GREATEST OF ALL TOM
Brady proves why there is no one better
HOUSTON — It was somehow overtime now, the first overtime in Super Bowl history, and the great Tom Brady had the ball first.
The great Brady was dead, and then he wasn’t. What had been 28-3 for the Falcons was somehow, someway 28-28, because the great Brady showed you how a four-time Super Bowl champion Driving For Five can will a night to go his way and carry his team on his 39-year-old shoulders.
He hit Danny Amendola by the right sideline for 14 yards. Then Chris Hogan for 18. Then Julian Edelman for 15.
Brady was 25 yards from Roger Goodell.
James White, who had the night of a lifetime (14 carries for 110 yards, one receiving touchdown, two rushing touchdowns), took a pass behind the line from Brady for 10 more.
De’Vondre Campbell interfered with Martellus Bennett.
The great Brady (43-for-62, 466 yards, 2 TDs, 1 INT) was 2 yards from Goodell. White took a pitch right and it was Patriots 34, Falcons 28.
And Brady, a crying lion, was in tears. And it wasn’t going to be hard for the great Brady to find Goodell, finally. Because the NFL Commissioner would be right there in front of him, holding the Holy Grail, and this time Brady could take the fifth outside of a Deflategate courtroom.
Take the fifth Lombardi Trophy and become the first quarterback in NFL history to do that. Where is Roger? There is Roger! Tears and cheers for Brady, jeers for his tormentor Goodell, trying to be as gracious as Pete Rozelle used to be congratulating Al Davis.
“I’ve got my family here and it’s the end of a long marathon,” Brady said.
Brady shook Goodell’s hand. They asked him about redemption and Brady said: “This is all positive. This is unbelievable.”
This was Brady’s fourth Super Bowl MVP. It was Falcons 28, Patriots 20 when Brady took over at the Patriots’ 9 with 3:30 and two timeouts left in regulation. Third-and-10. He found Hogan for 16 yards. Pandemonium inside NRG Stadium. Brady found Malcolm Mitchell for 11 yards. Then he threw over the middle and had it tipped by Robert Alford — and somehow caught by a lunging Edelman after Alford’s leg had kept the ball from hitting the ground. A David Tyree moment. “One of the greatest catches I’ve ever seen,” Brady said.
Then Brady hit Amendola and he was 21 yards away. He had been given this chance because Matt Ryan and the Falcons had gone backwards and out of field-goal range after reaching the New England 22.
Then Brady hit White and he was 8 yards away. Then White again and he was a yard away. Then White ran it into the end zone. And then Brady hit Amendola with the two-point conversion, and it was Falcons 28, Patriots 28 with 57 seconds left.
Brady in the fourth quarter: 16-for-21 for 196 yards. Only The Greatest Of All Time could stage the greatest Super Bowl comeback like this.
“We believe in one another,” Brady said.
They believe in him more than any team believes in its quarterback. Brady was already down 14-0 when he looked for Amendola in a crowd and next thing he knew Robert Alford was sprinting the other way with an 82yard pick-six.
Brady, never before down 21-0 in any of his previous six Super Bowls, trudged slowly to the sideline, removed his helmet and slumped headdown on the bench. He was dead. And then he wasn’t.
It was 28-9 when the fourth quarter began and 28-12 when Ryan, hit by Dont’a Hightower, fumbled at his 25. And when Brady hit Amendola with a 6-yard touchdown pass, it was 28-18. And when White took a direct snap into the end zone for the two-point conversion, it was 28-20 with 5:56 left. “We never felt out of it,” Brady said. There were times, especially early, when Brady must have had flashbacks to Super Bowl XLII against Michael Strahan, Osi Umenyiora and Justin Tuck when he was under uncharacteristic siege and sacked on his second possession Sunday night by Courtney Upshaw and Grady Jarrett (three sacks). He never flinched, never blinked.
“He just willed us to another victory,” White said.
He is a marvel to modern football science, playing better than any 39-year-old has ever played the position, playing the position over the course of 16 seasons better than anyone has ever played it.
“He’s the leader, the general, the best ever,” Amendola said, “and that is the end of the story.”
He is fire in his huddle and on his sideline and ice during those moments that demand he be a cold-blooded assassin.
“He tears people’s hearts out,” teammate Chris Long said.
They were standing and cheering for Brady as he held the Lombardi Trophy high in his right hand. His mother Galynn, because of an undisclosed illness, had not made it to a single game this season. She was there for this one on the night her son, The G.O.A.T, left Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana in the rearview mirror and made history.
“So all of haters need to shut up and just own up to it that he is The Greatest,” Patriots safety Patrick Chung said.
Amen.