The legend grows and the debate is over.
No team had ever come back from more than 10 points down to win a Super Bowl. On Sunday, Tom Brady and the Patriots erased a 25-point deficit to claim a 34-28 overtime win on Sunday against the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl LI.
No argument can be made against them now. Brady, who set a Super Bowl record with 466 passing yards and won his record fourth Super Bowl MVP, is the greatest quarterback of all time. And the Brady and Bill Belichick New England Patriots are now the greatest dynasty in NFL history.
Even without a win, this crew in New England may have gone down as the best ever. Brady has played in more Super Bowls (seven) and Belichick has coached in more (seven) than anyone else. They have the most postseason wins of any quarterback (24) and any coach (25) in NFL history.
All but the most envious Patriot haters agreed that a win on Sunday would cement Greatest Of All Time status to Brady, Belichick and their Patriots. But a win like that? The greatest comeback in the history of football’s greatest game?
That win didn’t just cement G.O.A.T. status. It bolted it down and lacquered it in place.
“We all brought each other back. We never felt out of it,” Brady said during his interview in the post-game scrum. “It was a tough battle. They have a great team and I give them a lot of credit. We just made more plays than them.”
Brady has now won more Super Bowls (five) than anyone else, breaking the three-way tie he was in with Pittsburgh’s Terry Bradshaw and San Francisco’s Joe Montana. Belichick has now won more Super Bowls (five) than any other coach, breaking his tie with Pittsburgh’s Chuck Noll.
That puts the finishing touches on the claim those Pittsburgh and Dallas teams had on being the greatest dynasty ever.
The real challenger for that crown is the San Francisco 49ers from 1981-94. Those 49ers also won five Super Bowls, but they won four of them before free agency, reducing the level of difficulty. And they had two coaches (Bill Walsh and George Seifert) and two quarterbacks (Joe Montana and Steve Young) lead them to those five Lombardi Trophies.
The big picture is pretty clear. These Patriots, their quarterback and their coach are kings of the NFL’s all-time mountain.
Taking a closer look at Sunday’s game only enhances that big picture.
When Atlanta and it’s top-ranked offense scored midway through the third quarter to make it 28-3, the game felt over. Heck, it was on the verge of embarrassing.
At that point, Brady looked rattled. He had thrown an interception that Atlanta returned for a touchdown. His feet were skittish in the face of the Falcons rush.
The rest of the Patriots were, as usual, following Brady’s lead. LeGarrette Blount had coughed up a fumble, just the 12th turnover of the season for New England, that led to Atlanta’s first touchdown. Patrick Chung dropped an interception that could have stopped Atlanta’s second touchdown.
A holding penalty on Martellus Bennett stalled what looked like a New England touchdown drive before the half. Chris Hogan and Julian Edelman were dropping balls. And even when the Patriots finally scored their first touchdown, Stephen Gostkowski missed the extra point.
At the time, it seemed like the touchdown had only served to extract the Patriots from embarrassing territory. They were, after all, still down 28-9 with just 2:06 left in the third quarter. If it had taken them that long to find the end zone in the first place, there was no way they could find their way back three or four more times and keep the Falcons scoreless.
But that’s what happened. We should have known. After all, just two years ago Brady and the Pats had set the standard for Super Bowl comebacks when they rallied from 10 down against Seattle for a 28-24 win.
After the revitalized New England defense forced Atlanta to punt on its next possession, the Patriots drove 72 yards the other way, Gostkowski hit a 33-yard field goal, and the lead was down to 28-12. It still didn’t feel good, but there was a glimmer.
When Dont’a Hightower sacked Ryan three plays later, forcing a fumble that New England recovered, the glimmer turned into a glow. The Patriots got the ball back on the Atlanta 25-yard line and, after a sack, Brady completed four straight passes, the last one a 6-yarder to Danny Amendola for a touchdown. James White, who set a Super Bowl record with 14 catches, ran in for the two-point conversion and suddenly it was a 28-20 game with 5:56 left on the clock.
Yet the comeback glow faded as Atlanta quickly drove to the New England 22. But then the Falcons started moving backwards – a tackle for a loss, a sack, a penalty. They were pushed out of field-goal range. They gave the ball back to Brady and the Patriots. They were doomed.
After missing on his first two pass attempts, Brady completed six of his next seven, including a miraculous completion to Edelman, who pulled off his version of the David Tyree catch. Eventually White scored from a yard out, and Brady hit Amendola for a crucial two-point conversion and somehow, with 0:57 on the clock, the score was tied, 28-28.
When the game went to overtime – the first time ever for a Super Bowl – and the Patriots won the toss, there was little doubt how things would end: with Brady leading yet another championship-clinching drive.
Sure enough, the G.O.A.T. went 5-for-6 on the last march, completing passes to four different receivers. He made smart checkdowns, put perfect touch on loft passes and fired balls through tight windows. Eventually he led his team to Atlanta’s 2-yard line, and White ran it home from there for his third touchdown of the day, this one clinching the game, the season and history.
Drop the debate and cue the duck boats. The greatest team, quarterback and coach in NFL history will be parading through Boston. Again.