For years, he never did interviews. Now Ernie Adams is telling stories from the first Patriots-Seahawks Super Bowl.
If anyone has stories worth listening to, it’s this guy.
Retired since 2021 and living in Brookline, Adams was Bill Belichick’s “football research director” from 2000-20. A mysterious figure who never did interviews, Adams was Belichick’s key strategist and researcher as they won six Super Bowls, including a historic upset over the Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI, and an exhilarating win over the Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX.
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“We played in nine, which all went right down to the end,” Adams said. “I mean, we could have won nine, which would have been epic. We could have realistically lost nine. And listen, I include that AFC Championship against the Colts in 2006 as a Super Bowl, ‘cause there’s no way either one of us was going lose to the Bears.”
The first Super Bowl against the Seahawks is remembered for Butler’s history-altering interception with 20 seconds remaining. But another legacy of the game is one of preparation — how Belichick, Adams, and the coaching staff knew what was coming and put the players, most notably Butler, in position to succeed.
“We told the players going into the game it was going to be a 15-round heavyweight fight, and it was exactly the way it turned out,” Adams said Thursday. “We really had a lot of respect for them. Playing them was like playing us, meaning they’re physical, straight ahead. You have to meet them head-on.”
Tom Brady, Bill Belichick and the Patriots defeated the Seahawks, 28-24, in Super Bowl XLIX.Barry Chin/Globe Staff
Adams remembers arriving in Phoenix and liking the Patriots’ setup at the Wild Horse Pass hotel & casino on the outskirts of civilization. When the Patriots lost to the Giants in Super Bowl XLII to derail their perfect season, they stayed at a Westin resort in Scottsdale, across the street from the PGA Tour’s Waste Management Open.
“Very nice — too nice to get ready to play a football game. The blinders came off,” Adams said. “Then the second time we went, there was like one road to the hotel. It’s out in the desert. They had guys go in the morning and shake off the bushes to make sure there was no rattlesnakes. It was a much better place to get ready for a game.”
In Super Bowl XLIX, the Patriots scored 28 points and gained 377 yards against a Seahawks “Legion of Boom” defense that led the NFL in both categories in 2014 (15.9 points, 267 yards per game). Adams said the key was identifying strong safety Kam Chancellor before the snap.
“It was like, ‘Where’s Waldo?’ Except it’s, ‘Where’s Kam?’ ” Adams said. “I remember we had this conversation with Dan Connelly playing guard. ‘You’ve got to know where Chancellor is, because that’s going to tell you a lot about what the defensive tackle right in front of you is going to do.’ That was going to dictate what the stunts were going to be. If you’re just focused on the guy in front of you and you don’t know what else is going on, you’re putting yourself at a disadvantage.”
How did Adams determine that Chancellor was the guy to watch?
“We had played them in the regular season in 2012,” he said. “And truthfully, knowing where the safeties are, where the stunts tied in, I knew that from playing Pete Carroll back in 1994, when we were at Cleveland. It’s just, you know, it’s what you do. You’re studying it.”
Adams expected the Seahawks’ defense to show new wrinkles, especially against Rob Gronkowski, but it didn’t. Tom Brady recognized the mismatch with linebacker K.J. Wright and hit Gronkowski for a 22-yard touchdown before halftime.
“There’s a defense they played where they had a linebacker on the tight end,” Adams said. “We showed it, and said, ‘They’re not going to leave Wright matched up on Gronk.’ We practiced the other stuff they could do. But no, we got in the game, they did it just the way they always did.”
The Patriots had prepared for halftime on Friday in Arizona, taking a 45-minute break during the middle of practice. But they still came out flat in the third quarter, as the Seahawks took a 24-14 lead. Adams, who watched games from the press box, said there weren’t any major adjustments in the second half, or much panic among the coaches.
“I mean, really, we’ve been doing this for six months. We’re just going to keep playing,” he said. “I mean, we just came from 14 down twice to beat the Ravens, right?”
Brady was off in the third quarter, completing 4 of 8 passes for 27 yards and an interception as the Seahawks built a 10-point lead. But Brady was masterful in the fourth, completing 13 of 15 passes for 124 yards and two touchdowns as the Patriots overcame the largest (at the time) fourth-quarter deficit in Super Bowl history.
Julian Edelman and Gronkowski combined for nine catches for 87 yards in the fourth, and the winning touchdown by Edelman.
“I remember one thing, which we said the meeting the night before the game,” Adams said. “What Bill said to Josh [McDaniels] was, ‘Just make sure, when the game’s on the line, our best guys got the ball. Make sure your players are doing what they do best.’ And so, ‘OK, sure, we’ll do that.’ ”
The Seahawks still had a chance, trailing, 28-24, with 2:02 left and three timeouts. They quickly drove the field, thanks to a 31-yard completion to Marshawn Lynch and a 33-yard circus catch by Jermaine Kearse.
The Seahawks faced first and goal from the 5 with 1:06 left. It looked bleak for the Patriots, especially when Lynch took the handoff with a big hole in front him. But [Dont’a] Hightower, playing with a bad shoulder, raced across the field, dived at Lynch’s feet, and cut him down at the 1-yard line.
“On the end zone film of that run, I mean, there is nothing in front of him,” Adams said of Lynch. “Obviously, Malcolm made the interception in the end, but I think Hightower’s tackle the play before, you’re never going to see a better play by a linebacker.”
Malcolm Butler’s interception is iconic, but Ernie Adams pointed to Dont’a Hightower stopping Marshawn Lynch on the prior play: “You’re never going to see a better play by a linebacker.”Jim Davis
The next 40 seconds changed lives and NFL history. Adams said the Patriots never considered letting the Seahawks score, as they did in Super Bowl XLVI against the Giants. Belichick also opted against calling a timeout, sensing confusion on the Seahawks’ sideline as the clock ticked down to 26 seconds.
“You can make an argument there, in a lot of ways, if you’re not involved, [we] should call a timeout there,” Adams said. “But you know, you’re in it. You’ve got to make the decision, they look screwed up — let’s play.”
Adams believes the Seahawks fell back on Belichick’s advice — in critical situations, do what you do best. That meant calling their favorite goal-line play, a slant pass on a pick, or rub, route. The Seahawks showed it all season, Adams said.
“That was their go-to play down there,” Adams said. “You try to give the players a chance to recognize what’s going on, and sometimes, like the Malcolm interception, it works out exactly to that play.”
The Patriots had practiced the slant pass on the goal line repeatedly, and Butler got beat repeatedly. But practice made perfect.
“It’s just a case of, anticipation beats reaction every time,” Adams said.
Carroll is still dogged today about the decision to pass instead of handing off to Lynch. Adams said that once the Seahawks put three receivers into the game, they pretty much had to pass.
“If they handed the ball to Marshawn Lynch and we’re in goal line and they got three wide receivers, we’re going to have somebody unblocked in their backfield,” Adams said, highlighting Rob Ninkovich as the likely defender. “So really the matchup, they were spread out. We had our goal-line front, and kind of dictated to them they really needed to throw the ball.
“Which was the same thing in 2003 with a regular-season game with the Colts. Same situation — they get the ball right down on about our 3-yard line, the last play of the game. They’re spread out. We’ve got an aggressive front coming to hand the ball off to Edgerrin [James] and Willie McGinest is unblocked, and he massacred him in the backfield for a 2-yard loss.”
The Seahawks could have run the ball with Lynch had they used a traditional goal-line package with multiple tight ends.
“The reason you go two tight ends down there is so that you’ve got your edges blocked,” Adams said. “If you want to throw them a fade, great. But, you know, you’ve got to block those people.”
Eleven years later, Adams will be happy to be watching Patriots-Seahawks at home on his big-screen TV. He might polish off a certain ring and wear it for the game.
“We had one more play than they did, which is, you know, kind of the way we thought it was,” Adams said. “That’s the one thing about this game, is you get two weeks to get ready. You’re not worried about anything else. There’s no game next week. It’s just you, just totally focused on the one game.”
Coach Mike Vrabel, Drake Maye, and other Patriots speak from Foxborough before traveling to California for Super Bowl LX.
Ben Volin can be reached at [email protected].
