Page 19 - IAV Digital Magazine #424

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ThePatriotsHaveLiterally RunOut of RoomtoHangTheir Newest Super Bowl Banner
By Will Brinson
The Patriots don’t have many prob- lems and even the ones they have are the type of things most NFL teams would sell their souls to have.
For instance, the Patriots have run into a real humdinger: they don’t have any more room for champi- onship banners at Gillette Stadium.
As pointed out by Mike Reiss of ESPN, when the Patriots opened up Gillette Stadium in 2002, they created a big space over the scoreboard to hang giant championship
banners.
If you don’t recall where they hang them, check this pic- ture from the Texans-Patriots playoff game this year:
There’s only space for four banners because when the Patriots built the sta- dium they probably weren’t thinking about filling up the space.
After all, when the Patriots opened Gillette in the 2002 NFL season, they had a single cham- pionship in their his- tory, with it coming the year before when this guy namedTom Brady
stepped into the starting quarterback role for Drew Bledsoe and helped New England upset the St. Louis Rams.
No one, not even the most optimistic supporter of the team, could have imagined that Brady and Bill Belichick would rip off another four titles.
Even after they picked up their third Super Bowl win (in four years no less), there might have been jokes about needing more space. But an extended drought highlighted by two losses to the Giants in 2007 and 2011 probably reminded
New England just how difficult it is to win a championship.
But they’ve got five now after storming back from a 25-point deficit to beat the Falcons in Super Bowl LI and as a result are trying to figure out some design ways to incorporate the lat- est banner.
From Reiss: This is the definition of what owner Robert Kraft calls a “high-class problem” to have. When this was mentioned, it was relayed that the club is considering design plans on how to proceed with the
fifth Super Bowl banner.
Whatever they do, the Patriots should probably go ahead and work in a way to include a few more banners. Brady says he wants to play anoth- er six or seven years ,Belichick could coach for another decade and there’s a not-that- unreasonable chance that the Patriots dynasty ends up with New England needing room for seven or eight banners in total.
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