Never count out the Patriots
New England winning Super Bowl isn’t shocking, but the way they did it is
Perhaps it makes sense that the first Super Bowl after the last presidential election would be a constant series of shocks and surprises.
The New England Patriots, one of the safest post-season bets ever, falling flat on their face. The young Atlanta Falcons roaring to a 21-point first-half lead, and then a 25-point lead midway through the third quarter. And then, when no team had ever come back from more than 10 points in the 50 previous Super Bowls, the Patriots did that and then some, scoring 25 straight points to force overtime, aided by some baffling Atlanta mistakes. The game-saving drive included a tipped catch that Julian Edelman snatched out of the air about an inch off the turf, as two Falcons flopped to the ground around him.
The game-winning touchdown from James White in the Super Bowl’s first-ever overtime? By this point, not at all surprising. New England, 34-28. The Patriots: still inevitable. After a week in which America’s political divisions were unusually mixed into the proceedings surrounding its biggest annual sporting event, making Atlanta Falcons fans out of a whole segment of the country that might not previously have cared for football, the Patriots did something that they had never before done in their six previous trips to the Super Bowl with Bill Belichick as coach and Tom Brady as quarterback: they got blown off the field in the first half.
The Patriots had long been America’s villains, what with the uncanny run of success, the six previous Super Bowl appearances in 15 seasons, and four titles, and just enough skulduggery and malfeasance to make everyone who was not a fan of the team well and truly sick of them. That the coach and the quarterback endorsed the new President at a time when he is the most polarizing Commander-in-Chief in memory only made the black hats of the Pats that much more appropriate.
And then, this. Super Bowl LI started slowly, as do all such Super Bowls involving Brady and Belichick. They had never scored a point in the first quarter of their previous three trips, and the only four scoreless first quarters in the title game of the past 25 years all involved the Patriots. So when Atlanta and New England finished love-love through 15 minutes in Houston, it was all, sort of, proceeding according to script. The Falcons looked fast and Brady looked just a little out of sorts, but each team managed two sacks of the opposing quarterback, and the Falcons’ Matt Ryan had his greatest success when he handed the ball off to a running back.
When the clock turned to the second quarter, it was New England that sparked itself to life first, with Brady signalling Julian Edelman to sprint up the right sideline and then hitting him with a perfect 27-yard strike. These were the Pats that showed up in big games. But before you could write “experience,” LaGarrette Blount was stripped of the ball on a short run in Atlanta territory.
Then the Falcons punched the Patriots right in the chops. Ryan hit Julio Jones for 19 yards over the middle, with Jones wrestling the ball away from a New England defender as he went to the ground. On the next play, Ryan rolled to his left and threw a 24-yard dart to Jones, who deftly tapped both toes on the sideline before falling out of bounds. A 15-yard run, and then a nine-yard run, and then Devonta Freeman took a handoff from Ryan at the fiveyard line, made one cut and ran to the left corner of the end zone with no Patriot even near him. The 7-0 Atlanta lead was the first time New England had trailed in a game since Nov. 27.
A staple of New England’s previous Super Bowls in the Belichick-Brady era is that they were always close. None of the six were decided by more than four points. New England had trailed by 10 points early in Super Bowl XLIX before climbing back into it.
Atlanta, though, jumped ahead 14-0 on another lightning-strike drive, this one covering 62 yards in less than two minutes. That was unexpected enough, but not nearly as much as New England’s weak response. They struggled to run, and they struggled to keep the Falcons away from Brady, and only a succession of Atlanta holding penalties kept the drive alive. Then, the big shock: an 82-yard interception return for a touchdown from Robert Alford, who streaked past a diving Brady on his way to the end zone. It looked over. The Schadenfreude Bowl.
Atlanta’s speed, on both sides of the ball, was just too much as they built a 28-3 lead midway through the third quarter. New England was done, yes? But, chip, chip, chip.
A five-yard touchdown pass from Brady to James White with two minutes left in the third quarter. A missed extra point that kept the score to 28-9. A New England field goal midway through the fourth quarter after a drive stalled deep in Atlanta territory: 28-12. All Atlanta had to do was take care of the ball. Matt Ryan fumbled, and Brady promptly threw a touchdown pass to Danny Amendola. After a twopoint conversion, it was 28-20. Atlanta looked to have the game in hand after another spectacular Jones catch put them in field-goal range with four minutes left, but a sack of Ryan took them out of it. If Donald Trump wanted to order a federal investigation of Atlanta’s clock-management strategy at this point, no one would accuse him of abusing his power.
Brady, of course, led the Pats all the way down the field to score. He needed the miracle catch from Edelman to do it, but the Pats have been on the losing end of that kind thing in this game before.
Look, the Patriots are a dynasty unlike any other. In the parity era, the seven Super Bowl appearances in 16 years with Brady is a remarkably difficult feat. But they had never won one like this. No one had.
America is on quite a run with the surprises.