Lewis unhappy after his big night
Patriots RB scored 3 TDS, fumbled twice in his best ‘worst game ever’
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — It’s funny how different kinds of athletes celebrate success. In baseball, when a team advances to the league championship series, the players turn the locker room into a nightclub — music and dancing in a raucous blizzard of alcohol. It’s all a bit much but no more peculiar, perhaps, than the scene at Gillette Stadium late Saturday night.
The New England Patriots had just done something no NFL team had ever done: secure a berth in the conference championship game for the sixth year in a row. Stopping there is unfulfilling, as the Patriots know; they failed to reach the Super Bowl in three of those previous five seasons. Still, no team, until now, has had six consecutive shots to get there. It’s a big deal.
Of course, coach Bill Belichick was not about to reflect on it after a 34-16 victory against the Houston Texans. He expected more, and lamented some chances the Patriots wasted.
“Like a lot of things tonight, if we don’t improve in those situations the next time we play, then it’ll probably be the last time we play,” he said. “We’ve got to take advantage of our opportunities. We’ve got to coach and execute better.”
You expect such gloom from Belichick; the sculptors in Canton, you’d imagine, will one day chisel a frown on his bust for the sake of accuracy. More surprising was the summary from running back Dion Lewis, who had just scored three touchdowns.
“I feel like this was my worst game ever, actually,” he said. “The fumbles, just putting my team in a bad position. I don’t think this was my best game.”
Yes, Lewis fumbled twice. The first, on a kickoff return with 11 minutes 29 seconds left in the second quarter, quickly turned into a touchdown for Houston. That cut the Patriots’ lead to 14-13, and silenced a crowd that had reason to expect a blowout.
By the time of Lewis’ second fumble, it had arrived. The Patriots recovered that one, late in the fourth quarter, and then kicked a field goal for the final margin of victory. They entered the game as 16-point favorites, the highest for a playoff game in nearly two decades — and they covered the spread.
Lewis had been the star. He had a receiving touchdown, a rushing touchdown and a kick-return touchdown, a hat trick never before achieved in the NFL postseason.
So why dwell on bad after a night with so much good?
“That’s just how I am,” said Lewis, a former Pitt running back. “Never worry about the good stuff. I’m supposed to do stuff like that and my teammates trust me to do stuff like that. I’m worried about ways to get better to keep helping New England’s Dion Lewis celebrates after scoring his third touchdown of the night Saturday against Houston. my team win for next week.”
Lewis has done nothing but help his team win in New England. That’s not an overstatement: he has played 15 games the past two seasons and the Patriots are 15-0. Belichick, Tom Brady and a lot of others deserve more credit, and it’s just a quirk of the stat sheet. But facts are facts.
“I’m on a great team, I’ve got great teammates, a great coach and a great quarterback,” Lewis said, smiling. “It ain’t me, believe that.”
The Patriots have been so good for so long that it’s easy to grow weary of seeing them win all the time. New England fans really do have it best and soon they might stage yet another parade.
But besides Brady, the players who make it happen, who bring Belichick’s brilliance to life, come and go. For some of them, this is all special and new. Lewis had never appeared in a playoff game before Saturday.
He deserved to bask in the spotlight, but demurred. The Patriots did not grant him a stage in the interview room. He spoke at his locker like a chastened newcomer; no time to think much about his journey.
Lewis’ path to the Patriots, and his singular playoff achievement, was arduous. A fifth-round draft pick by the Eagles in 2011, Lewis played two seasons for Philadelphia as a kick returner and backup running back. In 2013, he was traded to Cleveland, hurt his leg and spent the year on injured reserve. The next year, he was cut by the Browns and the Indianapolis Colts.
Lewis came to the Patriots in February 2015 but tore his anterior cruciate ligament that November. He missed more than a year before returning, and though Saturday’s touchdowns were his first of the season, he averaged 4.4 yards per carry.
The Patriots have earned another chance at another Super Bowl and if they get there, Lewis will know how to act. In 15 games as a Patriot, he has learned how things work: win, but don’t get too excited about it. Not yet, anyway.