By Michael Vallee
Two and a half quarters into Super bowl LI and the nightmare scenario was unfolding. For Patriots loyalists scattered across New England it was the nuclear option. Maybe a handful of skeptical Pats fans had kicked around the possibility during their many Super Bowl discussions over the last two weeks, pointing out what Atlanta had done to both the Seattle Seahawks and Green Bay Packers, but quickly the thought was dismissed. Brady, Belichick and the 16-2 Patriots were just too damn good to ever let it happen. Yet here it was materializing before the eyes of the football world, the least likely of all possible Super Bowl outcomes: The Atlanta Falcons were blowing out the New England Patriots.
The Falcons had just punched in another touchdown and the scoreboard flashed a stunning score of 28-3. It’s the type of deficit that sends fair weather fans and overrated actors scrambling for the exits. In the almost 300 games that encompass the Brady/Belichick era you could probably count on one hand the number of times they have been blown out, but here they were, the NFL’s premier franchise, melting down on its sports’ biggest stage. And this was not a case where tough breaks and bad calls had sabotaged New England’s chances; the Patriots were getting their ass kicked in virtually every phase of the game. The Falcons looked faster, meaner and better prepared. In an almost incomprehensible case of flipping the script, Atlanta was the focused team, the confident team and, dare I say, the more talented team. This one was over. The only thing left to play for was pride.
Anytime a team is down big and you’re trying to rationalize the possibility of a comeback, the first thing you look for is vulnerabilities, something, anything that can provide a sliver of hope that the fortunes of the game will be reversed. But Atlanta was giving them nothing. Their offense was ripping off runs at five-yards a pop. Easy runs. Unmolested sweeps that had the eerie look of something that would be there all day. And with New England inching closer and closer to the line-of-scrimmage to stem the tide, NFL MVP Matt Ryan went to work. Playing a near flawless game, Ryan dissected the suddenly vulnerable Patriots defense, throwing just three incompletions as Atlanta built their seemingly insurmountable lead. After Ryan’s second touchdown put the Falcons up 25, his QB rating stood at a perfect 158.3. And Julio Jones was, well, Julio Jones, fighting through double-teams and flashing that otherworldly ability that has made him the most talented receiver in the NFL. Matt Patricia’s crew had no answers. After a season of easy open book quizzes, they were finally facing their first real test – and failing.
Things weren’t any better on the other side of the ball. For those clinging to the slim possibility that Tom Brady could somehow pull them out of their tailspin, that hope was repeatedly dashed by a Falcons defense that swarmed New England’s supposedly unstoppable passing attack. Learning the lessons of Mike Tomlin, on how not to defend New England, Falcons coach Dan Quinn showed no fear, and rolled his defensive backs up into the face of the Patriots receivers. Quinn was going to make the Patriots work for it. And with New England’s receivers unable to shake free for those bread-and butter intermediate routes, Brady was forced into a series of awkward fades and ineffective check downs. It was looking like Denver 2015 all over again.
For Brady it probably felt more like Giants 2007, as the Falcons front four pounded the Patriots signal-caller. Aided by an alarmingly fast back seven that was blanketing his options Brady was repeatedly pressured, hit and sacked throughout the first half. The Falcons defense was treating him like a pinata stuffed with Super Bowl rings. Adding to the sense of hopelessness was a rare and costly Brady mistake late in the first half. Trailing 14-0, and with the game slowly slipping away, Atlanta DB Robert Alford jumped a crossing route, intercepted Brady’s pass and dashed untouched for a back-breaking 82-yard touchdown. In 1,325 postseason pass attempts Brady had never thrown a pick-six. Once again, the young Falcon defenders were one-step ahead and looking like they knew exactly what New England was going to do. The offensive Ferrari the Patriots rode into Houston suddenly looked like a sputtering Gremlin.
New England did manage a late field goal on their next possession but it was a small consolation in a half where they had been thoroughly out-played, out-hit and out-coached. And it would only get worse.
With Lady Gaga dangling in the Houston sky Patriots Nation was clinging to the belief that a brand new Patriots team would emerge from the locker room. Armed with a slew of Belichick adjustments, the best quarterback that ever lived and a championship pedigree, there was still optimism that New England could get this done. But faster than you can say Matty Ice those remote hopes came crashing to earth. After forcing a Falcons three-and-out, it was more of the same from the Patriots offense, who went nowhere, squandering their best field position. With the Patriots reeling and on the ropes, Ryan pulled out a stake and aimed it right at New England’s heart, shredding the Patriots defense for 71 easy yards, culminating in a devastating 6-yard touchdown that brought us to that infamous score:
28-3, 3rd Quarter: 8:31
That glimmer of hope that Patriots fans were so desperately holding onto was now lost. No team had ever come back from a deficit larger than 10 in a Super Bowl. The Patriots not only trailed by 25, but they were playing their worst game of the year. The receivers were dropping passes, the running backs were getting stuffed, Brady was getting punished, the defense was on its heels, and New England’s coaches were getting schooled. They had nothing. Atlanta was the better team, and it wasn’t even close. This is where Super Bowl LI stood with 8:31 remaining in the 3rd quarter.
But there’s an old saw about sports: Great teams aren’t always great, they’re just great when they have to be.
Appearing to have nothing more to play for than pride and dignity, Brady jogged onto the field and went back to work. 12 yards to James White. 17-yard 4th down conversion to Danny Amendola. A rare 15-yard scramble by Brady on 3rd and 8. And finally, they crossed that elusive goal line with a 5-yard touchdown by White. It was the deepest New England had gone in a Super Bowl without scoring a touchdown. It wasn’t much, but at least it was something in a game where there had been a whole lotta nothing.
28-9, 3rd Quarter: 2:06
But the tone of the game had not changed. The Patriots offense plodded their way up the field, needing 13 plays to secure their first score; a score that only delivered six points when kicker Stephen Gostkowski clanged the extra-point off the right upright. And the touchdown came with a price. Because of the Patriots oddly slow approach and continued insistence on running the ball, the drive had taken almost six and a half minutes off the clock. This was compounded by a failed Gostkowski onside kick that gave Atlanta the ball on New England’s 41-yard line. All told the Patriots had gained very little. If you offered Atlanta the following deal: you surrender six points in exchange for taking six minutes off the clock and getting the ball at the Patriots 41, they would take it 10 out of 10 times. The touchdown had not moved New England’s remote win probability even an inch.
With Atlanta in a prime position to add to their lead, the first cracks in their foundation started to show. Already within field goal range and facing just a 2nd and 1, former top 10 pick Jake Matthews committed a crucial holding penalty, sending Atlanta out of kicker Matt Bryant’s range and forcing Kyle Shanahan’s offense into a passing situation. New England’s D pounced, sacking Ryan on the final play of the 3rd quarter. The bullet had been dodged.
The task ahead was still formidable. The Patriots entered the final quarter trailing by 19 and pinned on their own 13-yard line. But they had Brady. The G.O.A.T. That rarest of rare athletes that makes everyone around him believe anything is possible. Perhaps sensing the urgency of the situation the offense began to pick up the pace. Prior to that, Belichick and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels looked like they had borrowed a page from the Andy Reid book of clock management. Brady hit’em with a steady diet of Malcolm Mitchell and James White, quickly driving New England’s offense the length of the field and setting up a first-and-goal from the seven-yard line.
But the drive quickly stalled when Patriots turnstile Shaq Mason decided to show America his best Max Lane impersonation, allowing a brutal sack on 3rd down by Falcons DT Grady Jarrett. It was Jarrett’s second sack in three plays and third of the game, despite only registering three sacks all year. At least when Lane got abused in ‘96 it was at the hands of a future Hall-of-Famer, not some second year role player.
4th and goal from the 15. Now what?
Immediately, boozed up Patriots everywhere began frantically crunching the numbers. A touchdown seemed essential if New England had any real chance to win the game but a field goal technically keeps the comeback alive. With the Patriots staring at a long shot 4th down conversion Belichick played the percentages and took the automatic points.
28-12, 4th Quarter: 9:44
It was the right move but it was another New England drive that ended in disappointment. The Patriots now needed two touchdowns and two conversions just to tie the game. Their margin of error was razor thin. Any points by Atlanta and the Patriots were done. Any missed two-point conversions and the Patriots were done. It was going to take a near miracle to pull this off.
The Patriots were slowly clawing back in it but they were now dealing with two opponents: the Falcons and the clock. With that ominous tick, tick, tick echoing in their heads the Patriots needed a break. A big play. A game-changer.
If they were going to make a play, Matt Patricia knew they’d have to force the issue. The Falcons weren’t going to give it to them. With Atlanta facing a 3rd and 1 from their own 36-yard line, Patricia dialed up a blitz. Ryan took the shotgun snap and linebacker Dont’a Hightower exploded off the edge, blowing right past the flailing Devonta Freeman and blasting the unsuspecting Ryan as he attempted to throw. The ball was on the turf. Seconds, that felt like hours, ticked by as all of New England waited for the call.
New England ball.
This was it. The momentum changer they needed. With all eyes looking to Brady and the offense to bring the Patriots back from the brink, it was the defense that came up with the play of the Super Bowl and, for the first time all game, put the fear of god into the Atlanta Falcons. The comeback had now shifted from possible to plausible…..and Atlanta knew it. Until now the Falcons were almost humoring New England. Tolerating that Brady and company were going to make a run at it, all the while confident that Atlanta was still the better team and time was on their side.
Not anymore.
The Patriots had the ball on the Atlanta 25 and a faint but very real doubt was starting to creep into the heads of everyone on the Falcons sideline. Any chance that New England would squander another scoring opportunity was quickly erased when Brady ripped off four straight completions, the last of which was a laser to Danny Amendola for a 6-yard touchdown.
28-18, 4th Quarter: 5:56
Now for the scary subplot: the dreaded two-point conversion. As the Patriots learned the hard way last year in Denver, touchdowns mean nothing if you need eight points. It’s just a case of simple math – no conversion, no comeback. For this crucial play the Patriots decided to go old school. Grabbing a page from their playbook circa 2006 and casting James White in the role of Kevin Faulk, New England went direct snap to the running back, with Brady giving his patented high-snap fake, and White glided into the end zone.
28-20, 4th Quarter: 5:56
The comeback was no longer theoretical. We now officially had a one-score game and the Patriots were one defensive stop away from handing the ball to their franchise quarterback for a chance at history. But Atlanta wasn’t gonna go easy. Following a disastrous kickoff that pinned them on their own 10-yard line, Ryan found an uncovered Devonta Freeman in the flat, and the running back scampered 39 yards down the right side. Before New England had a chance to catch their breath, All-World super freak Julio Jones hauled in a spectacular 27-yard sideline catch, just barely scraping his toes before the white chalk. A collective sigh of defeat could be heard emanating throughout Super Bowl parties across New England. Atlanta was now three runs away from wiping out the Patriots timeouts and handing the ball to Matt Bryant for a game-clinching chip shot.
Or so we thought.
Dan Quinn, failing to learn anything from the Super Bowl two years ago when his then Seahawks made the ill-fated decision to throw the ball in an obvious run situation, let his offense inexplicably take to the air. And the results were disastrous. On 2nd and 11 Matt Ryan, in shotgun, dropped back to pass and was swallowed up by a hard-charging middle rush from DE Trey Flowers. Ryan not only failed to throw the ball away, he lost 12 yards on the play. The 40-yard chip shot was now 53 yards…..and Atlanta was not done imploding. On the next play left tackle Jake Matthews committed his second devastating holding penalty, pushing the Falcons out of field goal range and setting up a crucial 3rd and long. Very long. And when Matt Ryan’s 3rd down pass sailed wide the worst case scenario became reality for Quinn’s team. The Atlanta Falcons were wilting under the brightest spotlight in sports, and now, to win the Super Bowl, they had to stop the most decorated QB in NFL history. A quarterback that has already orchestrated not one, not two, but three game-winning Super Bowl drives.
The stage was set.
Tom Brady and the Patriots, who once trailed by 25 points, were now 91 yards and one two-point conversion away from forcing the first overtime in Super Bowl history. The drive started slow. Two quick incompletions forced New England into a third-and-long, and returned some doubt to the New England faithful. But if any of the 117 million people watching thought the Patriots had run out of miracles, they were about to be proven wrong in the most unlikely of fashion.
A clutch 3rd down catch by Chris Hogan, followed by a completion to rookie Malcolm Mitchell put the Patriots on their own 36-yard line. Next, what started out as an innocuous first-and-ten soon became anything but. Brady dropped back to pass and fired a deep slant to Julian Edelman. The ball was tipped by Alford (the 82-yard interception guy), landed temporarily in Edelman’s arms, bounced off a leg, then an arm, maybe a foot was involved, briefly left Edelman’s arm, suspended in mid air defying any and all things we know about physics, then was grabbed firmly by Edelman just inches before it bounced off the turf.
Unbelievable.
Phenomenal.
Improbable
And, for Patriots fans, cathartic. After suffering thru David Tyree, Jermaine Kearse and Mario Manningham, finally, FINALLY, the guy making the crucial 4th quarter circus Super Bowl catch was wearing a Patriots jersey. The only thing better than the catch might have been the camera work, which provided a spectacular and clear view of the entire play, and left no doubt about the outcome. Unless you were the Atlanta coaching staff, who burned their final timeout desperately challenging the catch. The Patriots team that spent three quarters doing almost nothing right could suddenly do no wrong.
Atlanta on the other hand was reeling. The comeback had now shifted from plausible to inevitable. Rarely do teams get a break like that and fail to capitalize. Brady quickly went back to work, firing a 20-yard dart to Amendola and completing two more passes to White, landing the Patriots on the one-yard line. One play letter White dove up the middle for an easy touchdown.
28-26, 4th Quarter: 0:57
All celebrations, however, were tempered. That Gostkowski missed extra-point left the Patriots two points shy of completing the miracle. One more opportunity for Belichick and McDaniels to dig deep into their bag of tricks. One more opportunity for Brady to execute. One more opportunity for some unheralded Patriot skill guy to make a play.
Brady under center. Trips left. Amendola, on the outside, motions a few steps towards the ball. Snap to Brady, he turns quickly and fires to Amendola. SCORE!!!
28-28, 4th Quarter: 0:57
Cue the bedlam. You can only imagine the spontaneous joy and lunacy that exploded in back halls and barrooms everywhere from Back Bay to Burlington. While the game was not yet won, the comeback, at least, was complete. Brady had officially brought his team back from the brink.
There was one last piece of business before they could begin the first overtime in Super Bowl history. The reigning NFL MVP still had 52 seconds left to rescue his team from this sports calamity. But starting from his own 10-yard line and with no timeouts it predictably became just another opportunity lost for the Falcons.
Onto overtime.
It’s rare to dismiss something as significant as a Super Bowl overtime, but once special teams captain Matthew Slater won the coin toss it all felt like a mere formality. This was the ‘04 Red Sox finishing off the Cardinals with ease after the Sox epic comeback against the Yankees. Was it possible they could lose? Sure. Were they going to lose? Hell no. And any remote glimmer of hope that the Falcons might regroup in overtime was quickly extinguished by the arm of Tom Brady. Brady picked up right where he left off in regulation, firing pinpoint darts past the lunging arms of exhausted Falcons defenders. Five plays, five passes, five completions. The Patriots could taste it. Following a James White run and a pass interference penalty, New England, a team once on death’s doorstep was six feet away from completing the greatest comeback in sports history.
Pitch right to James White, cuts left, breaks a tackle…..
TOUCHDOWN PATRIOTS!!!!!!!
34-28, Super Bowl Champions
You could practically hear the screams echoing across New England, “They did it, they did it, they did it…” And on the field euphoria exploded among the Patriots players. They were celebrating like giddy school boys. It was sports in its purest form. For a brief moment there were no agents, no contracts, and no ego-driven controversies; just the unbridled bliss of the most improbable of improbable victories. Players hugging, players dancing, players laughing, and one franchise quarterback collapsed on his knees, overcome by a deep wave of emotions; emotion about a Mom, emotion about a win and somewhere in there, emotion about enduring and overcoming two years of people wagging their finger of judgment in his face and calling him a cheater.
This game was supposed to be about everything but the game: revenge, race, Deflategate, Goodell, the legacy of a coach and quarterback, and a dynasty looking to add one more chapter to their tome of dominance. But along the way it became about something else. It became about the game. It became about one team with all the odds stacked against it, rallying for the unlikeliest of championships. There will be plenty of time to talk about all that other stuff in the coming months, because on this night, Super Bowl Sunday, all the drama was between the lines. There were no lawyers, no rants and no accusations, just an entire country experiencing one of the most thrilling sporting events they will ever see.
Roger that.