DOUBTS ERASED? : Patriots Try to Prove Last Year’s Victory in Miami Wasn’t a Fluke

It’s the haunted house where the rich lady lives at the end of the road.

You know what evil lurks inside, but you’re attracted there anyway. And time after time, there’s a trick instead of a treat.

The New England Patriots enter the haunted house again Monday night. It’s the end of another regular season with another big prize at stake. They will leave with the division championship, or, perhaps, empty-handed and out of the playoffs.

“We knew it was going to come down to Miami,” New England center Pete Brock said.

There’s good reason for apprehension.

On Jan. 8, 1983, the New England Patriots went to the Orange Bowl hoping to win a playoff game. Their season ended with a 28-13 loss to the Miami Dolphins. It was their 15th consecutive setback there.

Last Dec. 16, in their next to last game of the regular season, the Patriots went to the Orange Bowl hoping to clinch the AFC East title. The 30-27 loss was their 18th in a row there.

Glenn Blackwood intercepted Tony Eason’s pass at the Miami 11-yard line with 1:06 left as New England was driving toward a winning touchdown.

Then, a month later, something strange happened. The Patriots won.

For the first time since President Lyndon Johnson was dealing with the Vietnam War, New England defeated the Dolphins in the Orange Bowl. On the sidelines, Patriot players yanked the innards from stuffed toy fish and stomped on the remains.

The long drought ended on a rainy afternoon in the AFC championship game. It was a one-sided, 31-14 conquest. The jinx and the 18-game losing streak were over.

Patriots’ linebacker Don Blackmon said almost winning the Dec. 16 game last year made winning the AFC title game a little easier.

“After we really found out that we were capable of winning that game, on the way back down there for the championship game I think our attitudes were even much more positive,” he said. “It helped us even though we lost.”

Revenge has been a big part of the rivalry.

On Dec. 12, 1982, a snowplow driver cleared a spot for John Smith to kick a fourth-quarter field goal that gave the Patriots a 3-0 victory in Foxboro, Mass. Miami Coach Don Shula seethed. A month later, his team knocked New England out of the playoffs.

Last season, the Patriots rallied for a 17-13 triumph in Foxboro. Then Miami won seven straight games, including its three-point victory over New England.

This season, the Patriots crushed Miami, 34-7, in Foxboro. The Dolphins are 7-3 since then.

“Last year they beat us for the division title down there on Monday night,” free safety Fred Marion said. “This year we just hope to go down there and return the favor.”

The Patriots, 10-5, can clinch a wild-card playoff berth before then if two of three teams -- Cincinnati, Kansas City and Seattle -- lose during the weekend. If not, they must beat Miami to make the playoffs.

New England isn’t the only team that has struggled in the Orange Bowl. In the past five regular seasons, the Dolphins were 32-3-1 there. Loud fans often are credited with intimidating opponents and preventing them from hearing signals.

The Dolphins, however, are only 4-3 at home this year.

“We were playing great Dolphin teams” in past years, offensive guard Ron Wooten said. “That makes a difference. Now we’re up to their level.”

But the Patriots needed something tangible to overcome the psychological damage done by those years of failure, cornerback Raymond Clayborn said.

“The game last year for the championship showed us that we are capable of winning down there,” he said.

“I’m sure if we had lost that game, right now there’d be a lot more doubts in the fans’ minds and probably in our minds, too, than there are now,” wide receiver Irving Fryar said.

Before that victory, Clayborn said, the string of losses that began in 1967 “was always in the back of everyone’s minds.

“I think it did (hurt our performce). Of course it did,” he said. “When it got close, down to crunch time in the end, it seemed like they always prevailed and I think in the back of our minds we always kind of figured they would.”

Until last season, New England’s only Orange Bowl victory was in 1966, the Dolphins’ first season. The Patriots led 20-0 and held on for a 20-14 victory.