I guess there's no love lost between Amendola and Belichick...
"When you see the 'Patriot Way' in the dictionary, it’s got Tom Brady’s picture next to it. None of those coaches caught any passes...Tom Brady is the 'Patriot Way.'
That’s why he’s in the Super Bowl & the Patriots aren’t." - Danny Amendola.
1/2
It was certainly 'dickish' and if he had been around here in the earlier years of the dynasty he'd have known what "Patriots Way" really means.
Kevin Faulk tells what it means...or tries to.
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Listen: If there’s one thing I know after having played for the Patriots for 13 years, it’s that you don’t wanna be late to a Bill Belichick meeting.
Like, ever.
So when I woke up one morning in December 2000 and realized that there was a team meeting starting in 20 minutes, I immediately thought,
Oh, shit….
Then I threw the sheets off, looked out the window and saw the first snowfall of the season.
OH, SHIT!
I’m a Louisiana boy, born and bred. This was only my second season in New England, so this was only my second year of experiencing snow. And it wasn’t the kind that we used to occasionally get down South where it would hit the ground and immediately melt.
This was Northeastern snow — the kind that sticks.
I lived approximately 15 minutes from the Patriots facility — I knew because I had timed the drive just in case I ever found myself in a situation like this. But the snow was a wild card. In those conditions, I didn’t know how long it was going to take me to get to the facility.
I just knew that I was probably gonna be late.
I had seen guys get fined for being late to meetings before, but this wasn’t just any meeting. This was a Saturday morning meeting, the day before a game. Being late would be inexcusable. So there was no hesitation. No brushing my teeth or taking a shower. I mean, it was like 20° outside and I didn’t even put on winter clothes. I just grabbed the first jacket I saw, threw on some slippers and jumped into my car in the sweats I had slept in, and took off.
The drive was hilarious. I was like a police officer, driving with my hazard lights flashing and weaving in and out of traffic in the ice and snow.
Now, if you’ve ever driven in or around Boston, you know that Bostonians — like most people — don’t take too kindly to being cut off. So I had people honking their horns at me and shaking their you-know-which fingers at me, and I was like, “I’m sorry! I’m late for a Bill Belichick meeting!”
If they had only known my situation….
So I finally arrived at the facility, pulled into the parking lot and threw the car into park. I don’t even think I locked the doors. I just got out and hit the ground running, full sprint, through the snow, in slippers.
As I approached the building, I saw Coach Belichick walking into the meeting room, so I went around to check the back door. Thankfully, it was open, and I slid in the back way and into an open seat. By the time coach turned to address the team, I was sitting down, sweating, and pretending like nothing had happened.
And then he looked directly at me. He didn’t say a word. He just gave me this you’re-lucky-you-made-it kind of look.
He knew.
Coach always knows.
I’ve heard people talk about the Patriot Way. I don’t know where that phrase originated, but I think somebody in the media said it first, and it just kind of stuck. We actually used to laugh about it sometimes in the locker room. Like,
The Patriot Way … what does that even mean?
And it’s like people are always trying to define it in different ways.
Some people say it’s the way Coach Belichick runs the team, preaching accountability and placing a strong emphasis on doing your job. Some say it’s our style of play, with Tom Brady as our quarterback. But truthfully, it’s neither.
The Patriot Way ain’t about nothing but winning, man.
That’s it.
See, Coach Belichick is the kind of guy who doesn’t care what you do on your own time. He wants you to know football and he wants you to come to work every day and do your job to the best of your ability. Anything else, he doesn’t really care.
For instance….
One day in 2006, we all walked into the locker room after practice, and there were three tires — like, car tires — stacked up in front of Matt Cassel’s locker. We were all looking at each other like,
What the hell is this?
The backstory is that there was a pretty crazy prank war going on that year. Guys were going back and forth and doing God knows what to one-up each other, and Tom Brady and Matt Cassel were at the center of it.
So come to find out, that day Tom Brady had hired somebody to take the tires off of Cassel’s car, put three of them in front of his locker and then hide the fourth somewhere around the facility.
I mean, picture this: Cassel comes in from practice, and he’s sitting in front of his locker on top of his own car tires, unwrapping the tape from his ankles. Meanwhile, his car is out in the parking lot on cinderblocks. And guys are just walking by, laughing.
I don’t know how or where he found the fourth tire, but I’m pretty sure he found it. And later on that day, we were watching film, and Cassel was like, “Man, that was messed up. But I can’t really do anything about it.”
Now, you always have to know your place in the locker room, and Cassel knew that he couldn’t go too hard to get Tom back. I mean, Cassel was the backup, and Tom was … well, Tom.
So the offensive linemen stepped in to pick up the slack.
We had a bunch of jokesters on our O-line, and Matt Light was the biggest one. So a couple of days later, Matt and some other linemen went out to the parking lot and opened the sunroof of Tom’s car. I think it was a Lexus 460 or something like that. I don’t even know how they got
into Tom’s car, but they did — and they dumped huge bags of packing peanuts — you know, those little Styrofoam bits used for shipping — through the sunroof until it was overflowing. Every nook and cranny of Tom’s car was filled with Styrofoam peanuts.