The 2006 AFC Divisional playoff game between the Patriots and Chargers in San Diego was one of the best fan experiences of my life. I recounted the whole story on my original Patriots blog way 10 years ago, and my original plan was to just throw out a link to that but unfortunately that blog has finally gone dark. So now I must re-write and re-tell the story but it’s one that’s well worth it and something that must be preserved in the history of Pats Propaganda.
So buckle up, it’s a fun ride.
2006 was when my Patriots craziness really kicked in. Yes, I had grown up just a few towns over from Foxboro and saw plenty of the Patriots getting their asses handed to them in the 80’s and 90’s. I had the thrills of the ’85 and ’96 Super Bowl runs, but by their first title in 2001 I was living in Los Angeles, watching from afar, and disappointed that I wasn’t living at home when all the success started happening.
One thing about Los Angeles, there are fans of all teams and gathering together with your fan-ily on Sundays was a great way to get a taste of home, especially at a bar like Sonny McClean’s in Santa Monica. The 2005 playoff loss to Denver hit me hard. It suddenly dawned on me that we had this young quarterback and “genius” head coach who still had a long career ahead of them. How many titles could they get? How great could they be?
For whatever reason that loss was what pushed my obsession into overdrive. I started frequenting PatsFans.com’s message board and devouring any and all posts by Mike Reiss, who scratched the major itch I had to understand the game at a higher level. I became a student of the game and a student of being a fan on the internet all at the same time. It would be another year, in December 2007, before I started blogging about the Pats, but in 2006 I was all in. Every Sunday was a major event like it had never been before.
I didn’t realize it until I was sitting in Sonny McCleans for the Pats’ AFC Wild Card game against the Jets that if they won, they’d go to San Diego to face the Chargers, an easy two-to-three hour drive depending on traffic as everything in Souther California depends upon.
The Pats won and I vowed to myself I’d find a way to get to the game.
The next day came an announcement, much to the chagrin of Patriots fans in New England, that the Chargers were releasing a bunch of new tickets only available to Southern California residents. Boom! It was all lining up.
That Tuesday I opened multiple Ticketmaster browsers while at my job working at a production company then based at Warner Bros. Everyone knew and (kinda) respected my fandom in the office. At 10am tickets became available and I started refreshing like a madman. After many attempts, finally I got a pair of tickets. I was ecstatic as I proceeded through the ticketmaster checkout gauntlet. I came to the final page and… CRASH. They were gone. I refreshed. I went back. Nothing. I just about lost my mind.
I tried again and again for tickets but sorry, the bots had gotten them all. I was crushed. As I sat there in misery, furious at Ticketmaster and how a regular fan like me couldn’t even get one measly ticket, something dawned on me. Maybe others had the same problem. It was a half hour later but why not try one last time? Maybe some tickets got kicked back into the system.
I logged in and wouldn’t you know it, a single ticket was available. I quickly confirmed it, carefully progressing through check out with deliberate and gentle clicks, praying to avoid a second crash. I didn’t even look where the seat was. I didn’t care and really, I didn’t want to know until I was sure I had it.
Success. Checkout worked, ticket confirmed. So where was I sitting? The email arrived from Ticketmaster after the longest four minutes of my life. I opened it up and pulled up a seating chart of Qualcomm Stadium. I was sitting…. 11 rows in back of the Patriots’ bench. Holy shit!! Did I run screaming up and down the halls of our office? I did.
Then something else dawned on me. My best friend from elementary school lived in San Diego. I quickly sent him an email letting him know that I got a ticket and would be coming down. The reply came almost immediately. Not only did he have a ticket too, but he lived within walking distance of the stadium. Holy Hoodie, it all seemed like fate.
Needless to say that was the longest four days of my life. I made a mix for the drive down, packed my best Pats swag, including my Bruschi jersey and a football I had recently found on the side of the road with JIMMY written in big black marker on it. I always wondered how the kid who loved that football so much that he scrawled his name on it ended up discarded in a breakdown lane, but it was a perfect pregame throw-it-around football size so I was proud to give it a second life. I think Jimmy would’ve wanted it that way.
I got down to San Diego on Saturday night and yes, my friend Scott lived just up the hill from the stadium. I barely slept at all on his couch that night.
We awoke on gameday and drove down to the stadium to strategically leave a car there with all our tailgate supplies and not have to carry them down. However the walk back up the hill was a little too much. Luckily I had plenty of nervous energy to burn. A couple hours and a few breakfast burritos and mimosas later we donned our Patriots swag and started the walk back down.
A few overconfident Charger fans talked some shit as we travelled back down the hill again. They were right to be confident. They were 14-2 and coming off a record-setting season for LaDainian Tomlinson. But I just kept saying they shouldn’t rule out Brady and Belichick. It would be a good rule of thumb over the next decade for all opponents.
Pregamming with the Jimmy Ball
The pregame tailgate was a blur as they usually are and by the time I walked into the stadium I was in a perfect place. Scott was sitting on another side of the stadium so we said our goodbyes. I plugged in some headphones to drown out any shittalk from the Charger fans and was getting fired up. I thought I had found my section but when I asked an usher for help he said no, I had to go back out and down some stairs. Huh? I was too excited and too drunk to process these complicated directions. I thought maybe he was just messing with me, a Super Patriots fan.
Finally I made my way out and found these stairs which led me under the stadium and down a tunnel. When I emerged I saw what 11 rows in back of the Patriots’ bench really looks like. They were all RIGHT THERE. And the best part, I was surrounded by Patriots fans. I settled in for what would be a crazy game.
It wasn’t Tom Brady‘s best game, and really, it looked like the Patriots were bound to lose for most of it. They just kept hanging around. The game even had its own 28-3 moment encapsulated in one play, when the Chargers intercepted Brady and it looked like the game was going to be over. But Troy Brown stripped the interceptor Marlon McCree and the Patriots had new life. They’d score a touchdown and a two-point conversion on the drive to tie the game with less than five minutes to play.
After the defense forced a three-and-out, Brady would hit Reche Caldwell on a 49-yard pass to set up Stephen Gostkowski‘s field goal that gave the Pats a 24-21 lead. The Chargers would put together a final drive but Nate Kaeding would miss the 54-yard field goal that would’ve tied it. Game over. Pats win 24-21. Everyone do the lights out dance.
You can imagine what it was like to be surrounded by Patriots fans in a hostile stadium and winning a playoff game like this. To this day it’s the last time Brady and Belichick won a true road game in the playoffs. The only other two were both in Pittsburgh in the AFC Championship games of 2001 and 2004. So this game was special for many reasons, and it was an early glimpse of their ability to come back in playoff games after they’ve been playing pretty bad all game.
Obviously this game did nothing to wane my Patriots obsession. If anything it only helped set the stage for this blog and all the Patriots insanity that’s happened to me over the last decade. It will be a game memory that will likely never be topped.
