FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Legends aren’t made by winning your first playoff game, even if you win it with a comeback for the ages. Legends are made when you stare down Bill Belichick and Tom Brady at their place, and then you go beat Peyton Manning at his place if he’s still standing and then you go win the first New York-New Jersey Super Bowl.
Legends are made when you show up every bit the weather-proof, pressure-proof quarterback as Brady in the intermittent rain and wind in Brady’s hostile house.
Andrew Luck has emphatically reminded a hyperventilating city and a grateful franchise that, yes, there will be Life After Peyton Manning, and it shall be a long and prosperous life, filled with magic moments.
Except on Saturday night, it was LeGarrette Blount who wouldn’t let Andrew Luck get to his first AFC Championship Game.
It was a rampaging 250-pound horse named LeGarrette Blount who sent Luck and the Colts home.
It was LeGarrette Blount, a brute with speed, picked off the scrap heap by Belichick in a trade with the Buccaneers for a seventh-round draft choice and running back Jeff Demps, who rumbled inside a mashing knockout block on the right side by Logan Mankins and rambled 73 yards to paydirt with his franchise-record fourth playoff touchdown of the night, and off to another AFC Championship went to Brady and Belichick and the Patriots, 43-22 winners.
Call it Blount Force Trauma.
It gave the Patriots a 36-22 lead early in the fourth quarter and then Luck, who had made Gillette Stadium soooo nervous with his deep ball, threw his third interception, to Jamie Collins, and it was over.
“I didn’t look at the big screen until I got free,” Blount said. “I looked at it to see if anybody was close to catching me. … I was just trying to get there as fast as I could.”
It meant that Blount (166 rushing yards) has six TDs in his last two games after bludgeoning the Bills for 189 yards and two TDs.
“Those guys in front of me, they don’t get tired, I ain’t going to get tired,” Blount said.
It meant that Belichick has resurrected a career in the same way he resurrected another power back named Corey Dillon way back when. Not to mention getting the most out of Randy Moss and Blount’s Buccaneers pal Aqib Talib.
Brady didn’t throw a single TD pass, not a one, on a night when playcaller Josh McDaniels unleashed six rushing touchdowns.
“We feel like we’re the most physical team no matter who we play,” Blount said.
Everything changed for Blount when he broke a long-standing habit and began lowering his pad level.
“I changed it because I had to — Bill told me to,” Blount said.
Actually, everything changed for Blount the day Greg Schiano informed him he was traded, and he met Belichick for the first time as a Patriot.
“He just told me, ‘Get ready to work,’ ” Blount said. “ ‘We’re going to come out here, we’re going to practice hard, and we’re all about winning games.’ ”
It was music to Blount’s ears. He never had played in the playoffs.
“Yeah,” he said, and smiled, “Because that’s all I’m about, too.”
It has been a long and winding road to get back to the AFC Championship Game for Brady, from the time Wes Welker flew away into Peyton Manning’s arms, to Aaron Hernandez being thrown into jail to await a murder trial, to a cadre of inexperienced receivers who sometimes drove him mad, to Rob Gronkowski neither starting nor ending the season healthy.
Brady is back anyway.
LeGarrette Blount carried him back.
On his back.
When Luck (two TDs, four interceptions) got the game to within 29-22 on a 35-yard TD toss to LaVon Brazill, the Luck legend seemed to be in the making.
Luck will be chasing a Super Bowl for a long time. A lot longer than Brady, a lot longer than Manning. It is why Brady and Belichick needed to get him now, before he’s all grown
Belichick and Brady got him all right.
In the end, Brady had LeGarrette Blount, and Luck did not. One quarterback 60 minutes from another Super Bowl. The other one out of Luck.
“We’re chasing something big,” Blount said.
So now, will it be the Chargers or the Broncos?