It's time now for another episode of Pats from the Past podcast. I'm Natt Smith alongside with Paul Perrillo when we're pleased today to be joined by Ernie Adams, who spans many years here in the Patriots Organization. Ernie, how are you doing today? And thanks for joining us.
I'm great and it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you.
It's a good get for Matt. It was stepping up our client. Tell a little bit here, Matt, I.
Think most Patriot fans please tell me if you disagree. Probably I'll know that Ernie's now retired, which is at once a very sad day for the Patriots Organization because of all the success he's helped be a part of, but probably a great day for Ernie and his family. How do you enjoy retirement?
Every day is great? Ah, I'm in total control of my time and that's uh. You know, it's sixty nine years old. That's a great place to be.
Did you ever was it?
Like?
It amazed to me some people. I'm going to work until you know whenever? Was retirement something that you did you think about that as you were working? Like, you know what one day I think I would like to slow down and and see some things that I never or do some things I never had.
A chance to do well. Probably over the last couple of years, I knew I knew it was going to come. Dying at the office was never part of the plan. Uh So it's it felt like the right time.
For Patriots fans who don't know Ernie's a would you would you classify yourself as a voracious reader?
That's probably a fair assessment.
Yes, what are you reading now that you would recommend to Patriot fans that you enjoy that you're enjoying?
Mean, oh boy, that's uh for Patriots fans that they would really enjoy. Uh. Read a great book about Maynard Keynes. Uh. Author's last name is O'Toole. I think I have to get the title Time of Peace. Great great book about how economics or a social phenomenon, not a hard science that that might be at the top of my timely topic.
Very timely capulated.
I love it.
Yeah, yeah, I wanted to ask you, you know, when Matt was talking about the retirement stuff, just what was what was the season like for you last year? Sort of you know, what did you do on a typical NFL Sunday. Were you watching intently or were you doing apple picking? You know with the fan.
So I watched. I certainly watched Patriots games. And if there were teams that were interesting to me, uh, you know, then then I would watch them. I did not sit there glued watching you know, every uh every game that came on.
Well, players will say that when they see the games or it gets to be training camp, those that have retired, that there's an itch that comes back. Did you ever have an inch or was there was had that been scratched?
Pm I would say, I would say it's the itch had been scratched. I mean it's game days. The is the fun time, uh, you know, driving home on Tuesday nights, worrying about heitting a deer out on nine nine five.
That's don't get Matt going on that. He's that's one of his hat irrational fears.
Right, there are deer out there, I know, right, right.
So this is a fascinating career that you've had, Ernie, as a younger person, what sparked was it, can you think of one thing where that ignition sort of happened? And you said, man, I'm really interested in this In the game of football.
Sure it was when I was an eighth eighth grader at Dexter School in Brookline. Uh, football was mandatory intramurro, so there was no no choice. I want to play football, I don't. If you're at Dexter School, you're going to play football. And I was the athletic director there. George Downple was just a wonderful human being, and I had also why don't we do this? Why don't we do that? And he finally said, look, you're so smart. You coach your team. We'll see how you do. And that's where it started.
Did you envision at that point in time, was that this is this is a real love?
Oh? I knew, Hey, this is this is a lot of fun. And it grew from there.
Okay, so you were really into it, and then you know, you do your your high school and you meet another guy who's really into it. How long did it take you to realize? Bill Belichick was pretty similar.
In his thoughts. Probably about a minute. So of course weeh we met fall of nineteen seventy. We were both sior seniors at Phillips Academy in Andover. We played on an undefeated football team and we had a great time together, and it was It's basically started a fifty plus year conversation about football.
Was it mapped out? Did you guys sort of say this is this is where we want to go, and this how we might get there.
We both knew we really enjoyed football. I can't say that we're eighteen. We had, you know, every step of the way mapped out, but things went from went from there.
And so how did that happen maybe or increase the likelihood or maybe increased your love of the game When you were at Northwestern.
Well, I was, of course it was Bill's Bill's dad, Steve made an introduction to me at Northwestern and that worked great. And then when I finished at Northwestern, I came June of nineteen seventy five, I had an interview with Chuck Fairbanks about joining his staff. And what really worked for me was that Check had been coach at the University of Oklahoma. He was used to having graduate assistants and there's young coaches who did all the lot of the grunt work, so he was it was kind
of no risk for Chuck. It was it was a tryout basis. He said, look, if this goes well, great, if not, I'll let you go. So about I came in and interviewed with Chuck on a Monday, and I had a conversation probably a day or two after with Bill, with Bill Belichick when he just graduated from Wesley, and told him what I was doing, and he said, you know, that sounds like a pretty good place to be in
the NFL instead of going to college. So he went in shortly thereafter and talked to Ted Marsha brought at the Colts and that's where he started at the Colts.
I think people like Paul and myself look at what the NFL is today. It's just mega monster and everything like that. But can you talk about like the job interview in nineteen seventy five for the New England Patriots in the NFL. Yeah, we think of the NFL as this big deal. I'm not saying it wasn't a big deal in nineteen seventy five. That's still the highest league. But what was that like like in nineteen seventy five, Ernie, We like getting your introduction of the NFL.
Well, I mean, I Chuck Fairbanks was just a wonderful person to work with, and that was that that was a big deal. Of course, the league was was much smaller if in fact, if you remember in nineteen seventy five, the Patriots was still a publicly traded company. You could go to the Boston Stock Exchange and buy a sheriff
to England Patriots. Well, one of the uh the results of that was as a publicly traded company, the Patriots had to publish every year their complete financial statements, which I have a copy of their last annual report and I gave I gave a copy of that Robert Kraft. I said, now, don't laugh when you look up. I mean, it was, you know, it was, it was the National Football League, but it was so much it was it was smaller than it was, and that was obviously right.
And you know, Matt and I are, you know, of similar age, and we have a sort of affection. Would you say for those teams seventy six, seventy seven, you know, that era of Patriots football was when we were kids and we were really really getting into it. And I'm just curious your thoughts on just how good you know, you mentioned Chuck Fairbanks, the talent that he brought here, how good some of those teams were that maybe kind of forgotten because of all the success you and Bill have had.
Well, of course, I was with the Patriots then for four years, from nineteen seventy five through seventy eight. The nineteen seventy five, the year before I got here. In seventy four, the Patriots, if you remember, had started six and one and then and ended one and then one and six, sources seven and seven overall record. And then in seventy five we had our team went on strike the day before the last preseason game with the Jets.
So we were, may may seem most strange, we were playing the Jets in the last preseason game playing in the It was that game was going to be play in the Yale Bowl. So we had a usual Saturday morning workout and we had lunch in the old Stadium club over with the Schaeffer Stadium. The players, after lunch decided to go to go out on strike, and they didn't come back till I think Wednesday of the following
week of the open over the Ears. But that that really cast a a pall over the over the whole season. And then of course, you know, Jim Plunkett heard his shoulder and so we went, Yeah, that gave Steve Grogan a chance to play with the rookie. So the first year, you know, three eleven, that was a real disappointment. But the next year coming back, of course, we went eleven and three in the regular season. I probably remember the
Oakland Raiders won the Super Bowl that year. Well, in the they were thirteen and one in the regular season. That one loss was when we beat them. I think it was like forty eight to fourteen.
I was at that game.
I remember, I'm going to go seventeen.
It was a blower, it was.
It was a blowout, complete blowout. Yeah. And then of course we played them in the the infamous Divisional playoff game where we had them third. You know, we've got we had a lead, had them third and eighteen. They throw an incomplete passion. Ray Hamilton gets called for roughing the passer. Let's say, probably a bit of a marginal call, you know. When they went on to you know, to beat us right at the animals, Stable kept the ball
winning for the winning touch up. But that was my point is that in seventy six, I mean, we were we were a championship caliber team, even though you know we didn't win. Most seasons still end up being, you know, two or three teams playing at the towards the end of the season that really have a legitimate chance to win, and we were one of them.
A lot of players and a lot of coaches. It's not necessarily the wins that they enjoy reminiscing about. It's those losses that they can't get over. And easy for me to say this, but I wonder does that loss bug you because you had beaten Pittsburgh already in the regular season that year in Pittsburgh, by the way, in no disrespect to Minnesota, but Minnesota wasn't in the same class that one. You know, I think you can make a really legitimate argument that that call doesn't get made.
You beat the Steelers and you beat the NFC representative I was, you.
Know, I'm all presidents. I think that would have happened. I mean, the two best teams in the league that year with the Patriots and the Raiders, and they you know, they came out on the long end of the score, but I mean we were You hate seeing a game really come down to, uh, you know, to a call, but it did.
You know, how do you you look back at those it's so different, you know, the way you guys played with all of the running and the record you guys ended up setting in seventy eight for the all time rushing team stat And then you look at the way the game is played, you know now you know.
Just can you well right, it's become much more of a passing league. But I will point out you got a really good team, the Baltimore Ravens, Yeah, who feature you know, feature the running game. Uh, And they're a little bit similar to what we were because we had I think in seventy six, Steve Grogan probably had close to five hundred yards rushing. So it wasn't just the running backs who were who were making a lot of the yards. It was the quarterback as well. And we were,
you know, we we were committed. We were committed to being a running football team. Although we go when we had you know, players like Darryl Stingley, Rush Francis, you know, and Steve a quarterback. When we you know, when we needed to throw the ball, we could. I mean you mentioned beating the being the steel in three rivers. I mean we were down, we were down twenty to nine. We hit fourth and one hit Russ Francis on a fifty five yard pass. Then we hit Darryl Stingley on
a big on a big play. So I mean we had you know, we had players who are very good passing the ball, but it was we were definitely a running team first.
Uh you probably my guess is this is maybe it's wrong and that I should say it this way. Probably not a big fan of nicknames per se, but I'm sure you were aware in the day Cosell and calling Francis all world. Patriot fans today have no idea who Russ Francis is. They can't remember him anything like that. My words here, I'd like to say that I think it was Gronk before Gronk. Is that a fair Is that a fair statement to make?
I mean the big difference, the biggest difference between Russ Francis and Rob Gronkowski is that Rob played on a passing team with a Hall of Fame quarterback. I mean, Rush was you know, we were more of a running team. He was a like Rob was a devastating blocker on the edge. Rushhead, you know, great athletic ability, great hands. He When you talk, what do you want for a tight end? What do you think of rush Francis, Rob Gronkowski. I have no problem putting them in the.
Same that's heady category right.
In the big plays. Like you know, there was a couple of years, you know, before all of these modern guys started being eligible for the Hall of Fame. And we're in our meetings. I've nominated Russ Francis a couple of times. I mean, averaging like sixteen yards of catch, right, I mean, and I'm just an insane total for a tight end, especially in that era, as Ernie said, with such a running team, really could I mean, I know
Howard Cosell always said it. He has his little pithy little phrases, but there's my old world tight end, that's what he was.
He could do it all, no question. I mean, we you know, are probably our featured player was running the ball off tackle. I mean we had Rush Francis doubling down, a double team, Sam Cunningham kicking out and John Hannah leading and we're good backs, but they just had, you know, realistic at the back, just had to get the ball followed.
Job, right, Ernie, Because you know, you've your career has spended so much time and the game has chased so much I'm interested in one.
You mean half a centuries a long time.
There's a long time when you're sitting in meetings and in that seventies team, and you guys are sitting down, can you recall a player, a couple of players. Will you guys sit around as you're trying to game plan and go, this guy's a game wrecker. I don't know how we're going to be able to tend with him. Who's the guy that caused coaching your coaching staff fits back in that day?
Oh boy? Well ahead, Uh you could say our last year in seventy eight playing in the Houston Oilers, Earl Campbell. Uh No, that he was a was a game wrecker. I mean my first year in nineteen seventy five going out to play the Bengals had Isaac Curtis wide receiver with Kenny Anderson throwing him the ball. I mean we geared a lot of things to stopping to stopping him. You play the Raiders, I mean he had now Dave Casper was another tight end who was a real problem
to play against. I mean those there were you know we played the Steelers you mentioned beat We beat him in seventy six. I mean they had Stan and Lynn Swann and John Stalwarth at wide receiver, and of course the defense. I mean you got Jack Ham, Joe Green, Jack Lambert, Andy Russell was the third linebacker who would be he would be a legitimate Hall of Fame candidate, with you know, Blunt and Mike Wagner in the secondary. I mean, that was that was a great, you know, a great team to play against.
And we people talk about we use the word dynasty a lot, you know, and how much it is. And here's the Steelers. There's no free agency back in the day, you know, and the fact that they that team could run out You're just going through some of the names. I don't know that younger Patriot fans can appreciate how good that team was and how good that organization was at that at that time, right.
Yeah, Well, I mean you're talking about winning, uh, you know, winning winning four Super Bowls in six years. I mean it was still I mean, to win the championship of the National Football League, you got to beat everybody else in the league. I mean, that part of it hasn't you know, hasn't changed.
Uh.
And they were, you know, and even the team we beaten seventy six. Who did you know I did not go on the Super Bowl. I mean, that's why they're mean. They had some injuries, but I mean the Steeler defense that year, I mean, it was just that's that's what they get. That was the year I think they came up with the name of steel Curtain and that's about what it was.
Should you have did the did Chuck leaving in seventy eight? Did that? Did that derail the seventy eighteam.
At the end, it's well it didn't. It certainly didn't help. You know, when you have you a championship team, when you get on a run, you got everybody totally focused the zero it in every day nothing, You're not letting anything else distract you. And then you get to the end of the season, Oh, the head coaches leaving, Well that kind of everybody, whoa, wait, what's what's going on here?
I mean, that's that's absolutely never a good thing. And of course, our last the last regular season game when it all came out, was Monday night down in the Orange Bowl, and we had the scene where Chuck told the team in the afternoon he was going to University of Colorado. Billy Sullivan came in into the locker room and he was going to suspend Shock. What Chuck could talk to is any who said you do not resign, make them fire you. So he had the back and forth.
Billy said, you're suspended the head coach going, does that mean I'm fired? No, you suspended in the locker room before they and then of.
Course this is what we dealt with in our childhood.
And then of course the the unfortunate pictures. You got Chuck walking walking on the Orange Bowl in the middle of the second quarter, carrying, you know, carrying his bag, and then he came back for the for the playoff game, and of course Steve Grogan got hurt in the playoff game. So I mean that, I mean that was that our
seventy eight team in the middle of the season. We could play with anybody, but you know, that was probably too much for for anybody to over Complus, we ended up playing the Oilers with Earld Campbell.
And good parlor game. Who's a better team, Earnie, the seventy eight team or the seventy sixteen.
You know, I must say probably the seventy eight team because we had on seventy eight instead of having a Steve Grogan being a rookie quarterback. He was his third year. We had Stanley Morgan and Harold Jackson at receiver, which we were a little more explosive on offense in seventy eight. Of course, the seventy sixteen was the one that you know, in the end, it was closest to winning a championship.
Yeah, I would agree, though seventy eight, I think they had more ams, probably with the ownership, and there was more animosity at that time because those guys have been around a few years and we're kind of tired of the way they would try to know. It seemed like someone was holding out every training camp. It was tough as a ten year old kid, it was tough to read about the team at that time because of all those off field things, right.
Yeah, I mean it's I mean, I give tremendous credit to Billy Sullivan for keeping professional starting professional football in Boston, you know, getting a team belt. But it was I mean, the organization was realistically being run on our shoe.
String, and everybody that was involved at the time says it exactly the way already just did, right, you know, it was a tremendous passion that Billy Sullivan had, and it was a lot like Robert. He was a fan first, like he wanted football to succeed here. He just didn't have the resources to do it the right.
Way, right.
And so then you go Ernie and you get to a couple of places that maybe do do it the right way. You know, you see how it's run in New York, and you see how it's run in Cleveland, and those are two premier NFL franchises.
Well, when we got to the when we got to the to the Giants in nineteen seventy nine, and of course Ray Perkins was became the head coach, who had been the receiver coach here on Check Fairbanks's staff from seventy five through seventy seven. But they were coming off the Herman Edwards recovery of the Joe Bizzar Chick fumble. You know, they'd had the airplane fly over Giants stadium.
Fifteen years of lousy football. We've had enough, And I said, when we got to the Giants, if you remember the old television show F Troop, this was like taking over F Troop. I mean it was a we had a few good young defensive players but the organization was was mired back in the nineteen forties someplace, And of course he talked about ownership. I mean he had Wellington Mara and Tim Mather, Tim Marra that was an uncle and nephew who it was a fifty to fifty split, and
the tour. They just lived in different worlds basically. So the commissioner, Pete Roselle, basically he went out and found George Young who was at the Miami Dolphins, and he told the marriage, look, you're going to hire George Young as the general manager and just signed the team over to him, which is which is what happened. But that was But you say, yeah, the Giants, I mean, it's in New York. It's a classy operation. But going in there in the spring of nineteen seventy nine.
That's good to know.
We had a long way to go.
Okay. So then, so let's fast forward a little bit. Was the organization the team wasn't very good when Bill called you in two thousand and said I'm going to New England. Let's go to New England. It wasn't the f troop at that point in time. But your financials from a salary cap were a mess, right, Like the football team wasn't in great shape at.
That point, right, No, it was, we had I mean, we had some work to do, and that for that first season was certainly frustrating. I mean it took basically a whole year to get everybody on the same page. And then of course, going into two thousand and one, we did a great job with you know, being going signs for free you know, signs for free agency. You know, like Mike Crable brought some guys in for you know who Bill and known at the Jets, like you know, Fifer and just had a I mean that that made
a huge difference. And then, of course, I mean everybody knows in the second game Drew got hurt and Tom came in playing quarterback and that, uh, I mean everything, I mean everything jelled, But it was I mean if that old one team, I mean we got playing really well at the end, and obviously we won the championship. I mean we weren't really a juggernaut at that stage. I mean, I tell people, I mean in the two thousand and one team, we were just a little engine
that could. I mean, this is like fifteen years before we became the Evil Empire. I mean we were, I mean, we were just some guys going out there. And the one I remember was we went out and we played played the Colts in Indianapolis, and that was where David Patton had the they threw for a touchdown, Ram for a touchdown, and Conda Testown when he threw the touch up ass the annoysious commentaries who are these guys? And that that's where we were in two thousand and one.
Who who I mean? I'm John Madden broadcast in the Super Bowl. I thought, oh, this poor Patriots having to go up against the Ram. I mean, that was I mean, and that's part of what made that a lot of fun.
Can you think back to your mindset heading into the season in two thousand and one. Obviously no one could have envisioned going down and Tom, but was their optimism like that? You would you know, like as Matt said, you sort of got the house in order a little, You got all those free agents in How good did you think you might be able to?
I just wanted to see this make some progress. That was really you know, you know, come on, we went to a stay string of games in two in the first year two thousand where we got a head of teams and lost at the end. So you're losing games. But at least, as.
It was, it was a much more competitive team than people.
Remember, at least we were getting ahead of people. So I mean, I was I was hoping we would we would make progress. I mean, we had a lot of
things come together. But remember after after week eleven, we were six and five, and of course the the last game we lost was again there was the Sunday which in reality that that had a huge part in beating the Rams in the Super Bowl because we we'd gone up against them, we had we had a bit of a feel for them, and we knew we were going to have to make some changes when we when we got to play them in the Super Bowl, Whereas the Rams kind of came in and went with the same
uh to Elijah extent, the same plan they had the first game. But truthfully, had we not played them, it would have been harder to beat them in the Super Bowl.
That's fascinating. So is the is the game in the regular season where you and Bill kind of looked at Falk and said, this is the guy.
Well, this is what everything revolved, right, Well, there were some you know some other things, you know, I mean just the whole way we played the game on the particularly on defense. You know, we were trying to do some zone blitzers, which we weren't very successful with. So we really said, hey, we are not going to you know, we've played them once, We've got a little better feel for him. We're not going to just go repeat what
we did. Uh, And they were truthfully, I I I know that the Rams absolutely knew they were playing the Pittsburgh Steelers and there's only one week, so you know, to get ready for that game. So that was the whole a lot of the things in the preparation or advantage Josh, and believe me, we needed every advantage we could get to beat that team. I mean that that was a real good Rams seam on both sides of the.
Ball that one week, because you know, that hadn't happened in years, you know, and that was a big deal because of nine to eleven. Asking if because you're saying that the fact that you played him in the regular season, it's not a completely different opponent. You know what you did wrong, Well, we can't do this again, or it's going to be a smoke show. You know, did that help because you had such a condensed period of time to prepare?
I think so, yeah, I mean we had I mean, we've we played. We played the AFC Championship game against the Steelers on Sunday afternoon. We get back in and we're gonna the buses leaven to go to the ones at remember it. Well, yeah, right, that's kind that's called a fast turnaround. And basically we did. You know, we had the parameters of our strategy for the bill and I mapped out on that plane. So and we had, uh, you know, here we are, We're going to do what
we think we can do best. We just we'll go with it and let's see see what happens. And we had a great week of practice down in New Orleans, man everything, you know, for the first fifteen minutes of the game, we threw a shout out at them.
You mentioned the idea of being the little engine that could versus fifteen years later and you're the evil Empire. Is it more fun being the little engine that could?
Ah? Well, you can only be the little engine that could once. Okay, I mean if you if you're going to actually go out and repeat, you know, you can't say as much as I would like to you, oh yeah, Yo, we've won five super Bowls, but we're really just no, no, no. Right at such stage, you know that that becomes unbelievable.
So but I think I wanted to ask a little bit about you had mentioned on that plane ride. You know, you and Bill sat down. That's basically where you got the parameters. You're famous for being the guy that Bill. You know, there's times where Bill says, Okay, I don't need to hear from anybody. I'm just talking to Ernie during games. You know, what is it exactly?
Is it?
Is it strategy? Is it clock management?
Or you know, could be anything above. And when I mentioned you know that this goes back to nineteen seventy. I mean we've been having a football company.
We've been fascinating.
We've been having a football conversation for fifty years. I mean, we were you know, you know, at the Giants. We go for long runs together, you know, I mean we've gone through and sometimes you know, because we can do we can do a lot of things very quickly, you know,
because we have some common reference points. You know, something happened in Cleveland nineteen ninety three, nobody else on the face of planet Earth will remember about you know, Bill, you remember what we did in Cleveland, and this really worked in this situation. And you know, we can make big changes in a hurry because we spent so much time talking to you know, we know what we know what each other is talking about.
So we're going to put you on the tea here, okay, because you related this story to me about a Giants game against the Rams, and I don't know if it was seventy nine or eight eighty one, eighty one, sorry, and how that relates to one of the most famous games and one of the most famous plays in Patriot history.
Sure, well, we were the nineteen eighty one Giants. I mean, we'd come off a bad year in nineteen eighty We were four and twelve. We had the second pick in the draft where we took Lawrence Taylor. That was I mean, that was a difference maker for that franchise. But we were we were six and seven, and we kind of knew that well, if we were going to the playoffs, we were going to have to win win three in a row. We were playing, you know, a good Rams team who had I mean they had played the Steelers
in the Super Bowl. Very very close game, but I think they're actually ahead of the Steelers in the fourth quarter, and we were in a tight game of them, and we were in a fourth and one situation out in the field, and normally out in the field you don't want to play goal line defense because they if the other team breaks through, there's nobody left and it could be a long run for a touchdown. Well, we're fourth
to one and build ourselves. That was his first year as our defensive coordinator to the Giants, and really, it doesn't matter whether they break an eighty yard touch wherever the ball was on the fifty yard touchdown or a one yard gain. If they get the first down, the game's over. So in that situation, going goal line is the thing to do. Get everybody close to the ball
and make sure they don't get a yard. And if you know, like I said, really, if the one yard of fifty yards doesn't make a difference, you're going to lose the game. Well, fast forward, we're in the Snow Bowl, the playoff with the Raiders after the one season, and
we're fifteen to go in the game. We took our last time out the Raiders had a third and one out in the middle of the field, and it's really clear we're either going to make the stop, make get them, get them the punt and we get the ball, or if they get the first down, we have no timeouts, the game is over. And that situation was what do we want to do on defense? And that's just kind of flashed right there. Hey, there's no question we want
to go goal line here. So having the conversation with Bill and Romeo Cornell and I tried, I try to stay off the I have a button on my I had a button on my phone I could push allowed me to talk. Well, you don't want to eight people talking on the line at once, so really I kept my voice off, and that was something I had to say, but I said, hey, I think we want to go
goal line here. Of course Bill and Romeo, who had both been there for that, I don't know if they thought of that, rams came but there, Hey, that's it. Let's let's go with it, and we put our goal line defense in which the ram the Raiders, excuse me, we're not really ready for. In a third and one situation out in the field, Richard Seymour made a big play. We made him punt, you know, and that and then
that led to all the fun. But you know that was you know, when you've been through a critical situation, what you know, I mean, it's kind of say, hey, I mean I have thought of this play in ten years, but this is this is probably what we need to do.
So that verbal shorthand, which comes with a fifty year relationship, right, the fact that you can finish his sentence and vice versa, right, that's where it becomes so valuable. It's not cutting time. You don't need to hear from fifteen people about what's going on and this is what.
We need and you don't have time to you know, I mean, this is you know, it's the ball is going to be snapped there in about twenty five seconds. You don't have time for, you know, a thirty minute dissertation here. You got to you know, you got to get some get something done right right now. It's not going in You're in a regular season game. You know you're going in halftime. Well that goes so fast, I mean plays, you know, they got to go to the
training room. Coaches got to get together for about two minutes decide what they're going to do you know, and then you you know, and then you have any change you want to make you do. I mean you've got to be able really to communicate and do things very quickly.
Did you have a favorite team?
You know?
Out of all that you had so many teams that were successful, was there one of them that stuck out to you?
Ah? Boy, hard to beat the two thousand and one team. I mean that was just uh yeah, that was so there was so much fun. I mean, we know, I like Bobby Hamilton, one of my favorite Patriots players, said, you know, hey, we shocked the world, you know, and and and we did. I remember going uh, you know, the Saturday afternoon before before the Super Bowl, we went to a you know, a hideaway hotel up by the New Orleans Airport and you know, going bay, you know,
you go, but we drove out past the Supernome. I see you know, the you know, the SWAT guys who were up on the room and you know, with all you know, the security they had, you know, after nine to eleven, I mean, they were ready for anything. I mean we had where their practicident to Lane University and we got the United States Air Force going overhead with f sixties and I knew, you know, hey, can we beat the Rams? I don't know, but we're ready to give it our best shot.
So after the game earning, you know, the super Bowls, you guys are in the last game, you win the Super Bowl? Did you shock the world? Did you not shock the world? At some point in time? I know that at least my experience in talking to people who do this, the train's moving. We got to get ready
for the two thousand and two season. As you guys are sitting down after winning the Super Bowl and you start your organizational meetings, other people in the organization have had meetings stuff like that is they were a conversation like what just happened? And we got a lot of hole like this isn't the eighty five Bears yet we're talking about, well, you know, we got a lot of hope, but we won this. This is unbelievable. How do we now?
You know, we got a lot of holes to fill here, don't you right?
I mean I mean, we yeah, we were. We did not I'm sure we could probably go back and find things we wish you'd done differently, but we did. We did not compare ourselves, you know, to the uh you know, to to you know the forty, you know, the Bill Wash forty or anything like that. But you know, we've
always we always did a pretty good job. Hey, we're going to start off next year zero and zero, and you know, everybody's gonna be gunning for us, and we understood what, you know, what the challenge was.
Does it make it easier to do that? I mean, you won the last game, which is every team's goal. Does it make it easier to do that after say a two thousand and one year as opposed to say a two thousand and four or twenty fourteen team. You guys are really really good, and you know that you're really good.
Yeah, I think I think we tried to do a good job of just hey, it's a new season. Nobody, nobody, nobody's going to come in here and want to look at our scrap books. They're gonna come in here want and you know, knock our heads off. You know, we understand. It's you know, it's the National Football League and uh, you know, it is a new season, so we have to It's i mean, every every season is a unique challenge.
Obviously, all the playoff games and Super Bowls, and and that kind of success would stand out. But is there a game that, maybe a regular season game, that stood out to you that maybe we wouldn't just necessarily snap our finger. Oh I remember that game, but one that drew particular pride for you guys finding a way to win.
Well. One of my favorites was in you know, in two thousand and three playing the Colts. I mean, we got a big lead. They they yeah, yeah, yeah, you remember that one. They they they.
Know this is the Willie McGinnis game.
Who's who's it coming back for that team? Was Mike Cloud, wasn't it?
It probably was? Yeah, yeah, fake injury. Yeah. But by the end, you know, it's just coming down the one play at the end, I mean, we've been up, I hate, we've been up by thirty eighth to Tanner Shop, and they came back to me at thirty you know, Peyton Manning was tearing us up. Came down the one play they handed them off the edge and James William McGinnis hit him three yards in the backfield, and you know, we won the game. I mean, that's that's one that always kind of.
Yeah, that was a fun game and people never really think about it in these turns. But one play that you make allows that playoff game to be at home instead of on the road, because that changes the whole complexion of the records and the tie breakers and all that stuff. And people never look at it that way. But just how close and what a what a great rivalry it was with you guys. It's just tremendous to watch.
Right, I mean you had I mean, look, I know when the schedule came out there was Peyton Manning and Bill Polly and they all circle the game with the Patriots. Well, I got news for you. With the schedule, I circled the game. We know everybody's going to be there. We know what it's gonna We know Dwight Freene's going to try to beat Matt White with a spin move. In
the whole uh, the whole bit. We had, uh you know, some some great games against them, so you know, some we won, so you know some they won.
It was a great competition, great competition. Ernie was there. I don't know if there was the aha moment. And I've had a conversation with Charlie Weiss where there was something that he said that sort of he thinks clicked for him. But do you is there a moment in time when you realized, with Tom, this isn't your average, This isn't just some sort of a journey man, right, you know what, this guy might be pretty good. Nobody could figure what he's you know, what he's going on
to be. But was there a time when you said, you know what, this guy might be our right, we might okay with this guy? Can you remember that?
I don't know, I don't think. I don't know that it was one specific play, But I mean as we started playing in two thousand and one, you know, I mean, Tom just got got better every week. You know, the team responded well, he was you know, he was doing well. So I think I think it was more of a process rather than you know, one play.
Okay, but based on that process and maybe the body of work was that, you know, certainly the team was comfortable trading Bled so the following in the offseason and stuff like that, and he said, you know what, I think we're going to be all right with this guy as our quarterback going forward. That fair you saw enough and it wasn't a huge sample size, right.
Right, Well, I mean, being being realistic about it, we knew after the two thousand and one season, the town was going to be our quarterback. We weren't going to have Drew here as our backup. Okay, I mean that just wasn't I mean that that that realist Stickley was not going to happen.
Ernie just encapsulated about six months of talk radio right right in the thirty second clip. I mean, if there was a no brainer, I know what people look at it like, oh what what gots it? Tom was the quarterback, you just won the Super Bowl. He had to be the quarterback in O two, and therefore you can't have
one hundred million dollar backup looming over his shoulder. And that's why, like for me, the one game for me for Tom and one because I was a big Drew guy, truth be told, I loved the guy and I thought he was a pretty good quarterback, obviously not anywhere near what Tom has been. But the New Orleans game in you know, in Foxborough in the rain was around the time that Drew had come back. It may have been
the week after the Rams game. Drew was getting some starting to get some reps in practice, and there was some you know, bickering about how much he was getting ready and you know, this was the time where a kid might be looking over his shoulder, and he responded with a four touchdown game. He played as well in that game. I think he played in any of him. It wasn't one of those We'll be handed off to Antoine Smith thirty seven times and they won the game
because they won thirteen to ten. Tom lit it up, and that to me, I was like, whoa, this kid's better than I thought.
No question. That was a big, big offensive.
Day for And that was the day that I said, that was the day that I said that Tru's got to go. As much as I loved Thru, I did, right, I mean, it was a no brainer.
Right, I mean it was just not there was no way that, like say, there's no way that trade wasn't gonna happen.
Right, and we broken on Patriots dot.
Ernie. You saw him as part of something with the Giants. He goes to Cleveland, he builds something in Cleveland. But this idea of building a culture and a culture that's now well into its twenty something year and something like that, what's the secret or is there a secret in getting everybody on the same page and checking your ego at the door and doing what's best for the team. Is that the secret to try to longevity.
That it's it's it's just take it one day at a time, get better every day.
But that's so easy to say.
It's so hard to do. It's so hard to do. But you just, you know, we keep hammering it and you get, you know, you get you get some players who have success with it, and then they start to buy in so that when a new guy comes in, the veteran player can come and go put his arm around the new guys. Hey, look, buddy, this is the way it works around here. And some people who come in from outside, uh can take it. And some, you know, some, to be honest with you, looks, I didn't know he
really worked this hard. I'm not sure this is uh, this is free. I mean it's I always say if you're if you're just into winning football games, then New England Place is the place to be. If you've got other things on your on your agenda, it's probably you're probably not gonna like it.
Very much, right And and I don't know if this is fear or not bring up the name or something like that, but Patriots fans were enamored by a guy in the great cult rivalry, Jonas Gray two hundred yards, you know, and look at look at this guy and everything like that, and they just found somebody else the next week or the week after that. It's this is what it takes to sustain the program. And you either jump on board or you don't jump on board. I
don't know how great an example that is. I just think of somebody who flashed, you know, But the program isn't about somebody who flashes. It's about the team.
It's about the team and showing up every day. And football football is a messy game. This is not figure skating. There are no style points. Things don't always work right. But it's just showing up every day, trying to learn from your mistakes, get better every day, help the guy next to you. I mean, it's about what it takes to be really successful in a lot of businesses.
Thinking of the game itself, though we talked a little bit earlier about you know, the seventies and now and even the way the game has changed even more recently ten years ago. What are your thoughts on on the way the game has played today, and do you like it? Nor is it more skill based, you know, maybe some speed or did you kind of like the physicality?
Well, you know, one thing of course we got you know, we played with you know, Tom Brady and every oh it's Tom Brady throwing the ball. But we were always a very physical running team. Okay, even though we were spread out and we could we could throw the ball, we also could hand the ball off and pound it. So I mean, I don't think I think you know, to be able to win today's football, I mean, there are multi more wide receivers on the field, so it's
nickel defense on the field that's more spread out. But there are times when you've got to be able to come off the ball and run it. I mean, if you're if you really want to be good, I mean, and it's you, yeah, you you can go. You you can have a ten win season just you know, throwing the ball. But if you really, if you really want to, you know, end up being you know, playing being one of the final four. It's really hard to do without being able to be physical.
And does that physicality start on the offensive line.
It's absolutely if you have a soft offensive line, you're not going anywhere because soft offensive line is not gonna be a real good pass protecting offensive.
Line, right, So I saved my toughest one for last. So you spanned a lot of eras of Patriots, Football, pat Patriot or Elvis.
Pat Patriot every time.
Sorry, no, you're not alone. We get a lot of it.
I mean because I go back Hey, I mean I do, I go back to I never went to a game of Brave Field. I wasn't Friday Nights of f Park. I mean I thought that was you know, I mean, that was pat Patriot. That that said, that's that's Boston, that's New England. That's for me.
Every time I hear my first game, and I'm going to give Earning a chance to show up because he has no idea what the game is going to be. At seventy six, it was a Monday night game against the Jets. First game.
Yeah yeah, yeah, well, and of course we started putting men in motion. They had no clue, so it was the game was a massacre. And what I fortunately remember was at Shaeffer Stadium because it was right near our offices. The the officers of the law had some.
Had show I learned some stuff that night. Doesn't need your old honey.
Yeah, yeah, So what the cops say. All they could do was hand cuff them to the lead fast and well, let me, I'll show you. I'll show you to take his heads off me. And it was really right by the door that we all came on.
It was an amazing sight. My father, grandfather and uncle took me and they literally made a triangle around me and we're walking out and they're like, just keep going this way, not don't worry about that over there straight ahead. They didn't want me to see any of this. There was literally hundreds of people like handcuffs, chain link fence.
Did Grogan score on a bootleg in that game?
Yeah?
Like forty yards long long touchdown, right right?
Yeah?
Forty one to seven?
Yeah, yeah yeah. Ernie. As a kid, as you said, you went to the Dexter School, you grew up around here. You've experienced the NFL in a couple of different places. But to be able to be with your hometown team and and have the success that you had, you know, Bill, always, as you've talked about, it's the next practice, it's the next game. But now that you are retired, can you look back at it and go, holy smokes, this is unbelievable.
Absolutely sure, I mean I.
And is it fun for you to do that? Do you take a sort of pride.
Out of it?
Oh?
I mean, I mean I've got every you know, every every year, you know, you win the Super Bowl, they do a special issue of Sports Illustrated. Man, I've got all the issues that we won there. I've got them all signed, you know, by every by everybody who's on there. I mean, I've got them all up, you know, all my well, sure, I mean, I know, I know. Even though when you're in it, it's hey, let's get ready for the next practice. Let's run the ball off tackle better?
Sure you shit back there? You know, Hey we had you know, one of the great maybe the the greatest run in the history of the national football That's a big deal.
It is a big deal and and easy for us to say on the outside, but you never say never. But that kind of level of success and sustainability, you don't replicate that. You've seen too much of it. There are too many, too too many good teams, too many smart people, too many good players. Right, it's really hard.
To really look. Winning at once is really hard. We're doing it repeatedly. Is you know it's a it's a phenomenal accomplishment. But again, the biggest thing was when you're doing it, you're just thinking about, hey, the next play, next game. Let's just you know, it's one game. And you know, I know people say, oh, it's coach Stock one game at a time, but it's the key to success in getting people to believe it is the key is the key to success.
But Paul asked you a question about one and is this is this also part of the key Ernie where he said did you have any expectations in one? And you answered, I wanted to see progress? Is that kind of the key for your team, whether you're twelve and four or four and twelve? Can we just make progress?
Right? Can we get Can we when we're going out to practice and training camp? We're a better football team when we come off the field than when we went on it. Now, look, I understand if you're if you're going into if you're going in coaching this year at the Jacksonville Jaguars, you have you are truly just hoping to get better because you know you have to get a little bit better. You know you have a long way to go. Whereas there were you know some of
our teams would pay for you. I knew, Hey, realistically we should be able to compete with everybody in the league. But you're still It's still you go every day trying to get better. That's why you know, I see the big picture you got right behind you. You know number twelve throwing the ball. That's why he you know, he would jump on a receiver for cutting his road off at nine yards instead of twelve yards. Because it's doing
it's all the little things. It's all the details. Every day you have to do it and get it right because when you get down to those critical situations in the championship game where you know you got the whole season's riding now one play, it's the ability to execute the fundamentals just right that makes the difference.
So on that note, and you mentioned twelve throwing the ball. Twelve goes down in the first quarter in two thousand and eight, Okay, you're a team that had were a series away from going nineteen and oh you've got a really good team still coming back. That team can go down the toilet pretty quickly, even though you still had
a pretty good group of guys around you. I'm not saying, you guys are popping champagne after eleven and five and that windy game in Buffalo to end the season, But is there a sense of pride, like, you know what, we didn't go down the toilet. We did kind of keep our head above water, and we salvage something with what we were doing, and maybe we did improve by the end of the year.
You know. I that's I expect us to play that way. Okay, it's not. I mean, it's what you know, It's it's what we do. I mean, going out doing our best every day, trying to be competitive. I mean that's uh, you know, that's nothing to me, nothing special about that, because it's it's the way we approached every every year, every game, every practice, you know, every play.
So maybe does that validate it? Yeah, that's why we do this. That's why we do this.
Yeah, yeah, right, I mean we're going you know, you you know, in the National Football League, you're gonna go out on Sunday, You're gonna have millions of people watching. Uh. I mean, that's that's always in the back of your mind. And we we're gonna have a team playing against us that's gonna be doing everything they can to beat us. I mean that's just you know, the competitive part of the game.
His name is Ernie Adams. Ernie tremendous stuff as usual. Really appreciate you taking the time to join us and uh continued enjoyment in your non football days as.
You enjoy retirement.
Thanks for coming down.
I really appreciate it. Thank you very much. Vent a pleasure. I appreciate it. Thank you for downloading this podcast. Subscribe on Apple, Google Play, and everywhere else you listen.
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