There are moments in sports you live for, moments that so captivate you that you understand the magnitude of what’s happening in real time, that you realize you are watching something that forever will be a part of history.
This was one of those moments – even if it seemed as if it might never happen.
With the Falcons leading by 25 points and with Matt Ryan looking as if he was about to finish off his first Super Bowl run after his first MVP season, you didn’t think there was much of a chance that even Tom Brady – the greatest quarterback of all time, and playing in his seventh Super Bowl – was capable of coming back this far. Of staging the biggest comeback in Super Bowl history.
But Brady and the Patriots pulled it off, pulled off one of the most epic comebacks ever. In sports history, not just NFL history.
Brady became the first quarterback ever to win a fifth Super Bowl championship, and he did it with such aplomb, with such resourcefulness, with such moxie, that it left you in amazement. No matter whom you wanted to win this game, you had to be in awe of what might have been Brady’s greatest moment ever in a 17-year career filled with so many of them.
Brady was a pedestrian 16 for 26 in the first half, throwing no touchdown passes except the one to Falcons cornerback Robert Alford, who returned a misplaced throw 82 yards to give the Falcons a 21-0 lead with 2:21 to play in the second quarter.
But by the time the game had ended, Brady had completed 43 of 62 passes for 466 yards and two second-half touchdown passes, including a magnificent series on the first series of the first overtime game in Super Bowl history.
Brady drove the Patriots 75 yards in eight plays in OT and seldom-used running back James White finished it off with his third touchdown, a 2-yard run around right end.
The most dramatic comeback in Super Bowl history was complete, with the Patriots scoring 31 unanswered points for a 34-28 win and enhancing their place in NFL history with an unprecedented fifth title run for both Brady and legendary coach Bill Belichick.
What a game. What a moment. You will never forget it.
Brady had to be nearly perfect in bringing the Patriots back, and he was just that, orchestrating five scoring drives in the second half and overtime. Not only that, but the Patriots’ final two fourth-quarter touchdowns required two-point conversions in order to close the gap from 28-12.
White scored the first after Brady’s 6-yard touchdown pass to Danny Amendola, and then it was Brady-to-Amendola on the next two-point play after White’s 1-yard touchdown run with 57 seconds left in regulation.
That still left Ryan with enough time for a field-goal drive, but the Patriots defense, which rose up brilliantly after giving up an early third-quarter touchdown to fall behind 28-3, stopped Ryan and forced the overtime.
Brady took over from there, throwing darts to Julian Edelman, Chris Hogan, Amendola and White and getting to the Falcons’ 2 after a pass-interference call. After Brady threw incomplete to Martellus Bennett on first down, White ran around right end to the winning touchdown and set off yet another celebration for the longest-lasting dynasty in NFL history.
This is now 15 years between their first and last Super Bowls, a remarkable run of consistency for Brady and Belichick, but particularly the 39-year-old quarterback.
He was accused by the NFL of being “generally aware” of the use of purposely underinflated footballs in the AFC championship game two years ago, and served a four-game suspension to start this season after giving up on a protracted court battle.
But he came back with a splendid regular season and capped it with a transcendent performance in the playoffs, further enhancing his stature as the greatest quarterback in NFL history. And now, perhaps the greatest player ever.
“We all brought each other back,” said Brady, who earned his fourth Super Bowl MVP. “We never felt out of it.”
The greatest win of his career?
“They’re all great,” Brady said. “Everyone rose to the occasion in the second half and overtime. This is unbelievable.”
He left the thousands of Patriots fans who trekked to Houston to be a part of history with words of triumph as he lifted the Vince Lombardi Trophy for a fifth time.
“You’ve been with us all year,” he said. “We’re bringing this sucker home.”
And with that, he exited the field, a champion one more time. One more moment in history. The greatest moment of all.
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
