A Tale to Tell

BALTIMORE If the New England Patriots put together the perfect regular season, if they can do what no NFL team has done and finish 16-0, they'll undoubtedly tell the story of the one they stole from the Baltimore Ravens. They'll smile at the memory of surviving on a cold, blustery, contentious night when the outcome was in doubt, right down to the final desperate heave and incredibly unlikely catch-and-struggle 72 inches or so from the goal line.

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Champs love telling and retelling the tales of the times they were bloody and woozy and persevered to prevail and that's what the Patriots did Monday night. Tom Brady delivered as he almost always does, on fourth down no less with his options shut down. The Patriots' defense prevailed on that last Hail Mary pass from Baltimore's Kyle Boller through the snowflakes and toward the end zone. And the Patriots remained undefeated through a dozen games by being great, resolute and a little bit lucky.

When it was over, 27-24 in New England's favor, the Ravens felt they'd been burned by the referees, the Patriots said nice things about the Ravens, then were on their merry way, seemingly unimpressed with themselves or what they've done so far. "It's the third time in four weeks we've come from behind in the fourth quarter," Coach Bill Belichick said, managing to find something complimentary to say about his team, the best team in the NFL since the 1985 Chicago Bears. After ticking off a laundry list of things he thought his team did less than well, the coach added, "I'm proud of the way we played when it was on the line . . . when we had to have some plays made."

Three plays stand out: Brady being stopped cold by the Ravens on fourth and one with less than two minutes left, but being bailed out by a timeout called by the Baltimore coaches. "I heard the whistle blow," Brady said. The room erupted in laughter, but you didn't get the sense Brady was necessarily joking. "I'd have gotten the first down" if the whistle hadn't blown, he said. "I stopped."

Thing is, how do you call the Golden Boy a liar? A superhero probably has super hearing, right? Granted a second chance, the Ravens smashed fullback Heath Evans for a one-yard loss, which also would have ended the game . . . except this time guard Russ Hochstein committed an obvious false-start penalty, wiping out the play and giving Brady a third chance, at fourth and six.

Of course, he ran for 12 yards and the first down to keep alive the drive that would win the game, but only after another fourth-down conversion, this one on a holding penalty against the Ravens that left them bitter.

Baltimore's Derrick Mason, who played fabulously, called it a "phantom call," and said the Ravens were "playing against more than just the best team in the NFL."

Baltimore cornerback Samari Rolle, who also played splendidly in holding down the Patriots' receivers as no team had all season, was critical of the officials as well. Rolle said the head linesman, Phil McKinnely (whom he identified by his number, 110), "called me a boy. . . . I've got a wife and three kids; don't call me a boy. He did it several times." Rolle said he objected to the way McKinnely was calling penalties against the Ravens and said it was clear the linesman had never played the game. And his response, Rolle said, was, " 'Shut up, boy' and 'Play, boy.' "

The Ravens did most everything right. Seconds from the upset of the decade in pro football, it appeared they'd found the antidote to perfection, a straight-forward, no-nonsense, time-tested formula from an era of football said to be irrelevant now. The Ravens ran the ball as if paying homage to the 1950s and hit the Patriots in the mouth as if they wanted to make it a back-alley brawl. Also, it didn't hurt that Ray Lewis, Ed Reed and Willis McGahee, all University of Miami alums, dedicated themselves not only to winning, but to playing with the spirit of slain Miami alumnus Sean Taylor.

And it nearly worked.

The Patriots were down for at least a standing-eight count. Randy Moss went as far as to say, "I'm not going to lie. I think a little bit of anxiety was setting in."

To that point, the Patriots had dropped at least five passes, though some of the tosses must have fluttered in the wind, which gusted to 39 mph and was steadily 22 mph or greater. Tight end Benjamin Watson, specifically, dropped a touchdown pass on the opening drive that forced the Patriots to settle for a field goal that suggested it might be a different kind of night.

Emboldened, the Ravens attacked Brady, attacked his receivers, laid the wood to anybody holding the ball in a New England uniform. Rolle said he was tired of watching opponents give in to the Patriots, put their safeties 20 yards deep and have their corners playing way off Moss and Wes Welker and Donte' Stallworth.

The Ravens had a plan: hit somebody in the mouth. Hell, hit everybody in the mouth. Rex Ryan, the defensive coordinator, told his unit earlier in the week that he couldn't speak for what the offense would do, but the defense would be in full rage, and it was. They held the Golden Boy to only 18 completions in 38 attempts, which is what you'd expect from, oh, Rex Grossman but not Tom Brady. It's doubtful another team left on New England's schedule can drive Brady nuts the way Lewis and Reed and the Ravens did.

What helped Baltimore greatly was that Boller played about the best he ever has in a game of consequence -- outplayed Brady in fact, throwing just that one costly interception, and McGahee rushed 30 times for 138 yards and a touchdown.

But ultimately, as Randy Moss said: "By him just being Tom Brady the confidence factor came in. With him making the right read, the right adjustments, giving us the right signals and things like that, with a quarterback like Tom Brady you've got to have confidence that things will work out for the best and they did."