INTRODUCTION: THE GREATEST
TOM BRADY WAS CRYING.
The Patriots quarterback has always been able to harness his emotions and put them to good use. A hype video his social media team released before the start of the 2016 postseason included an interview from Bruce Lee where Lee extolled the virtues of utilizing your feelings to your advantage: Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless, like water. Now, you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.
That approach had always benefited him. When he needed to unleash his emotions in hopes of playing better, he could. When he needed to tamp down those feelings and slow everything down around him, he could. He was in control. He could turn it on and off. He could flow and he could crash. He was water. Always.
But now, standing on the floor of NRG Stadium in Houston, the emotions were coming faster than he had anticipated. The Patriots had just pulled off a 34–28 overtime win over the Falcons in Super Bowl LI where the two teams had combined to tie or break 31 Super Bowl records. That included a 25-point comeback engineered by Brady, one that ended with the first overtime finish in Super Bowl history. Given the circumstances and the magnitude of the event, it was the finest hour of his career, at the end of his most remarkable year in the NFL.
And so, as the madhouse swirled around him and confetti flew and music played at the end of the most amazing Super Bowl of all time, he was crying. While his teammates raced around the field and piled on each other and the crowd went nuts around him, Brady wept. There might not be crying in baseball. But football? No problem.
Why the tears? He didn’t sob with joy after the previous four Super Bowl wins. After those games, there were smiles and hugs and celebrations. And after Super Bowl losses in 2008 and 2012, there was no crying; instead, his face was a stoic mask on both occasions when he and his teammates came up short. What made the win over the Falcons more important, more special, and more emotional than the 200-plus others he had enjoyed as a starting quarterback in the NFL?
In the end, there was a simple explanation: because it was so very personal. He wanted this one more than just about any of the others because of what was at stake at the end of an already emotional season.
It was personal because of his ghastly battle against the commissioner for last two years. He had ground through a lengthy war with Roger Goodell over Deflategate, a fight that had ravaged his reputation while costing the NFL millions of dollars. It left him sidelined for the first four games of the 2016 season, forced into exile by a commissioner who appeared to disregard scientific evidence and good judgment in the name of bringing down the hammer and exercising his own personal brand of justice.
It was personal for him because he wanted desperately to come through for a locker room and coaching staff that had stood by him so devoutly. While many players around the league now questioned Brady’s truthfulness, the rest of the New England locker room stood shoulder to shoulder with their teammate. On so many occasions, Brady had carried the franchise through adversity. In return, his teammates defended his name, backing him to the last. The quarterback wanted to repay them with another wake-up-the-echoes performance that would reward that unshakeable faith.
It was personal for him because—as he said on several occasions over the last year-plus—he’s now fully cognizant of his football mortality. The quarterback wants to play into his mid-forties, but with his fortieth birthday staring him in the face, at this stage of his life, each trip to the Super Bowl is a truly special occasion. (The list of quarterbacks age forty or more to win a playoff game is a short one: Brett Favre. The list of quarterbacks age forty or more to win a Super Bowl is even shorter: none.) One day, sooner rather than later, you’ll be forced from the game, and all you’ll have left are your memories.
“You can’t be around this long and not realize that the world will keep spinning and the sun will come up tomorrow without you,” Brady said early in the 2016 season, striking a rare note of melancholy when asked about the fleeting nature of life in professional football. “That’s just the way it goes. I think you enjoy just the experiences that you have, and then also understand that [the game] just keeps going on.”
It was personal for him because of the health struggles that his mother had been facing. He wanted to win for her. His mother Galynn had been diagnosed with cancer roughly two years before, and because of health issues, she hadn’t been to one of her son’s games all year. (But she received the OK to travel to Super Bowl LI.) The quarterback has always leaned on his family, but the emotion wore on Brady in the week leading up to the Super Bowl; he got teary at a press conference when he talked about his dad being his hero.
“He was just a great example for me, and he was always someone who supported me in everything I did, to come home at night and bring me out, hit me ground balls and fly balls,” Brady said of his father. “I loved baseball growing up. And to have a chance to go to 49ers games on the weekend with him and my mom and throw the ball in the parking lot before the games; those are memories that I’ll have forever.”
And so, with the season on the line and a fifth Super Bowl ring in his sights, on a brilliant afternoon in February, Brady and the Patriots took the field against the Falcons. Atlanta featured an impressive offense and sturdy defense, but the oddsmakers—and most of the analysts—believed that the Falcons’ quest for the first Super Bowl in franchise history would come to an end at the hands of Brady and the Patriots. Atlanta certainly had something to offer, but the afternoon would be little more than a coronation of Brady. The Falcons were merely set pieces in a much larger drama.
Only problem was that over the course of the first two quarters, someone rewrote the script. For Brady and New England, the first half was pretty much a nightmare. Stacked against his six other Super Bowl appearances, it was the two worst quarters of his Super Bowl career. The numbers didn’t look overly awful—16-for-26 for 184 yards, 2 sacks, 1 interception, and 0 touchdown passes—but he was sluggish and out of sorts in the early going. He overthrew receivers, missed some targets, and appeared to be unnerved by the Atlanta pass rush.
The low point was the pick-six he tossed to Falcons cornerback Robert Alford, and not just because it gave Atlanta a 21–0 lead in the second quarter. The last guy to have a shot at Alford was Brady, but the cornerback was just out of reach. The sight of the lunging Brady swinging and missing while trying to get to Alford appeared to be more than just a missed tackle. It was a metaphor that showed the young and speedy Falcons racing past the old and tired Patriots. Things were different. Tonight would be different. Brady’s time was through. Like the noise in the Superdome fifteen years before when Ty Law picked off Kurt Warner and took it all the way back for a shocking score, there was a sense that something bigger was happening. An upset was brewing.
It all left the Patriots in a 21–3 hole, one that turned into a 28–3 deficit early in the third quarter. Inside NRG Stadium, the video board was showing celebrity Falcons’ fans partying, eagerly anticipating the celebration that was sure to come.
But the Patriots’ offense started to find some vulnerabilities, the defense made the necessary adjustments, and the special teamers made the plays, winning the battle of field position. While they had their lunch handed to them in the first half, things started to turn midway through the third quarter. While the New England offense hadn’t finished a drive with a touchdown, they had been on the field for an extended stretch. And so, as the fourth quarter started, it wasn’t a complete surprise that the Atlanta defense started to tire.
Brady locked in on a handful of receivers, including James White, who was the best and most consistent offensive-skill position player all night on the New England roster. He found the wildly underrated Danny Amendola for a couple of big catches. There was Chris Hogan and Martellus Bennett, as well as the youngster Malcolm Mitchell. Things went from 28–3 to 28–9 late in the third when Brady connected with White on a 5-yard touchdown pass. After a missed extra point, the Patriots added a 33-yard field goal from Stephen Gostkowski to make it 28–12 with just under ten minutes to go. There was suddenly life. The margin for error for the Patriots had slipped to zero, but there was life.
After a few big defensive stops, New England cut it to 28–20. Then, it was Julian Edelman who delivered one of the signature moments of the season. No one was closer with the quarterback than his fellow Northern California native. And late in the fourth quarter, with the Patriots down by a score and needing to keep the chains moving, he made the catch of the season, wedging his way in between three Atlanta defenders to come away with a reception that was inches away from hitting the ground. It turned out to be one of the most memorable grabs in Super Bowl history. Sports Illustrated would cement the legacy of the reception by putting it on the cover the following week with the headline “MIRACLE.”
It all culminated on a touchdown drive that saw White plunging over from the 1-yard line, and Brady connecting with Amendola on a 2-point conversion. At the start of the fourth quarter, it was 28–9. Now, it was 28–28, and New England was a runaway train with a legendary quarterback at the controls. The Falcons? They were simply the unlucky ones standing on the track when the train rolled through the station.
“We stay back and [defensive coordinator Matt Patricia is] going over defense and we’re like, ‘Matty P, we’re not going out there. There’s no way we’re going out there. Tom Brady’s in the groove. He’s doing everything we need him to do to win this game,’” recalled defensive back Duron Harmon when asked about what was going on on the New England sidelines late in the game. “And that’s what happened. He led that team down that whole fourth quarter.
“That’s Tom Brady’s quarter. That’s what we’re going to call it from now on.”
If the Patriots had managed to wring all the momentum from the Falcons in the fourth quarter, overtime was simply more of the same. By this point, things had gotten completely turned around in the Patriots favor, and there was nothing the gassed Atlanta defense could do about it. In the extra session, New England’s drive started on its own 25-yard line. It ended in football nirvana: an 8-play, 75-yard sequence that took 3:58 and ended with White scoring from the 2-yard line.
“He was the same as he always is; cool, calm and collected,” Amendola said after the game when asked about Brady. “He’s the leader. The general. The best ever. And that’s the end of the story.”
Of course, it wasn’t just a win for Brady. This was a victory for the franchise; validation that their team-building approach wasn’t perfect, but still good enough to capture another Super Bowl, the fifth in franchise history.
It was more vindication for Bill Belichick, who steered the team through a turbulent season that included wave after wave of distraction, some of which was his own doing.
It was a victory for the coaching staff and front office, which had hit the reset button in the middle of a season that presented them with multiple challenges, including the trade of Jamie Collins and finding a way to succeed without Rob Gronkowski.
It was a sweet victory for the likes of franchise foundations like Edelman, Malcolm Butler, LeGarrette Blount, and Matthew Slater, all of whom were overlooked prospects coming out of college but would become absolutely vital to the success of a Super Bowl champion.
It was a testament to the hard work and dedication of professionals like Devin McCourty, Dont’a Hightower, and Nate Solder, who added a second ring to their résumés while fortifying their credentials as some of the best in the game at their position.
And it was a hard-won triumph for the new veterans like Bennett, Hogan, and Chris Long, who got to experience their first Super Bowl win after years of wandering the NFL wilderness with other teams.
The greatness of Belichick and Brady aside, the truth is that this New England team was a wholly unique group that managed to do things that few other teams had ever managed to do: They were the first team since the 1987 Redskins to win a title in a season where they had three different quarterbacks pass for 400 yards or more. They were only one of a handful of teams in the history of the league to win eight regular-season road games in one year. They were only one of a few Super Bowl champions that would rely on a feature running back who was thirty or older in Blount.
But ultimately, their identity didn’t come from one thing or one individual statistical trend. Instead, they were a team full of grinders who remained disarmingly practical when obstacles were placed in their path: Lose Brady for the first four games? We’ve got two other quarterbacks on the roster. Lose backup Jimmy Garoppolo the second game of the year? We have faith in Jacoby. Lose Gronkowski? Let’s figure out how to make it work without him. Win three games in twelve days under impossibly difficult circumstances? No big deal. Figure out a way to slow one of the great offenses in the recent history of the game in the Super Bowl? We got this.
At the heart of it all was Brady.
After the quarterback had come up for air at the end of the game, he saw Blount.
“You’re the greatest. You’re the fucking greatest, bro,” Blount said as the running back pointed at Brady’s chest.
The greatest. Brady had secured his legacy with the win over the Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX, becoming the only quarterback in the salary cap era to win four rings. Despite that victory, there was—remarkably—still some debate about who exactly was the greatest quarterback of all time. Critics argued that because Brady lost two Super Bowls, he still came up lacking when stacked against his childhood idol Joe Montana, who was a perfect 4-0 in Super Bowls. A popular meme that circulated had a picture of Montana mocking Brady for a litany of things, including the fact that Brady needed a kicker to “win [his] Super Bowls. I did it myself.” (The idea of using the fact that Brady reached more Super Bowls than Montana in the cap era against him was a mostly moot point to those critics, who thought the way they wanted to think about Brady because of Deflategate, regardless of what some scientific evidence might suggest.)
But the win over the Falcons gave him five rings, more than any quarterback in the history of the game. It allowed him to start to gain some separation on the rest of the field. He was now one ring ahead of Montana, the only other quarterback who was even in the conversation before that night in Houston. It also allowed him to end, once and for all, every stupid sports-talk radio debate about who is the best quarterback of all time. They won after Spygate. They won after Deflategate. There were no more questions. To paraphrase another New England hero: Do you like apples? I’ve got five Super Bowl rings. How do you like them apples?
Ultimately, what happened that Sunday night in Houston was more than just a game. It was the culmination of one of the more remarkable seasons in recent league history, the final chapter in a daily drama that stretched out over six months. It began with Brady in exile. It ended with him crying while kneeling on the floor of NRG Stadium in Houston.
“There was a lot of shit that happened tonight,” Brady sighed to a handful of reporters after the game.
The truth is that if you really want to unpack all of the shit that happened, it’s best to go back to the beginning.
Copyright © 2017 by Christopher Price
Foreword copyright © 2017 by Devin McCourty
Afterword copyright © 2017 by Matthew Slater
