The Legend grows
Game over: Brady’s the greatest QB
HOUSTON — Every Super Bowl played, every ring that’s been captured, is special to Tom Brady. The road to No. 5, the one that now sets him apart from everyone else, however, is truly the stuff of legend.
And then some.
All he did this time was rally the Patriots from a 25-point thirdquarter deficit. All he did was rally a team that was getting croaked in every possible way in Super Bowl LI.
The Patriots were down and out on the mat, but Brady willed them back to a stunning 34-28 victory over the Falcons in overtime last night to win his fifth championship, putting him on a pedestal where no one else exists.
While he finished with 466 passing yards on the night, he needed most of those in the second half, where he put on a clinic. When all seemed lost, he kept fighting, completing 27-of-36 passes for 282 yards with two touchdown passes in a furious fourth-quarter comeback.
Yes, he the greatest of all time. Period. End of story.
“He’s a great leader. We followed his lead,” said James White, who was Brady’s best foot soldier, catching 14 passes for 110 yards and a touchdown (and ran for two more). “He was motivating us the whole game, even when we were down. He just willed us to another victory.”
In the locker room following the game, players came up to Brady one by one, congratulating the man who won his fourth Super Bowl MVP trophy.
“That was unreal,” said Brady, accepting a hug from Chris Hogan. “What a day! Right to the last whistle!”
And when linebackers coach Brian Flores came up to congratulate the Patriots quarterback, Brady said with a smile: “Never a doubt.”
Brady moved past Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw on the championship ladder after last night’s triumph.
And along this particular championship ride, the 39-year-old Patriots quarterback defied age, served a heavy-handed Deflategate suspension and dealt with the weight of his mother’s illness.
He really couldn’t have written a better script, closing out the Revenge Tour with a real zinger for Roger Goodell, but more importantly, dedicating the game to his mother Galynn. She made it to Houston to watch her son play.
“Yeah, they’re all happy,” Brady said of his family. “It’s nice to have everybody here and it’s going to be a great celebration tonight.”
Certainly Brady had to be uplifted by his mother’s presence, but her son delivering an on-field miracle also had to be pretty special.
Team owner Robert Kraft, who was handing out cigars in the locker room, spoke to Brady right before the game.
“This is the first game his mother has been to. She’s been going through a lot,” said Kraft. “He said let’s win this one for her. I was thinking when we were down, when it was 28-3, how he must have felt. But the greater the pressure, the better he performs.”
In fact, with his team down by 25 in the third quarter, Kraft turned to his son Jonathan, and asked if he thought Brady had given up. They both came to the same conclusion. “No (expletive) way,” Kraft said. The way the game started for Brady, however, one had to wonder if everything had finally gotten to the unflappable Brady. He looked more like the goat, than the GOAT.
He threw a second-quarter pick6 to Robert Alford deep in Falcons territory. That was a killer. It put the Falcons up 21-0 late in the half. It was hard turning back from that mistake, as the 82-yard interception return all but buried the Patriots before intermission.
Alford was lurking on the shallow crossing route Danny Amendola ran, and was there waiting to step in as Brady threw it right to him.
The Pats trailed 21-3 at halftime, and it got to 28-3 before things finally turned around. The Falcons pressured Brady all night, sacking him five times, and making it difficult in the pocket. But he just calmly brought the Patriots back, drive after drive. The defense started making stops, and Brady did the rest.
“He was the same as he always is, cool, calm and collected,” said Amendola. “He’s the leader, the general, the best ever and that is the end of the story.”
Brady’s Super Bowl wins have all included a game-winning drive in the fourth quarter or overtime. There have been 17 such drives in 51 Super Bowls, and Brady has engineered five of them.
“He was the greatest before this,” said Kraft. “He just proved it to the people who didn’t want to believe it.”