Brady and Buccaneers take a familiar road
Club-record eighth straight win as visitors puts them on home turf for Super Bowl.
GREEN BAY, Wis. — Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ road magic have them heading home to the Super Bowl, the first team to play in one on their home field.
Brady owns six Super Bowl rings with New England and now heads to his 10th NFL championship game with his new team. With help from a stifling pass rush and a curious late call on fourth and goal by the Packers, Brady and the Buccaneers beat top-seeded Green Bay 31-26 for the NFC title Sunday.
“It’s great to get another road win, and now we got a home game,” said Brady, who went 20 for 36 for 280 yards with three touchdowns. “Who’d ever thought a home Super Bowl for us? But we did it.”
The Buccaneers (14-5) earned their franchiserecord eighth consecutive road victory to reach the Super Bowl for the first time since their 2002 championship season. They will face the Kansas City Chiefs at Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium on Feb. 7.
They were helped by a strange decision by Packers coach Matt LaFleur with just over two minutes remaining and down by eight points. On fourth and goal, he elected to kick a field goal to get within five. Tampa Bay then ran out the clock on the Packers (14-4).
“Anytime it doesn’t work out you always regret it, right?” LaFleur said. “It was just circumstance of having three shots and coming away with no yards. And knowing that you not only need the touchdown but you’d need the two-point. The way I was looking at it is we essentially had four timeouts with the two-minute warning, we knew we needed to get a stop.”
Said Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers: “I understand the thinking — above two minutes with all of our timeouts — but it wasn’t my decision.”
Led by Shaquil Barrett and Jason Pierre-Paul combining for five sacks, Tampa Bay snapped Green Bay’s seven-game winning streak.
Rodgers went 33 for 48 for 346 yards with three touchdowns and one interception, but fell to 1-4 in conference championship games as a starting quarterback. Afterward, the 37-year-old Rodgers said he doesn’t know what’s ahead for him.
“There’s a lot of guys’ futures that are uncertain, myself included,” Rodgers said. “That’s what’s sad about it most.”
The Packers rallied as Brady threw interceptions on three straight drives for just the second time in his career. Green Bay cut the lead to 28-23 late in the third quarter on Rodgers’ touchdown passes to Robert Tonyan and Davante Adams.