Sporting Green
In 2000, few would have foreseen such a decorated career The Pats’ Tom Brady engineered yet another fourth-quarter comeback in Sunday’s AFC title game.
Super Bowl: Tom Brady had some rather modest goals as his college career wound down.
Eighteen years ago this month, Tom Brady was winding down his college career and hoping his future would include some time in the NFL.
“I certainly believe, with the way I’ve progressed over the years, I can play at the next level,” Brady was quoted as saying in a Chronicle story advancing the East-West Shrine Game at Stanford.
“Will I? It depends on a lot of things. You’ve got to be in the right place at the right time.”
Say this for Brady: The New England Patriots’ celebrated quarterback has made a career of being in the right place at the right time, and nothing has changed now that he’s 40.
Brady’s orchestration of Sunday’s 24-20 victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars marked his 42nd fourth-quarter comeback and propelled him into his eighth Super Bowl, which will be Feb. 4 in Minneapolis against the Philadelphia Eagles.
Brady will be seeking his
sixth Super Bowl ring; no other quarterback has more than four. He’s a decent bet to win his fifth Super Bowl MVP award; no other QB has more than three.
Eighteen years ago, no one imagined any of this. Not when the fifth-year senior out of Michigan, who played his high school ball at Serra and was a huge Joe Montana fan, was a sixth-round draft pick (199th overall) and selected behind six other quarterbacks.
The six included Hofstra’s Giovanni Carmazzi in the third round — by the 49ers, who evidently weren’t overly impressed with Brady in a predraft workout with other drafteligible local players.
Carmazzi went on to play in Europe. Brady went on to go where no man has gone before.
Long before he was coming back on NFL opponents, Brady was rallying the Wolverines to late-game revelry. In his final five games in college, he led four comeback wins (by a total of 15 points) over Indiana, Penn State, Ohio State and Alabama.
The finale came in the Orange Bowl, where Brady faced a 14-point deficit and won in overtime 35-34. He was so exhausted and dehydrated that he vomited on the sideline.
“My body was telling me, ‘OK, you had enough today,’ ” Brady said in the 2000 interview. “Unfortunately, the game wasn’t close to being over.”
That sounds familiar. On Sunday, Brady certainly wasn’t at his physical peak. He played with a stitched-up right hand, which made his availability uncertain during the week, and led a charge that turned a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit into a four-point victory.
Brady’s 42 fourth-quarter comeback wins rank second all time to Peyton Manning’s 45, and that’s a record that can be broken because Brady has no plans to retire — which partly explains why the Patriots giftwrapped their backup, Jimmy Garoppolo, to the 49ers for a second-round draft pick in late October.
Last year’s Super Bowl was epic Brady as the Patriots wiped out a 25-point deficit to the Falcons for an overtime win. Brady hit on 43 of 62 passes for 466 yards and two touchdowns.
In retrospect, college was a valuable proving ground. The Wolverines were 10-2 in Brady starts that were decided by a touchdown or less, capped by the Orange Bowl performance in which he completed 34 of 46 passes for 369 yards with no interceptions.
“Everyone felt that way, that they wouldn’t give up,” Brady said at the time. “I was counting on everybody else, and they were counting on me. What a great way to go out as a fifth-year senior.”
Brady says similar things these days, mentioning how his teammates persevere and produce in big moments, allowing him to deliver in the end. On Sunday, he commended his offensive mates, including Danny Amendola for the deciding TD catch with 2:48 remaining, and a defense that held the Jaguars in check throughout crunch time.
Now comes another Super Bowl and another opportunity for glory. All five of Brady’s Super Bowl wins were decided by seven points or fewer, so if the Patriots are within striking distance of the Eagles in the fourth quarter, don’t count out Brady.