HOUSTON — One of the topics that dominated the week in the lead-up to Super Bowl LI Sunday night at NRG Stadium — other than what histrionics Lady Gaga had planned for the halftime show — was legacy.
Tom Brady’s legacy.
The Patriots quarterback, after all, was trying to win his fifth Super Bowl title, which would set an NFL record and cement him as the greatest of all time, not only at his position but pretty much any position.
Then they played the game and, for three quarters, it looked like the legacy conversation was going to be about Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan, who appeared poised to deliver the city of Atlanta its first Super Bowl champion in the franchise’s 51-year history.
Brady’s legacy was going to be secure, even with a loss.
Ryan, the Falcons quarterback, was coming off his career-best regular season that included 38 TDs and only 7 INTs, but he needed this win a lot more than Brady did in relation to legacy.
One night earlier, Ryan beat out Brady for the league MVP honors.
One night later, though, a furious, record-shattering comeback engineered by Brady that ended in a frenetic, scintillating 34-28 overtime win left Ryan as the unlikeliest runner-up quarterback in the game’s history.
Ryan had been brilliant, completing 17-of-23 for 284 yards, 2 TDs and a 144.1 passer rating.
What a night for Ryan. What a week this was going to be. What a year.
And Brady ruthlessly ripped it from him.
Ryan leading Atlanta to the Super Bowl victory would have changed everything for him. A win Sunday night would have put him on a fast track to the Hall of Fame.
Before Saturday, only one quarterback in NFL history had won a league MVP and a Super Bowl and was not in the Hall of Fame. That man was Kurt Warner, who was voted into the Hall on Saturday.
So, well, you can do the math.
Now that math means nothing.
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Ryan, for the balance of his nine years in the NFL, had been a lot more “Matty Nice’’ than “Matty Ice,’’ the nickname he acquired at Boston College for the remarkable 25 fourth-quarter comebacks he engineered in college.
To some degree, Ryan perpetuated that nickname with his 33 game-winning drives with the Falcons.
But, like the world’s best golfers are judged by now many major championships they win, quarterbacks are measured by their postseason success, specifically how many Super Bowls they win.
And Ryan began this postseason with a 1-4 playoff record. In his first three playoff games, in fact, Ryan failed to pass for 200 passing yards in any of them, throwing more INTs than he did TDs.
He was poised to go 3-0 this postseason while leaving three former Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks — Seattle’s Russell Wilson (in the NFC divisional playoff), Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers (in the NFC Championship) and Brady — in his wake.
Until Brady changed everything and left Ryan to start all over again next season.
Ryan had a chance to make us all look at him differently with a win. And maybe his performance, even in the loss, still does that.
When the fourth quarter began, Ryan was 13-of-16 for 202 yards, two TDs and a perfect 158.3 passer rating.
He had the Falcons in position, with a 28-3 lead. But in the end, with Brady and the Patriots breathing down the Falcons’ necks, Ryan could not close it out and cement his legacy.
He had the chance to do it when he took over possession of the ball with 5:53 remaining in regulation clinging to a 28-20 lead.
Ryan hit Freeman for a 39-yard catch-and-run on the first play of the series. Then he made what looked like it might be the pass of his life — a 27-yard on-the-run strike to Julio Jones on the right sideline for a first down at the New England 22.
An Atlanta field goal and the game is over, too far out of reach for even Brady.
But Ryan took a killer sack for a 12-yard loss to the New England 35 and then Ryan Matthews, the Falcons top-flight left tackle, was called for a holding penalty on the net play and suddenly the Falcons were out of field goal range and, as it turned out, they were out of gas, too.
The Falcons had to punt and you know the rest.
Ryan’s legacy remains on hold until further notice (read: a Super Bowl victory).
And Brady’s legacy, the thing we all were talking about all week, is set in granite.
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