My favorite Pats moment lasted only 15 seconds before turning to dust, but the sheer hysteria of that moment.....I can still feel it.
It was the called-back fumble recovery-TD by Tebucky Jones in SB36.
Sometimes, there is a player you just latch onto and root for through thick and thin even though he might not be the star. For me, those guys have been Bob Windsor (whose game winning TD against the Vikes at the Met in '74 began my Patfandom), Mini Mack Herron (to the younger folks - - I cannot describe how electric that guy was), Bill Lenkaitis (guy became an MD fer cryin' out loud), Mosi Tatupu (before it was cool) and Jimmy Hitch**** (because he was a very good player and never deserved much of the early crap he got from Parcells and the fans).
But then the Pats drafted Tebucky Jones out of Syracuse. This guy had great physical talent and had survived a terribly dangerous childhood on the wrong side of Hartford. But more than anything he became a symbol of the Old Guard Boston Sportswriter hatred for Bob Kraft. Before being drafted, Kraft evidently went along with the scouts to watch Tebucky workout. The story goes that he held a watch to time Tebucky run the 40. That was all we would hear for the next few years from McDonough and Borges and Shaughnessy and Mannix, etc. The arrogant "Amos Alonzo Kraft" and that bust he forced the team to draft named Tebucky Jones. Through the personal vitriol of the failed attempt to build a Pats stadium in Southie, this was all we heard.
Jones DID have a rough first few years with the Pats and was considered a bust. To me that was NOT his fault, however. TJ was big and a vicious hitter, but Pete Carroll was convinced, becase of his great talent and speed, he could turn him into a shutdown cornerback to defend against some of the big AFC East WR's like Keyshawn Johnson. Jones was talented, but he wasn't THAT talented to turn 6'2" 225 into a shutdown CB.
Long story short, BB came in and put him back where he belonged at Safety. When the Patrots were struggling to pull off the greatest upset in SB history, here come the St Louis Rams on a 4th and goal to get back into the game. Mind you, this was before the SB wins, before the Sox of 2004 and 2007. You know what the mindset was at that point. The pats had the lead, but they were beginning to crack. And they were up against The Greatest Show on Turf, after all.
Everyone has seen the play. It never counted. But I can tell you, for those fifteen seconds, not only WHAT was happening, but the glory of WHO was flying that ball 99 yards to what seemed like the Promised Land was a moment I can still feel. If you watch some of the highlight DVD's from that game, watch the slo mo shots from the endzone he is heading for. Look at the Patriots sideline behind him as he runs. Watch the Christmas morning looks of disbelief on the faces of the leaping players, coaches and personnel. My son was only six months old and sleeping upstairs so my muted shrieking and jumping absolutely cracked my wife up, then she begged me to stop since even that was beginning to wake him up.
The Patriots. My team that I can remember back in the 70's everyone looking at as if it was some cheap expansion squad (it was). The HOME team that even the Needham IHOP didn't have those little plastic football helmet souvenirs for that they gave out to the kids back then. Oh sure, I had plenty of Steelers, Cowboys, Dolphins, everybody really. But no Pats. When you're 9 years old, something like that riles you.
And here was Pat Summerall and John Madden (Pat Sumerrall and John Madden!!!!) on CBS (their last year there - - the network that had always symbolized, back then, NFC power, history and superiority) calling what would have been the CROWNING moment of the Patriots ascension to legitimacy. And the guy doing it was the bust that "Amos Alonzo Kraft" had timed with the stopwatch.
Hysterical.
(.......and then, you know the rest).
