Tom Brady Cements Himself as one of the Greatest of All Time
By: Connor Hanson – Staff Writer
The two-time Most Valuable Player and now five-time Super Bowl champion made a 25-point second half deficit look like a walk in the park for the Patriots.
Tom Brady orchestrated six scoring drives in the second half to take down the Atlanta Falcons and 2016 NFL MVP Matt Ryan.
No team has ever come back from a two touchdown deficit in the Super Bowl, let alone a 25-point deficit.
And the best part of it all, Brady did it without his biggest weapon, dynamic tight end Rob Gronkowski. Brady instead worked with three receivers all registering under six feet tall.
Even with a less-than-ideal receiver set, Brady threw for a Super Bowl record 466 passing yards.
If that doesn’t convince you as to why Brady is so great, he did it at the age of 39, an age where most people say that players are in the twilight of their careers. Yet Brady has proved all analysts wrong as he continues to age like a fine wine.
Starting the year off by serving a four game suspension couldn’t even slow down the four-time Super Bowl MVP. Brady put together one of his better seasons to date, only throwing two interceptions during the entire regular season.
To fight through that adversity in the beginning of the season shows just how mentally tough Brady is and what he means for the Patriots organization as a whole.
However, to go into halftime of the Super Bowl down down 21-3, having thrown a pick-six, and then come out and score 31 unanswered points shows why Brady is unmatched as a player.
Put it in perspective. Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan, the season’s MVP, has one of the best running back duos in the game coupled with two electric receivers in Julio Jones and Taylor Gabriel, yet they couldn’t keep up with Patriots scrappy squad led by Julian Edelman and James White, seventh and fourth round draft picks respectively.
Tom Brady made those receivers look like world-beaters compared to the Falcons star studded lineup.
That alone just shows the power of Brady’s leadership, as he makes those around him better, demanding the best from everybody on the field. He could’ve let the Falcons onslaught continue and blame his lack of quality weapons around him, but instead he turned towards what he had and exploited the mismatches he could find.
He turned what was a ravenous Falcons defense in the first half and made it look like swiss cheese in the second half, sitting in the pocket and picking his spots, hitting everything from a checkdown to White, to crossing routes to Edelman and Danny Amendola.
His persistence and refusal to go quietly into the night created one of the best Super Bowls in NFL history. He broke records in both passing yards and comeback deficit. He also helped White break a receiving record as he caught 14 of Brady’s passes on his way to 110 yards through the air. If that’s not getting the most out of your players, I don’t know what is.
Brady, paired along with head coach Bill Belichick, will go down as one of the best duos to grace the gridiron as they have shaped New England into the modern day NFL dynasty with five championships in 15 years.
This 199th pick turned two-time MVP and four-time Super Bowl champion has shown time and time again why his name deserves to be up there with the Brett Favre’s and Joe Montana’s and this latest performance is just the icing on the cake of a prolific career that he has created out of almost nothing.
And the scary part about all of this?
This 39, going on 40-year old shows no signs of slowing down.
Photo Courtesy etonline.com