turmoil than in any recent season. They fought injuries, uncommon insubordination in the locker room, and won only one true road game.

“It’s not like we were 2-14,’’ Brady said. “We’re not at that stage. There’s things that show up over the course of the year that we didn’t do very well. A lot of things that are why we’ve been successful - mental toughness, and leadership, discipline, and commitment. All those things we displayed at times, and we didn’t display at other times.’’

Their play yesterday ensured they immediately could begin fixing the problems for next season. The question all week was how the Patriots would play without Wes Welker. The Ravens, not long after Welker used crutches to walk out for the coin toss, announced that New England’s problems ran much deeper than that.

On the first snap of the game, Flacco handed off to dynamite-legged Rice. He squirmed behind right guard Marshal Yanda, who collapsed linebacker Gary Guyton into a pile of bodies. Rice darted into the secondary, cut to the left, and saw only green turf ahead. He outran safety Brandon Meriweather to the pylon and then flexed his right biceps.

Things could not get worse for the Patriots, and then they did. On their third offensive play, Terrell Suggs wheeled around left tackle Matt Light and swatted at Brady’s hand as he cocked to throw. The ball popped loose, and Suggs fell on it at the Patriots’ 16. The crowd turned silent.

The Ravens ran the ball five times, Le’Ron McClain plunging through a gaping hole from the 1 to finish off the drive. Four minutes and 31 seconds into the game, the Patriots trailed, 14-0.

“We were flat,’’ running back Kevin Faulk said.

Things could not get worse for the Patriots, and then they did. Both teams went three-and-out, and the Patriots took over at their 14. Three plays into their possession, Brady scrambled to his right and fired a pass in the general direction of Sam Aiken. The only player close to the ball was Ravens safety Chris Carr, who caught it.

The Ravens needed five plays before the ball was back at the 1-yard line. This time, Rice plowed in over left guard Ben Grubbs. The Ravens had taken a 21-0 lead.

“You can’t explain it,’’ linebacker Tully Banta-Cain said. “Everything that could have went wrong for us and went right for them happened.’’

Things could not get worse for the Patriots, and then they did. On the second play of their ensuing drive, Brady threw a fade pattern to Aiken, one of the receivers charged with replacing the invaluable Welker. Aiken tipped the ball, and Ed Reed, the safety Bill Belichick regards as the NFL’s best, snared it. After a nifty lateral by Reed, the Ravens had the ball at the 9.

Billy Cundiff added a field goal to make the count an amazing 24-0. New England had allowed 24 points in a quarter, more than any Patriots team ever had in the postseason.

“You definitely don’t imagine that,’’ linebacker Adalius Thomas said.

The Patriots recaptured a sliver of hope at the beginning of the second quarter. The Ravens forced a punt, and Chris Hanson skied a kick down the right sideline. Tom Zbikowski, looking to block, let the ball bounce off his back. It rolled away, and special teams ace Kyle Arrington corralled it on the sideline. Replays seemed to show that Arrington never controlled the ball before falling out of bounds. But Ravens coach John Harbaugh did not challenge the play, and the Patriots maintained possession at the Baltimore 16.

On third and goal from the 6, Brady scrambled, pursued again by a ferocious rush. Running to his right, Brady zipped a pass to Julian Edelman in the end zone. Edelman caught it, leaped, and emphatically spiked the ball. Welker gave owner Robert Kraft a high-five in the owner’s box.

The temporary momentum could not overcome the hideous facts. At halftime, the Patriots had 61 total net yards. So did Faulk.

The Patriots injected more life into their season in third quarter, when Brady hit Edelman on a 1-yard touchdown pass, this time to the left. By reputation, the Patriots could not be counted out. At the end of the third quarter, Jets safety Kerry Rhodes tweeted that “New England is gonna make it tight.’’

Reputations don’t score points or tackle running backs. The Ravens pounded home another touchdown early in the fourth quarter. The Patriots ran no-huddle offense to the other end of the field. (Randy Moss, walking back to the line, had to be urged by a teammate to hurry up.) But Stephen Gostkowski missed a field goal, and the crowd’s exodus commenced.

“I’m disappointed the way we finished the season,’’ coach Bill Belichick said. “There really isn’t too much to say. They did everything better than we did.’’

On the game’s second-to-last play, Brady scrambled away from a rusher and threw the ball away so he wouldn’t have to take another hit. It would be the last pass he would throw this season. Brady stared off, into the offseason and a future when nothing is certain anymore for his team.

“It was a different team this year,’’ Brady said. “It was a different team.’’

Adam Kilgore can be reached at akilgore@globe.com

Local-voire

The last couple years I have become more concerned with our food sources. I have read several of Michael Pollian’s books plus Barbara Kingslover. Last year, one of our young friends was the farm manager for a local organic farm and we jumped off into the organic local product with him. Now that our Farmer’s Market is open again I am trying to buy as much as I can from there for our weekly meals.

Tonight for example we had some Salmon (from the great market in Seattle hand carried back to Indiana), all the rest is local: new potatoes (just boiled with butter), zucchini, yellow squash, red onions, and eggplant roasted with some olive oil and garlic and for dessert an apricot-plum “tart”. I perused many tart recipes and finally winged it. It was beautiful to look at and to taste. Even my customers (male) could appreciate its beauty and taste.

The orchard that grew the plums (very small, sweet and lovely tasting) will have several other types of plums maturing in the next few weeks. They also have many types of apples. The very first of which we bought a week ago: Lodi. They will have apples now until late in the fall.

I have a source for locally raised/grass only bison-which makes the most wonderful guilt free hamburgers. I have a source for grass-fed: turkey (in the fall) and chicken and eggs.

Our garden is starting to put out cukes, yellow squash and scallions. The first corn has tasseled and the 2nd is about ready to be hilled.

It's that time of year again!

Today we started our annual "putting away the harvest." The cucumber plants have been toying with us; lots of blossoms, lots of small baby cucumbers, but none large enough to "do up." However for the last couple days we have been picking a small amount that finally added up to enough to pickle. Yesterday we cleaned them all up and put them down in the lime. This morning Kent scrubbed them down again while the oatmeal cooked. After our morning walk, I picked dill and grape leaves. The jars were washed and ready to assemble. I recovered the peeled garlic from the freezer(left over from the last pickle party of 08), and stuffed 7 jars with dill, garlic and grape leaves. Then comes the cukes. I learned how to be an efficient jar stuffer from my dearly departed mother-in-law. Putting the pickles in the jars was one of the first things I learned from her back in 1985. She had worked at Vlasics once upon a time and talked about the foreman who would tell the ladies on the line, "one more pickle in that jar!" We did 7 quart jars of pickles and used less than 2 quarts of brine; that's a pretty good pickle to brine ratio!

The jars were processed and are now sitting on the island cooling off. There is few things as satisfying as hearing the pinging of the jars sealing.

Last bird out

This morning I looked up at the nest and thought the Momma Robin was standing above her babies. When "she" never moved I took a closer look and realized that I was looking at a almost grown baby Robin. I took its picture and within the next half hour it fledged successfully as there was no body on the porch.

Changes are coming

A year ago this weekend we hosted an absolutely fantastic event that started with Jake's Eagle Court of Honor and the party afterwards. On Sunday we enjoyed the company of family: Farm Grandpa and Grandma, Gaylord Grandpa and Grandma, Mark and Sam, Nano and Paul. Much of our events were centered around our patio and deck. Less then a month later, the big tree that shaded the patio lost half of itself in a wind storm, taking out the line of big old shrubs and trees that had marked the property line to the south.

Since October we have been slowly progressing towards finishing the landscaping in that area. First we had to wait for the stump grinder man to return and do the "free" grinding (he owed us for the freestanding driveway light that they knocked down when they took down the tree.) He returned at the end of April. Then we had to wait for the lawn man to come in and regrade that area of the yard ( in years past, Kent would have been doing this but he is under the whip at work and with his Dad's affairs.) Greg finally came and did the yard on Wednesday. Kent got home late Friday so we used our Saturday to go pick out trees and put them in the ground. Since Kent did all the digging by hand he has asked for at least several weeks of respite.

Where does time go?

I can't believe how fast time flies by. Next weekend is the Memorial Day holiday. Jake is all done with his first year in college and Alix has finished her third. Mom and Daddy have been gone for 9 days now. And Amos is almost 3 months old.

We have a new family in our neighborhood - in our household to be exact. A pair of robins have built a nest on the edge of a porch pillar. It took them several fruitless days until we had rain and they could use mud to plaster the nest to the wall. I would have knocked it down before completion but it is too high up. So high up that I'm pretty sure they won't get any nestlings safely to the ground. I'll get a picture and post it later.

We did have some excitement a week ago. Jake discovered a football sized mass of honeybees clustered in one of our bushes about 3:00pm. It had just formed since lunch. We called our local "honey" man. He came and put out one section of a hive with some attractant in it. The next morning he came back and took the hive (with the new queen and most of her workers. He told us that what we had was a swarm of bees caused by a hive splitting into 2 hives. He was very encouraged to see a hive healthy enough to split. Since CCD (colony collapse disorder) started we have lost 1/3 of our honeybees. Improper use of pesticides is considered a major player in CCD.

Watching time march on.....

A pretty day here today. I have walked the dogs, visited with my folks, finished trimming the grapevines, taken some pictures of the yard and spent over an hour on Facebook; reading new to Facebook but old friend's pages and adding pictures to my page. The morning is almost gone and I have yet to take a shower and get ready to face the rest of the world.

I had a great visit with the western kith and kin last week; saw all the younger gen, complete with dogs. Hopefully we will be able to do it again in April before our dog sitters fly the coop. The first night we spent in NYC. I was a typical tourist; spent so much time looking around that I couldn't keep up with Kent. The next time we are going to go to Central Park via the subway. Seattle was better, family and not such an intimidating city atmosphere.

This trip was sandwiched in between Jake's spring break and Alix's. They were each home only several days and they didn't overlap. But Jake had spent several days vi sting Alix. Nick was also visiting Alix and the two guys got to spend some time together as she had classes. Alix rode home with Nick to Lansing and then flew here in the middle of the week. She returned the same day we did and was able to use my car which saved a trip to the airport. When she left yesterday she rode in with Kent on his way to work so all in all a very efficient trip home. Her getting back to MSP was a nightmare though as the planes are very full on Fridays-Mondays during spring break time. After looking at full airplanes all afternoon it looked like I would be picking her up and heading for MSP. She was able to find out that the plane from Lansing to MSP on Monday had many seats; now just to get to Michigan. I was praying and an answer arrived the next time I checked the CVG to DTW (Detroit) flights for Northwest. You could get there if you flew Comair to Grand Rapids to Cleveland to Detroit. The important part of that trip was the Comair leg from CVG to GRR. She was on the phone with me when I found it and almost screamed, Grand Rapids! Thats only 90 minutes from Lansing! I checked it and it had 6 seats and she had time to catch it. She texted me this morning that she was on the plane to MSP and would arrive in time for her classes. Hallieuha!!!!

All the action and disruption of my routine was good for me. I am becoming more of a stick in the mud with each passing day. But it is good to have some time alone now and work on the things around here. Like spring cleaning everywhere.

Celebrate!

So last Thursday, we had a parade and then a 30 minute ceremony downtown to honor our local celebrities: the Herbert Brothers! Who you say? How about the guys who beat out Madison Avenue Ad companies and scored the number one Super Bowl commercial!