Tedy Bruschi's favorite big play

There isn't one moment, Patriots linebacker Tedy Bruschi said, that can sum up his 13-year career. There are too many. Some came on the biggest stage in the World. Some have gone completely unnoticed.

"I slipped a guard and made a tackle or something like that," he said, "(and thought), 'Man, I thought that was a great play,' and only the coaching staff and I saw it. No one knew it, but I knew, 'That was pretty good.'"

But one play came to light on Monday in a now-it-can-be-told type of way, a play that illustrated just how perfectly Bruschi fit the Patriots' scheme during the team's run of three Super Bowl titles in four years. It was Thanksgiving Day in Detroit in 2002, and it was the second interception return for a touchdown in Bruschi's career.

"There’s almost never a play that happens exactly the way you draw it up," Belichick said. "But the interception in Detroit on Thanksgiving was exactly the way it was drawn up. It was unbelievable."

Just to set it up: The Patriots had the ball first and drove deep into Lions territory before a pair of short runs and an incomplete pass forced them to settle for a field goal. The Lions then took over at their own 23-yard line following a short kickoff return.

The first pass Joey Harrington threw was broken up by Ted Johnson. The second pass Harrington threw was intercepted and taken back for a touchdown by Bruschi -- a player who hadn't even been in pass coverage when the play began.

"That play was indicative of where I had come as a player," Bruschi said. "It was blitz and I was rushing, which is what I did in college."

Bruschi was a tremendous pass-rusher in college at Arizona, finishing his career tied with the late Derrick Thomas for most career sacks (52) in NCAA history -- a record not since surpassed.

Once Belichick -- then the Patriots' defensive coordinator under Bill Parcells -- got his hands on him, Bruschi had to learn to play linebacker and everything that went with it. He had to learn how to defend the run. He had to learn how to cover tight ends and wide receivers. He had to learn "what a hook drop was," he said. "I had never taken a drop in my life and to talk about 'Cover 2' was new to me. I didn’t even know where to go."

The learning curve made it tough for him to become a big-play defensive player right away. It was all he could do to do his job, to be in the right place, to make sure he wasn't missing tackles that would get him cut from the team. It wasn't until the middle of the 1998 season that he took over full-time at outside linebacker, and it wasn't until 1999 that he forced his first turnover.

By 2002, though, he understood the system and his responsibilities within it -- and at this moment, his well-trained instincts were telling him that this was not the right time to rush the quarterback.

"As you're rushing, I had the recognize the pass protection," he said. "If you recognize the pass protection as it's coming to you, then you drop back into pass coverage."

Had the Lions shifted their protection to the other side of the field, sending a tight end or a runing back out to pick up either Mike Vrabel or a cornerback off the edge, Bruschi would have kept right going after Harrington. But the protection had been swung toward his side of the field, and that meant he had little chance to get to the quarterback before the ball was away.

(The Associated Press recap described Bruschi as having "fooled Harrington by faking a blitz." Sometimes sportswriters get things wrong.)

Rather than allowing himself to be swallowed up and taken out of the play, Bruschi turned on his heels and searched for a blue jersey behind him. The closest one belonged to Larry Foster, a former undrafted free agent who had played his way into a role as a kick returner and part-time wide receiver.

"When you're dropping back in pass coverage," Bruschi said, "you look and read the route and see if there's a hot route that's going to be thrown because you know the blitzer is coming from the other side. Reading while you're in pass coverage -- another thing I had to learn."

Bruschi located Foster, the closest receiver and the most likely outlet for Harrington if the blitzer on the other side got too close. But seeing Foster wasn't enough. All that would do would be to put him in position to make the tackle once the pass was completed.

"You’ve got to look back," he said. "You’ve got to look back and see if the ball is coming because you think the quarterback is going to throw it because he has to because your blitzer is coming from the other side. This is all the thought process that goes on on that one play."

Harrington threw the ball short and over the middle, just like the Patriots had expected he would, and Bruschi jumped in front of it.

Twenty-seven yards later, he was in the end zone.

"You draw it up, but you don't ever think it's going to happen," Bruschi said. "Maybe parts of it. Maybe three out of four parts. But there was the ball -- and there's my moment of making the plays that change games. There it was, the final moment, my final progression as a player: Reach up. Catch it. Run for a touchdown."

Asked and answered: Tedy Bruschi, Patriots linebacker

It was a somber scene in the Patriots' locker room late Thursday night and early Friday morning as a group of players accustomed to winning had to digest a loss that they already knew might cost them the division title -- and maybe even a playoff berth.

Guard Logan Mankins, already in his street clothes and with his trademark Red Sox hat on his head, couldn't get up from the chair next to his locker; he sat there, his hands on his thighs, starting at his locker but not really seeing anything. Linebacker Jerod Mayo, who looks more and more like a perennial Pro Bowl player, waved off interview requests as he limped across the room.

He wasn't the only one. Cornerback Deltha O'Neal declined to receive questions; linebacker Mike Vrabel, who was called for a questionable but costly holding penalty at his own goal line, did the same. When the locker room was open, Vrabel was seated in Larry Izzo's chair, next to Tedy Bruschi, neither saying all that much to each other. They knew the implications of the game.

And after Vrabel got up to go take a shower, Bruschi turned around to speak to the assembled media.

How tough is it to come back like that and then fall short?
“We dug ourselves in a little bit of a hole, and we fought ourselves out of it. But in overtime, I think, defensively, we couldn’t make plays to get off the field. On third down, they made some crucial third-down conversions and they made the kick.”

What does the comeback say about the heart of this team?
“I don’t know how many victories we will take away from this. You can spin it any way you want, but it is still a divisional loss to the Jets. I don’t think we'll find any positives out of this one, just looking at it as a divisional loss and just trying to get ready for our next game.”

How tough was it to play without Ty (Warren) and Adalius (Thomas)?
“That's the way it has been. That's the way it's been out there starting with Tom (Brady) at the beginning of the year. You've got to deal with things. You have to deal with things even as the season rolls and rolls. Guys are going to get hurt. Guys are going to get aches and pains. Whoever is asked to go out there and play has got to get the job done. We don’t look at it as who's not out there. We look at it as: How did the guys play that are out there? That is the way we see things.”

What went through your mind when you saw Randy Moss make that catch to tie the game?
"Phew. Well, obviously, we started going out there for the extra point. Initially, you think, do you go for one or do you go for two? We decided to go for one as a team. And then you go out there for the captains' toss, and you watch the coin. We saw we'd have to be on defense first, and we accepted that challenge, but like I said, a couple of third-down conversions -- that third-and-15, not stopping them on that, that's clearly advantageous to the defense, and not being able to close that out on that third down, that was a huge conversion for them."

How good was Matt Cassel tonight, throwing for 400 yards like he did?
"I didn't know his numbers until you told me right there, but all we've asked of him is to continue to improve, and he's done that. He's shown the league what kind of quarterback he is and that we can win with him. It's, 'Great game, Matt,' and now let's move on. Let's try to get another victory. That's the way he's going to see it, and that's the way we all see it."

How tough was it to see that holding call down at the goal line?
"That was third down, too, right? I didn't see it -- I don't know what happened. Washington crossed my face and ended up in the coverage on the right side of the defense. I didn't see if it was holding or not, but you react to the situation that's given. That was an automatic first down, so we tried to make a couple of tough goal-line stops, but another goal-line penalty inches them a little bit closer. We've been a good team in terms of penalties lately, not giving teams much, but tonight, we had a couple in crucial situations that really put them in good situations."

With 10 days off, what do you guys do now?
"We just went Sunday-Thursday, so that's a quick turnaround, but we'll come in tomorrow and I think we'll finish up with this game. I don't know if we'll watch a little Miami tomorrow; you'd have to ask Coach that. But having a little time to heal up, that's two games in five days or whatever it is, and it's still football. You need to have a little recovery time, and it's nice to have a little bit of a break before our next one."