Now And Forever:Part 2.

Somewhere Along The Line.

 More Of The Patriots Lore Came To Light. This Team Had Been The Greatest Team Beyond The Turf. The Standard Bearer Of Excellence

Beyond Brady And Moss, The Deep Target. The offensive Quick Starter And Versatility Switch Flick Option, Wes Welker Roamed between The Numbers In The Short Yardage. A Diminutive Stout Fellow Whose Balance and low Center Of Gravity Made Him An Impossible For Linebacker And Slot Corner. Making Welker The Ultimate “Security Blanket.” Elsewhere Lawrence Maroney And Jabbar Gaffney, Kevin Faulk One Of The Final Holdover From Super 39.

On Defense, Junior Seau Moved Over From San Diego, Another Of Brady’s Turfs. The All-World Linebacker  To Join Bruschi and Other At Linebacker. At Corner, Asante Samuel Forced Quarterbacks To Look Elsewhere When Passing And Ground Zero In The Trenches. Vince Wilfork And Richard Seymour, Two Massive Human Beings Who Would Bench Offensive Line In Route To Flattening Quarterbacks.

In The Two Years Since I First Peered Into Their World. The Team Grew Colossus In Talent. Might. Image And. Repute. The Pinnacle Of Team Success.

At The Center Of It All, Brady.

Brady Knew Of Team Success. He Went To Michigan, Big Blue. No Individual Matter More Than The Team.

Ann Arbor. If Anywhere In The World Represented The Antithesis Of Suburban Northern California Where Brady Grew Up A Crazed 49er Fan, It Would Have Been Foxborough But First Michigan.

Despite being an above-average starter in high school, Brady Needed Some Work To Get Recognized. Recognized Outside Of Baseball, Of course. A Two-Sports  In A State Replete with Football Schools a Few Miles South. Thomas Sr. pushed The Recruiting For His Son, And What Came Up Were USC, UCLA, Cal Michigan, Amongst Others.

SC( University of Southern California) Showed Encouraging Interest. ultimately Caching Turnover Erased The Notion Of Brady Playing Crimson And gold Before He’d Ultimately Played In Crimson And Gold For Niners If life Were a Written In Hollywood.

Michigan offensive Staff Liked Brady’s Tape. His Build And Athleticism. His Creativeness On Choice Route. Michigan Assistant Bill Harris and Other Staff Flew Out To The West Coast And Made The Offer. Upon Finding Brady’s Family Consisted Of three Girls and Brady. Brady also Played Catcher. His Toughness and “Competitive” background Won Harris Over.

Brady Committed Ahead Of The Official National Signing Day In ‘95.

Somewhere In Freeport Bahamas, A Well Behave Jason Had Been Preparing For Travels Himself. Jason Sr. Didn’t Prepare The Recruiting Tape. Instead, the one Track-minded would go off to Grandma In Nassau.

The California Boy Brady Arrived  In Michigan He Played Sparingly His actual Freshman Year. His presence on Michigan’s Roster Had Been More Or A Positional Fortifications.

The reports That No Body Expected Him To Start At A Blue Blood Program Like Michigan. Brady Had Been Destined To Became The Poster child For Full Time Coordinators Duties. With a Clipboard In Hindmost Of The Year, That Fell Right in line with the Tactical Time-table. Four Years.

Backup The High Profile Quarterback Recruit And Serve as The Lead Intermediary For THe Branch Of Elite Arm Talent.

Brady Spent 2 Years  In This Quasi Starter Role. Appearing In Games And playing Well In Situations then Vanishing Into The Sidelines and Clipboards.

In Brady’s Four Years, The Wolverine Were 40-9. The Wolverines Defense Shine In Brady’s First Two Years. Lead By Heisman Winner Charles Woodson And Brady’s Future Teammate Ty Law.

Brady Worked The Developmental Role Ino A Starting Role For His final Two Seasons. However, That Had Not been without Challenge.

Brady Had several Historically Good Games For Michigan, Including A Four Touchdown Game Against Alabama in New Year 2000. He Finished His Michigan Career Just Under Five Thousand And Thirty Touchdowns. Brady Thought he’d be A Frost Rounder. Maybe A day Two Guy.

“New England? What Where Is That?”

In-Perfection.

The Figure Came To Life. This Tom Brady Could Only Be anymore Enviable If He Had A Model Wife. Throughout the 2000s, Few Models in The World Ever existed in The rarified air that Giselle Bundchen “horse walk.” Numerous outlets famed by Vitoria Secret contracted her. By Time She’d Met Brady In 2006, She treaded runways worldwide.

 The Brazilian Supermodel had A world Of men at Her Feet, A Sumptuous Court Of Endorsement, And Tom Brady. In 2007, Bündchen was the 16th wealthiest woman in the entertainment industry. Along with Oprah And Beyoncé, they were Making Her an Industry Titan.

By 2009 Giselle Would Add Another ring To Brady's Collection Well Before He’d  Earned Another One On The Field.

By 11-0, The Stage Had Set. There could be No More Denying The Presence Of Perfection It Had Been In The Air. The Patriots Were Making The Charts: Most Recent Failures In The Chase To Perfection.

Colts ’05. Broncos ’98. Bears ‘85.

Those Clots and Broncos Teams Made It To Thirteen Before the Felt The Chill Of Crumbled Seasonal Masterpiece. No Had Ever Been 16-0.

The ‘72, we’re 14-0 During. The Regular Season And Complete The Gauntlet At 17-0 And The Super Bowl.

Then Brady Had To Wait for… 199th.

Back In 2000, my Feverish Imagination Looked Eyes With Animation. “Do You Remember where we First Met?” Batman, Beyond I Recall Being A Mesmeric Favorite Along With Pokémon And DBZ. Beyond Had So Epic Visuals.

Something Happened I found My Way Back to Dad, In Freeport. He’d Gotten Things Together and Appear Ready For A Son.

Here Watch Some Ball.

My obsession with Sports my Dalliance to NBA started then. Allen Iverson, He Was A Star. To This Day, I Grow My out still Clamoring For Braids. His Story Wouldn’t Need Too Much digging To Uncover—number one Pick. When Your Number one They Like You. Iverson Emerge Out Of The DMV: DC-Maryland-Virginia And Lived as Philly’s Brightest Icon. All. Of these Were Cities In The “States” products Of The “Hollywood.” Where The “Sex In The City” Originated. I Watched a Little—something About “Sex” That Struck a Cord In Me. The Brisk Untainted Brightness Of Charlotte’s Smile Still Swoons Me to This Day.

Back To Sports:

In 2001 AI Would Play For A Champion And Got A Great Start On A Victory, Not Be So. Elsewhere Another Number One pick Of Another Sport Had His Championship Aspirations Robbed Of Him And Handed To more miniature Heralded Pick. I Would Be Back In Nassau Before It All.

Baltimore, Maryland, 2007

The perfection Train rolled in the southeast. Patriots-Ravens. On Monday Night, A Ravens Most Assumed Would Be another Poster Child For Patriots Dominance. The Ravens Came To Play. They Came To Win.

The Game Got Chippy. The Ravens Lead by Ray Lewis, Dawned A Black Unis. The Team Itself composed Of The Most Black Figures I Had Ever Seen Play.

Beyond This, The Most Dramatic And Herat bounding Threat To Sixteen And 0 Came Down To Four Fourth Down Plays. Each Fourth-Down Conversion Stymied But Then Reversed and Given Life Via Penalties And A Reckless Timeout. After A Brand New Set Of Down, The Pats Continued to Patriot. One Strike Touchdown To The Back Of The Endzone Jabbar Gaffney. But These Spirited Ravens Wouldn’t Fly Into The Night quietly.

Ravens Quarterback Kyle Boller launched A Pass That Appeared To Be Some 60 YARDS(52 Actually) Caught By Mark Clayton Two Yards Short Of The Endzone. The Scare Ended. The Ravens Achieved What Appear Impossible.

 The Ravens Corners Slowed Randy Moss. The Defense  Held Brady Under 50% Percent Completion.

The Ravens’ defense Took Offense To The League, And The Officials Assumed Favoring The Perfection “motif.” Few, If any, Other League Could Boast Of A Team Being Undefeated. Not To Mention One Name The Patriots In An Era Of Great American patriotism. After 12-0, The Tide Shifted. The obsession With Perfection Grew. There would Be a little Mention of a Superbowl. Every Game Had Been One Since Week Nine For The Patriots.

Here The Turn From Fascination To Fervor. With Four Games To Go. The Steelers, The Pushover Dolphins, Jets, some team upstate, The Giants, And The Other Manning.

Wait, The Other Manning.

Patriots Were On The Clock. Bill Belichick had His First Slate Of Draft Decisions.

Thanks to Inheriting Drew Bledsoe From The Bill Parcels Era, Belichick Didn’t have the Quarterback concerns that plague teams Today. Neither Had They A First Round Pick. The Choices Started With guard Adrian Klein And Ended with Full Back Patrick Pass. Somewhere in a bunch of 8 picks Thomas Brady “slipped” to The Patriots.

Brady Joined the Pats Bunch As a Third String Camp Arm. He spent His Rookie Year With A Clip Board And Headset As Drew Bledsoe Lead The Team.

Bledsoe had An Average Year To Say The Least. Just 23 Touch Down 17 Interceptions, But The Patriots Were Filled Vested In their 34-Year-Old Quarterback, awarding him A Ten Year contract that Off Season. He Would Frustratingly Never play It Out.

Back To Perfection. The Pats Would Move On To Steam Roll The Steelers and Struggle To Overcome The Jets.

I am facing Shaking Weather And A Dubious Adversary, and another 2000s Draft alumna Quarterback Chad, Who Would become A Member Of Football most Famous Band, The Brady Six.

The pats Played Keep Away, More on The Record Than The Game. The Ran The Ball To Mud, Which slowed Down Brady’s Processing Of The Action. Brady Didn’t Throw a Touchdown All game,  Record Pace. He would Need Five More Touchdowns To Break The Record With One Game after Being Half To 60 Touchdowns Mid Season.

The Defense Added a Score and Subtracted A Quarterback on A Sack That Led Backup And Former First Round Pick Chad Pennington Taking Charge Into The Game.

The 2000 NFL Draft remains As Unremarkable as It Does Famous.

The Picks Started With Teammates Courtney Brown And Lavar Arrington Going 1 And 2. Neither Two Played more Than Six Years.

Jamal Lewis, Brian Urlacher, 2005 MVP Shaun Alexander And future Super Bowl Winner Plaxico Buress Were Other Notables, Including The Pennington, as mentioned earlier, Marc Bulger and Sebastian Janikowski.

The Jets had Four Picks In the First Round. They Fortified Up Front. Two defensive Ends. 1)Shaun Ellis And 2)  John Abraham Pennington (a College Teammate Of Randy Moss). Unpronounced To Chad, He’d Be The Only Quarterback To Win The AFC East Besides Brady For Nearly Two Decades. Tight End Anthony Becht Wrapped  Up The First Round For The Jets.

 With All-Pro Mo Lewis, The Jets had The Heavy Hitter up Front And An AFC East Wide Open. Well About That

All Of these Forces and More Would Clash And From This Hodgepodge pod of Unsung Draftees Tom Brady.

By 2001 Brady Became The Lead backup To Bledsoe But Only The Lead Backup.

Clipboards Were Still The Order Of Business. Bledsoe Had Massive weight In The Organization In The Form Of 104 Million Dollars. Championship Aspirations Were For Bledsoe. It Wouldn’t Be His Team To Lead When The Championship Came To New England.

Week Two: September 23rd, 2001 A Few Days Before My Birthday. Quarterback Drew Bledsoe fled The Pocket. Chase down By non-Other than Shaun Ellis. As Bledsoe Made a B-Line To The Sidelines, Making A B-Line Toward Him, Linebacker Mo Lewis.

Lewis Planted Bledsoe. Sucking The Air out of The Building And flattening The Franchise.  Internal Bleeding and what May Have A Been A misdiagnosed Concussion Sidelined Bledsoe. In Walked Brady Ready-ish For The Moment.

On His First Play, Brady hit FullBack and 2000s Draftee Patrick Pass on Curl Route. It Would Be Pass’s Only Catch Of The Game.

In Front Of 60,000 Oblivious Fans, Boston Greatest Sports Figure lost In regulation But Began His Grand Defeat Of Time and Expectations.

In 2001 Another NFL Quarterback mAde His Anticipated Start. Eli Manning. At Ole Miss.

The Manning’s Were Somewhat Of a Pedigree quarterback Lineage, Who Knew?

When The  Season Hit Late Year, on the Football Calendar. Brady  Got His Knees Cut Up From Under Him And Consequently Surrendered The Number Spot.

Drew Bledsoe Put The Drop Back Dynasty Back In The Hands, Those Hands Made To Lead The Team, The Franchise. QB One Back Over To The Disgruntled Franchise Star. With it, and Every Deep throw, The Almost  Desperate Despot-ian Figure  Shot At Attempts To Reclaimed Some Of The Glory He Had When He First Put The Pats In The Superbowl Half A Decade Earlier. He finished The Playoff And The Early Round Game.  Would There Be Enough There To Put The Coaching Staff In Flip-Flop Position After Both Qb’s Pounded The Team Through To The Superbowl?

Put Away The Quarterback Controversy for The Playoffs. “Together” They’d Put The Patriots In The Super Bowl. But In The End, The Offense Braintrust believes Brady Would Put them Over An NFC Favorite For The First In Patriot History. The Rams, The Greatest Show On Turf Undone By A Sixth Rounder.

In 2 Seasons, The Patriots would return to The mountaintop. Brady, Now the Incontrovertible Starter Would Begin To Make His Unmatched Stride Uphill. That April Eli Manning Would Become The Third Manning Quarterback In NFL History.

Like His Brother, Peyton, He Wouldn’t Have To Wait To Hear His Name Called, But He’d Have To Wait To Learn Of His New Thread. Manning Forced a Trade away From San Diego Over To New York. The Chargers Would Get another Quarterback, Phillip Rivers.

In June 2004, I Graduated from Primary. It Would Be The Last Time I “Technically” Graduated Formal School.

In The ’70s, Eli And Peyton’s Father, Archie Manning(First Name Elisha), earned Praised and Pity For Having The Soul To Hold Himself Together For the Saints Franchise That Strung Him Out as A living Piñata. With No Offensive Line To Protect Him For A Decade Of Play, Archie’s Sack Numbers Are the stuff Of Awe. Opposing teams Pummeled The Man 337 Times; Some Records Say More, No One Has Ever Argued Less.

At Ole Miss, Archie Earn “Folk hero Status.” A Earned A  “Lone Ranger” Lore in the League If they Could be Such A Thing In Football. In 1969, College Achieved A New Level Of Exposure. The first national prime-time broadcast game, Starring Archie Manning. The Manning Patriarch threw 436 yards and three touchdowns. He Took From The Pocket Too. Rushing for 104 yards. The Running Rebel Would Lose 33-32, But Legend Would Win Out. Drafted 2nd In ’71.

Papa’s Years In The NFL Were Progressive, Years Of Being A Victim of Attempted Murder Withstanding. For his family and New Orleans. It’s Where Brady Won His First Super Bowl.

The Younger Mannings Carried The Weigh Of Adding  Superbowl’s to family Lineage, But By The, Tim Brady Won His Third Before Either Two Number 1 Picks Had One.

Eli Manning Had His Stints  On The Sideline. Unlike His Brother Peyton Who Took The League By The Reigns Early, The Sheriff They Called Him. Eli Had Some Gaudy Atrocities In Of Professional Football Before He Rounded Into Form Right around 2007. Just In Time To Meet Brady At The Climax Of The New Greatest Show On Turf.

The buzz Saw That Had Cut Down So Many Older Manning’s Dreams Of Titles, Fictional Serialized  Glory Had One More Manning To Make Dour.

On A Cold Day In New York…

By That Time, I Had Learned A Lot More About The Wonderland Called America. About Its City. America The Place Where Dreams Came Though, and Christmas Gifts Were Shipped and Arrived In The Shores of less Fortunate Countries. I Had Two Cousins That born There And More Family Beyond My Knowledge. Somewhere In A “Seattle” Xbox Schematic Were Being Worked On and Ironed. Coffee, That Wonderful Brew Of Working Adults, Gulp By The Millions.

According To A Church Handout. America the  Land Of Pride; Prophecy; and Propaganda. A place you Had To Explore to make It Big one day. Once you Cleared the Borders.

Crossing over Some  55 Miles From Freeport Used To Be Crossing Tantamount To Crossing The Road Once.

But Homeland Security And The Man above All Others George W. Bush Began tightened Borders. Result Of  That Faithful Day In 2001, in New York. I Remembered the Burning Buildings. Grammy Made Shore That The News Channel remained Only News Programs. The Advent of All Dat News And The CNN that Propagated It Cursed Me That Day. Prophecy Before Our Eyes. Prophecy Close To Home. Prophecy perhaps

At 15-0, THe Patriots Stood at The Chilling Door Of Giant stadium. History Awaited. So Did The Giants. At 10-5, the Giants Squeak Into The Playoffs. There Not So Gun Shy Quarterback and Big Body Wide Receiver And Ruthless and hostile But Dangerously Inconsistent Pass Rush. The Giants Came Out To Be Apart Of history One Way Or The Other.

Who Challenged The Unbeaten The Best. Who Lasted the Longest With Tyson.

The Patriots Had Beaten Teams By Double Digits, All Seasons, An Average Of At least. Still, They Engineered A Few Comebacks along The Way. Close calls Versus Indy Baltimore Philly had All Expose Cracks In The Diamond. The Giant Put The pats In It’s Biggest Hole, 28-16.

For Those Falling Along The Way, The Giants were The Ultimate Symbol of resistance, the ultimate Hope For Retribution.

In 2007 The Blockbuster Adaptation Continued Its Chisel. It Climbed Over The Mountains Of The Hollywood Hills Marching Over The The Romance Dramas Of “Sex In The City” On Its Way To Out Crossing It’s Own Earning Nearly Every Year Since. One Of those Adaptations is Transformers. A Childhood Favorite Of Mines Turned CGI Mechanized Survivalist-Intergalactic-Racial-gore Fest.

Quite Enjoyable.

In One Scene Of The Movie. The Final Boss Fight. After The Decepticons Took Lose After Lose, Megatron and Star Stream, In One Visual mash Of Skyscraper Destruction And maladroit Movements and Robotic Fight Scene The Decepticons Regain The lead In The Lead In The Fight. In one, Clip Optimus Prime Found His High Character Leadership Struggle Laid Flat On The Pavement Next To Him.

The Patriots Climbed Back Or threw Their way Back. In One Swing, One Scene.

The Pats Struck Back. Chipping The Lead Down With A The Sense That Lead Had Never Consisted. Methodical, Trusting That The Bronze That and Always Shined On Them In Dour Moment Had One More Moment Of Glory to Glisten Over The Team.

Two Plays to Perfections: Sound Like A Sandra Brown Novel. Like “Exclusive” Or “In A Class By Itself.”

The lead Cracked: From twelve To  Five.

Thanks To a Lawrence Maroney. Then the Season’s Symbol Of Superiority Blazed Over The New skyscrapers. Brady Drops back, aims Deep, And Hits Randy Moss, Breaking Through The New York Secondary.

In One Touchdown.  The Pats Secured Perfections. Brady alone Stood at 50 Touchdown, Breaking Peyton’s Record As Eli Looked On. Randy Moss Caught His 23rd Beating Jerry Rice By One Mark, And The Organization Scored The Most points In History. They Broke The Record on Moss’ First touchdown Of The game.

Amazing Before The Go-Ahead Touchdown, The Brady-Moss Came Back Void On deep throw. When a Defender Fell a Moss Lay Wide Open. No Worries, Just Run It Back.

The Patriots Would Score Once More For Good Measure. A Rush By Maroney To which The Giants Would Respond Manning-Buress Combo For Cosmetics.

I Don’t Recall Watching That Game. I Don’t Remember the Game Being National Televised.  Though Looking Back, It’s Hard to Believe It Wasn’t.

But some Much Of zit Felt Familiar, Like Deja Vu. But By Week 17, Hubris Had set In. According To the Reports In The Paper, the Giants Weren’t The Caliber Of Team To Pull An Upset.

After Three-Quarters Of FootBall Those On The Field Who Couldn’t Swallow Pride Choked On It.

At Times Through Three Quarters, Eli looks Like His Father Running For His Life while Simultaneously Resembling Peyton.

The Giants Went Up 28-16 Through three. Eli To One Plaxico Buress.

By The End, one Team Lay Exasperated, The Other Elated.

One Moved On to Tampa. The Other Lay Im Wait.

The Two Would Meet Some Months again Later in the Game That Made Brady The Figure. Only This Brady Wouldn’t Deliver The Blows He Did Last Time.

I would Be In Tears And Back To School.

I Watched Every agonizing Moment of the Game. Especially That Play. With Helmet.

But The Silent Masochist In Me Needed The Reports For it To Feel Real.

“19 And Oh No.”

 I wouldn’t Know It Then. Not When I Returned To Place That Put Dust And Sweat in My eye. With Sumptuous Foods Of Testosterone Surging Through My Body That shutter Steading Across The  Threads of my Limbic System. The Limbic Consolidates Long Term Memory, And That Lost Got Branded Through Every Vessel Of The System.

From Then On, I Followed Football Religiously. I Wouldn’t Miss A Game As Far As my Effort Would Concern.

No Vascilating, Especially Over To The Wannabes In New York. The Following Season. I Expected A Sequel. I Mea,n why Not. Brady had Lost a Game, Nothing Else. Eli Got “Lucky” That’s all.

“Run It Back.”

“Brady Goes down. He’s Clutching His Knee.” Opening day, Brady Drops Back, Looking Deep. He was sacked on A blitz By Some Wayward Safety Soon To Be Raven And Twerking Exhibitionist Bernard Pollard.

The Rebound Careened Off The Class Out Of Bounds.

Then Matt Cassel Took Over.

A Seventh Round pick. Football Figurine, Model Poster Child, For Instructional Composition of Clipboard Holding Archetype. Structural Sound Bridge Guy. Beat Out several Other Camp arms To Earn The Right To understudy Brady, Including Chris Redman Of Brady Six Fame.

The Man Who Would Step In For Brady walk  In Many Of the Footprints His Antecedents Once Planted.

A California Guy, So-Cal, Not  Like Brady, North Cal. Cassel Back Up An Number Pick Carson Palmer at USC and A Future Top Ten Guy In Matt Leinart. After Palmer Moved Onto To The Pros. Matt Cassel Played With Reggie Bush and Troy Polamalu. Few Men Have Stood On The sidelines To Witness As  Much Greatness As Cassel Had Done. He Even Played Baseball During His 4 Years With The Trojans.

As Far Backup, We’reConcerned Cassel Played Exceptional, Historical Even. Three thousand six hundred passing Yards, 21 Touchdowns, 11 picks, More Than 60% Completion. The Patriots Came Up Just Short Of The Playoffs. for Only The Second Time In The Belichick Era. The Patriots Wouldn’t Miss The Playoffs again For another Decade