A Sudden Flash of Patriotism

By Tom Callahan

While emotions in Chicago have been gathering force all season, the elation in Boston and environs qualifies as a flash fever. Only a little more than a month ago, goodness had been confirmed, but greatness was still unsuspected by even the most exuberant of the Patriots' worn and wistful constituency. As recently as last year, this was a fifth-place team behind the Boston Celtics, Red Sox, Bruins and Fluties. At least a modern Super Bowl record must have collapsed when, in contrast to the Chicago lottery, the Patriots were able to accommodate every season-ticket holder (count them, 7,500) with two ducats apiece for the big game. Twelve hundred and fifty people demurred.

Like a storybook character, the humblest wild-card team followed the thorniest of al1 the play-off routes, a treacherous path that wound through New Jersey (the Jets) and Los Angeles (the Raiders) before coming out at Miami's impregnable Orange Bowl. Since 1966, the Pats had opposed the Dolphins there 18 times and won exactly never. Coach Don Shula's division champions split two games with New England this season, home and away, but the third try turned out to be charming (and emphatic, 31-14). "I feel like Alice in Wonderland was a true story, like I'm inside a wonderful fantasy," said American Football League Pioneer Billy Sullivan, who is entangled in a legal quarrel with minority stockholders and has had to tag his precious team for sale.

The Patriots have not ascended to a final championship game since the pre-merger season of 1963, when they lost to San Diego, 51-10. That was the year Chicago last claimed the National Football League championship. Though a lopsided score is conceivable again, the Bears would be wise not to dismiss Patriot Tackle Brian Holloway's contention, "We have some magic." No one could mistake its source: Coach Raymond Berry, 52. Capping his first full season on the job, the legendary Baltimore Colt pass catcher was hoisted jubilantly aboard his players' shoulders and given an extended ride about the stadium such as no pro and few college coaches or even matadors have ever enjoyed. "They did carry me off the field, didn't they?" Berry said later in the self-effacing manner he brought to the National Football League 31 years ago from Paris, Texas. "I was floating already anyway."

Back when Berry was the favorite receiver of Johnny Unitas and just about everyone else, his attention to minute detail was as much a part of his lore as the one leg shorter than the other or the feeble vision and sensitivity to light that sometimes required him to wear the only football helmet ever equipped with sunglasses. On the road, Berry actually carried his own bathroom scale to be sure of a consistent reading. If he played best at 182 lbs., he did not intend to be 181 or 183. Unitas still marvels at the diving catches Berry insisted on rehearsing without much concern for the skin on his elbows and knees. When no passer was handy, Berry's habit was to run phantom patterns over and over, pausing now and then to consult the file of index cards he kept with him on the sidelines in a cigar box.

At first the Patriots thought his fumble-recovery drill a trifle too eccentric. How many ways can there be to fall on a football? And when does anyone ever have time to think of them? Hiding one ball under stacks of tackling dummies (the princess and the pea), Berry would loose two players at a time to roll around in the mattresses until one of them came up with it. If this seems a hilarious way to practice for a football game, consider the fact that the Patriots have recovered opponents' fumbles a bountiful 33 times this season, nine in the three playoff games and four against the Dolphins. They also practice causing them.

When New England lost three of the season's first five games, Berry somehow was able to tell the players that they were "right on schedule" without making it sound like an insult. None of them, not even the exquisite 13-year guard John Hannah, had ever before heard a coach say that he enjoyed watching them play. The season's first loss was to the Bears in Chicago, 20-7, when the Patriots' offense alighted no longer in Bear territory than it took Runner Craig James to complete a 90-yd. touchdown play. "We were still looking for an offensive identity then," says James, 25, who is seldom identified anymore as Eric Dickerson's running partner at Southern Methodist University. In the same way, economical Passer Tony Eason is losing his original handle as one of five quarterbacks drafted three years ago ahead of Dan Marino. Bulwarked by Linebackers Andre Tippett and Don Blackmon, the defense has never had to introduce itself.

Off the field, the Patriots' postseason has not been peaceful. In Los Angeles, General Manager Pat Sullivan, 33, Billy's boy, watched the game from the sidelines while bullyragging Raider Defensive End Howie Long. Next, curiouser and curiouser, Sullivan confronted Long in the milling aftermath. Linebacker Matt Millen dusted him off with a helmet, and Sullivan was restricted to the stands at Miami. In a sadder episode a couple of days later, young Wide Receiver Irving Fryar, 23, the leading punt returner in the N.F.L., showed up with a severed tendon in the little finger of his right hand. At first he described it as a kitchen accident, but Fryar's pregnant wife followed him in bruises to the emergency room, and the team has acknowledged a domestic fight.

On the ground that the media attention might distract the team, the front office considered leaving Fryar home regardless of his physical availability. But once the doctor determined Fryar was able, and would not be risking further damage, the coach stepped in and said emphatically he's going. The Patriots are finally a team, and Berry still wants to keep the weight exact and intact. After the Miami upset, John Hannah could only say, "It's a miracle." Sure, like an unplanned-for catch on a skinned knee. --By Tom Callahan