Patriots Have Spurrier to Thank

You watch the New England Patriots equal the NFL record with their 18th consecutive victory Sunday, joining the likes of the John Elway Broncos, the Joe Montana 49ers, the Larry Csonka Dolphins and the George Halas Bears, and immediately your thoughts flash back to the Steve Spurrier Redskins.

If not for Spurrier, the last coach to beat the Patriots, New England would be in the record book alone.

If not for Spurrier, whose Washington team defeated New England, 20-17, on Sept, 28, 2003, the Patriot win streak could be 21 and counting.

This is worth mentioning because:

a) Contrary to popular opinion, Spurrier’s two-year tenure with the Redskins wasn’t a total failure.

b) The Patriots haven’t lost in 53 weeks, or long enough for fans to actually begin indulging in Spurrier nostalgia.

c) Considering what’s going on now with the Redskins, four games and three defeats into the Second Coming of Joe Gibbs, Spurrier doesn’t look so bad.

Spurrier’s Redskins were 3-1 and atop the NFC East after their Week 4 defeat of the Patriots in 2003. Read on, because it is all true: it was Spurrier over Bill Belichick, Patrick Ramsey over Tom Brady, Washington opening up a 20-3 lead before the Patriots scrambled back to make their losing margin look respectable.

Contrast that to Gibbs’ Redskins after Sunday’s 17-13 loss to Cleveland. These Redskins have lost three in a row despite the much ballyhooed off-season additions of Clinton Portis, who netted 58 rushing yards and lost a fumble against Cleveland, and Mark Brunell, who converted one of 11 third-down situations against Cleveland, and Gibbs, whose second stint with the Redskins is starting to resemble Chuck Knox’s second stint with the Rams.

(Beware, Redskin fans: Two more years of this and you know what happens? The team pulls up stakes and moves to Missouri, where it will win the Super Bowl within five seasons.)

That loss to Spurrier was a kick in the backside that spurred the Patriots’ record run. They looked at the tapes and said to themselves, how’d that happen, why’d that happen, let’s not let that happen again, OK?

And they haven’t lost since.

Inspiration comes from the strangest sources. Houston, for instance, used the length of David Carr’s hair to pump the adrenaline for a 30-17 victory over the Oakland Raiders. The Texans, barely a year old when New England started its winning streak, had never had a winning streak -- not one measly 2-0 hiccup -- in their first 35 games of existence. It was always win one, lose the next one. Or, more often, win one, lose the next three.

It was getting so frustrating in Houston, Carr, the team’s quarterback, actually put his head on the line. Carr promised he would not get his hair cut until the Texans won consecutive games. It was sort of a playoff beard in reverse. Considering that Houston plays in the same division as Indianapolis, Tennessee and Jacksonville, there was a very good chance of Carr looking like Johnny Damon, or Howard Hughes, before the Texans went on a 2-0 run.

“We Need A Win, Carr Needs A Haircut” read one sign inside Reliant Stadium. Carr played a part, but not as big as the game’s other quarterback, Kerry Collins, who threw three interceptions and gifted Houston a touchdown by losing a fumble that Texan linebacker Jamie Sharper turned into a touchdown.

At last, the Texans have their winning streak. Their first ever. Now, consecutive victories over Kansas City (0-3, at least until tonight’s defeat against Baltimore) and Oakland might not sound like much, but let’s not split hairs.

All great winning streaks have to start somewhere. New England’s began on Oct. 5, 2003, a 38-30 triumph over Tennessee, and equaled the league record on Oct. 3, 2004, a 31-17 decision over Buffalo that was tougher work than the final score suggested. The score was tied at 17-17 in the fourth quarter before Brady threw to tight end Daniel Graham for a two-yard scoring pass, followed by Richard Seymour’s lengthy, methodical, 68-yard run with a Drew Bledsoe fumble that served as the clincher -- and a pretty fair microcosm of the Patriots’ winning streak.

If the NFL is a religion, New England winning on Sundays is the sermon. It isn’t always scintillating. It doesn’t always keep you on the edge of your seat. But every weekend, it gets done.

New England is 3-0 this season, the victories coming against Indianapolis and two teams that finished last or tied for last in 2003, Arizona and Buffalo. All three were struggles. But week in and week out, the Patriots know what it takes to get the result -- the same thing they said about the 1972 Miami Dolphins, who went 17-0 but won only six games by more than two touchdowns.

The ‘72-’73 Dolphins are one of five teams tied with New England at 18-0. Miami won its first game of the 1973 season before losing the next week to Oakland.

Others sharing the record are the ‘97-’98 Denver Broncos, riding the end of Elway’s career; the ‘89-’90 San Francisco 49ers, closing out their run as “Team of the Eighties”; and the ‘41-’42 and ‘33-’34 Chicago Bears, both coached by Halas.

The Patriots will try to break the record this week, fittingly enough, against Miami, new home of the No Name Offense. Csonka, Nick Buoniconti and all the old vets of ‘72-’73 will be pulling for an upset, but these current Dolphins, left up the creek by Ricky Williams without a paddle (Jay Fiedler and A.J. Feely were put in charge of paddles), don’t figure to offer much resistance.

After a woeful 17-9 defeat to the New York Jets, the ’04 Dolphins are 0-4, the first time the Dolphins have started 0-4 since they started. In Miami’s expansion season of 1966, the Dolphins opened 0-5 en route to 3-11. Their top quarterbacks were named Dick Wood and George Wilson.

Wood and Wilson. Fiedler and Feely. Thirty-eight years in the making, the Dolphins have come full circle.