Most people will remember Super Bowl LI as the one where Tom Brady led one of the greatest comebacks in NFL history. It certainly goes down as the biggest comeback in Super Bowl history.
It also has led plenty of people to praise Brady’s 466-yard, 69 percent and two-touchdown performance. Phrases like “greatest game ever” and “best performance of Brady’s career” have been thrown around.
Just don’t expect Brady to believe that. Instead, he believes he only played good football for about a quarter-and-a-half. One week after the Super Bowl, Brady took time to speak with veteran NFL reporter Peter King of MMQB.
In that interview he was very candid about his performance in the Super Bowl, refusing to call it the greatest game of his career.
“I don’t really think that is necessarily the case,” he said, relaxing in ski pants and sneakers. “I think it was one of the greatest games I have ever played in, but when I think of an interception return for a touchdown, some other missed opportunities in the first 37, 38 minutes of the game, I don’t really consider playing a good quarter-and-a-half plus overtime as one of the ‘best games ever.’”
That doesn’t mean Brady wasn’t happy with his overall performance, nor does it mean that Brady didn’t think the game itself wasn’t great. In fact, he believes the game itself may be one of the greatest he’s ever been a part of.
“But it was certainly one of the most thrilling for me, just because so much was on the line, and it ended up being an incredible game. There are so many things that played into that game—a high-scoring offense, a top-ranked defense, the long Super Bowl, four-and-a-half-hour game, the way that the game unfolded in the first half versus what happened in the second half … so it was just a great game.”
Most fans, pundits and Twitter experts believes the New England Patriots were toast by halftime (your’s truly was in that group). No one in the Patriots locker room apparently looked at the game that way though. Instead, it was an attitude of “20 minutes of time of possession” and overall confidence in the offensive performance.
That attitude was backed up by the fact that New England really did move the ball well, throwing for 184 yards in the first half. It was just a missed 3rd-and-1, a bad fumble and that pesky pick-six that kept the Patriots out of the end zone.
Or at least that is how Brady chose to see things, and it apparently made all the difference in the world. Brady found a favorite target in James White, rode him for 14 receptions, 110 yards and a touchdown along with two rushing touchdowns.
Let’s also not forget that White came up with a huge two-point conversion that got them to the tie ballgame in the first place. It was a play that Brady says almost never happened thanks to repeated mistakes in practice.
“He [center David Adams] snapped it over, it was kind of at my head, so James couldn’t get his hand up there to get it,” Brady said. “So the ball is laying on the ground, rolling around on a two-point play, on a direct snap when it is supposed to be right in James’ breadbasket.”
New England’s defense also suddenly became lights out after getting shelled for most of the first half by Matt Ryan and Co.
Wether Brady believes it was his best game ever, he did earn MVP honors and that comeback is going down in NFL history. It likely will also propel a legend of this amazing game played by Brady from start to finish, and Brady is correct in letting the world know that it really wasn’t great until the final stretch of the game.
Not that anyone will care what Brady says of his own performance five years from now or anything.
