Patriots’ Coach Made Some Key Changes, but the Quarterback Didn’t

So much for magic, which is what the New England Patriots thought they had, and what it would have taken for them to beat the Chicago Bears Sunday. Their playing roster wasn’t enough. They proved that twice this season.

The roster at least finished the day intact, with Coach Raymond Berry still at its helm. A rumor swept the Superdome press box Sunday, while his troops were being tattooed, 46-10, that Berry was about to resign.

Berry said after the game this wasn’t so.

For some, this raised another question: If not, why not?

“If you’re around long enough,” Berry said, “every once in a while, you’re going to get your rear end handed to you. That’s what happened today.”

And the reports that he was leaving?

“That’s not accurate. . . . I don’t know how that got started. Guess it made a good story.

“Whoever started that story must have been drunk last night. I go day to day. I have no long-range plans.”

The man who started the story was the Boston Globe’s Will McDonough, a respected reporter. McDonough reported in Sunday’s paper that Berry had called a team meeting for Sunday night, adding that there had been speculation that Berry might retire. He did not report that Berry was retiring.

If the team meeting went as scheduled, it was the only thing Berry planned that did Sunday. He went away from his team’s strength, its running attack--”You got to dance with what brung ya,” in the words of Darrell Royal--and he gave his starting quarterback a quick hook.

Neither worked, although critics would have lined up for miles if Berry had gone the other way: sending his Neanderthal playoff running game into the Bears’ claws, sticking longer with Tony Eason.

The Patriots, who had thrown 42 passes in three playoff games, started Sunday’s game with six in a row. They resulted in five incompletions (including drops on the first two, by Lin Dawson and Stanley Morgan) and a sack.

Guard Ron Wooten: “They got to our quarterback a couple of times. That gets you back on your heels. Sometimes it’s tough to stand in there. It kinda snowballs. When they know you’re going to throw the ball, it’s like trying to hold back the tide with a broom.

“When they bring seven people, you want to get the ball quickly to your wide receivers against one-on-one coverage. There aren’t a lot of defensive backs in football who can cover our wide receivers.

‘But the only team that did that to them was Miami, and that’s because (Dan) Marino has the quickest release in football. Their receivers are used to that. They throw the ball.

“Our receivers were supposed to recognize it and change their routes, run shorter routes so the quarterback could get the ball to them. We had some opportunities the first few times, but there were dropped passes, breakdowns in protection. That’s why we didn’t go away from it. We felt like it was there.

“The first running play we try (on which Craig James fumbled the ball away) was a toss. The toss has been good to us this year. They went into a defense they’re not in a lot--a ’40 stack,’ which has three linebackers inside. We had a specific play designed to attack that defense. We didn’t want to run against it, we had a specific pass pattern for it. And we just didn’t get it called. Not that I’m blaming anybody. That was just an example of the offense not executing.

“That was the first running play and we were eager to run the ball. You start saying, ‘What’s going on here? We can’t pass. We can’t run.’ ”

They couldn’t hide, either. Of course, “we” don’t call audibles (to change the play at the line of scrimmage). The quarterback, in this case, Tony Eason, was supposed to.

Since another Patriot lineman, tackle Brian Holloway, complained at length about the same non-audible, it might be suspected that the Patriot linemen weren’t overly enchanted with the quality of their leadership.

Eason: “It was pretty tough to call an automatic (an audible). We were going on the first sound. Everybody jumps, the first sound you make.”

Eason had a rap earlier this season of not caring to stand in against the rush. The Bears’ Mike Singletary said Sunday he saw “confusion in his eyes . . . like ‘Man, I hope we’re not heading for one of these.’ ”

Whatever it was, Eason’s virus, or the look in his eyes, or the results--he was 0 for 6 with 3 sacks; the Patriots had run 13 plays and had gained yardage on one--Berry yanked his starting quarterback with 5:08 left in the first half.

Steve Grogan was sacked four more times, and threw two interceptions. He also completed 17 of 30 passes and hit Irving Fryar for a touchdown, the only one the Bears allowed in postseason. That makes Grogan the quarterback on their playoff all-opponent team.

Of course, the score was 44-3 before the Patriots scored their touchdown. Who knows how long the Bears could have kept them out of the end zone if they had really cared?

Afterward, Patriot cornerback Ray Clayborn said the New England offense “stunk.”

And Wooten agreed with him.

“This diminishes today but not the season,” Holloway said. “This season was magic. It’ll live on forever in Boston. The city will never be the same. The Patriots will never be the same. We know how to get here now.”

“We spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on air travel,” owner Billy Sullivan was saying. “I said, ‘Yo, Patrick (Sullivan, his son, the general manager), we don’t have to spend that.’

“We were on a magic-carpet ride. We dipped down in New York and won our playoff game. We immediately went to Los Angeles and did the same thing. Then Miami.”

The Bears shot their little carpet to pieces. They didn’t come here to cause any trouble. They just came to burst the Patriots’ bubble.