02.06.17
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The Brady Factor

Now I know not everyone is into American football. We all have our druthers. But even if you cannot stand the game, Super Bowl Some Chinese Guy (Li) may have been the best performance I have ever seen from a team that was pretty much statistically out of it, that made an incredible comeback for the ages. I urge anyone who had better things to do, to watch the replay bound to air soon. Or stream it.

I have been under the weather with some sort of bug, by the time halftime rolled around I was nauseous, stomach rumbling, and a case of the trots. I was lying in bed ill, but still listening to the game. I could care less how spectacular Lady Gaga must have been. Hell at that point I could care less about the game. Brady and the Pats were down 21-3 and looked completely ineffective against a great Atlanta defense. If I wasn’t already sick to my stomach literally, Id have been sick to my stomach figuratively. This wasn’t a game, it was a blowout. Not what a true fan of the game wants to see no matter who is playing.

Not trusting my body I had one of the boys pick up the wife from work. They rolled in right around the time Brady and co. scored a touchdown in the 3rd quarter. The point after bounced off the right upright and we had a score of 28-9. Nobody comes back from 28-9 deficit in the 3rd quarter. This game was over, done, stick a fork in it. Atlanta had its first Super Bowl victory.

But then it happened. The Patriots defense bucked up, and began making plays against a seemingly unstoppable Atlanta offense. Brady started making great throws, his receivers making great catches. They were all of a sudden moving the ball and scoring TD’s. Still it had to be too little too late. They had an insurmountable hill to climb. They needed at least 2 Td’s AND two 2 point conversions, AND a field goal to even tie the game. Absolutely unheard of. That just doesn’t happen.

Atlanta made an impressive drive late, that if it resulted in a field goal, (3 points) would have likely iced it. But a series of mishaps, a sack, a penalty, they were driven back beyond field goal range. They had to give up the ball to the Pats.

By now I was feeling a bit better and managed to park my ass on the couch in front of the TV…

And then the Pats made a drive that resulted in a field goal. Not good. The score 28-12. Which means that the unheard of neccessity of making 2 touchdowns and two 2 point conversions to tie (16 points), was an unlikely pipe dream even for the most die hard Patriot fans. But the Pats made a drive that resulted in a touchdown and a successful two point conversion with nine minutes left.

Surely the Falcons would drive and score, or at least run some time off the clock to guarantee a win? Nope, they were stopped by a resurging Patriot defense. The Patriots got the ball  and had one last ditch chance to score. They needed the touchdown and the 2 point conversion to force the game into an overtime situation. They proceeded to drive the ball and with 57 seconds left in the 4th quarter scored the touchdown. With the success rate of 2 point conversions in the NFL around 50% I figured the luck of the Pats would run out right here. But damn if they didn’t beat the odds.

Tie game. Atlanta had less than a minute on the clock and could not score. Game tied in regulation.

A coin toss decides who gets the ball in overtime. Surely the luck of the Patriots had run out by now? Not to be, they win the toss and get the ball to start overtime. In overtime the game ends with the score of a touchdown, and the opposing team gets a chance to score if the other team gets a field goal. So a field goal no longer wins as sudden death. It takes the TD.

In an already incredible comeback game, did the Patriots have enough to get the job done? Yes, yes they did. They made an impressive drive and scored the sudden death touchdown in three minutes and fifty eight seconds. Marking what I have to believe the most impressive Super Bowl win I have ever seen. Likely in the history of the game itself.

Football fan or no, this was a moment in history. Cementing the superstar status of Tom Brady and the Patriots. I have to hand it the Falcons, they looked unstoppable on offense and very stingy on defense for the first two and a half quarters of this game. They are a great team worthy of a Super Bowl win, but destiny had other things in mind.

The Brady Factor is for real.

EDIT: So much for statistics!

http://www.news.pitt.edu/news/atlanta-falcons-win-super-bowl-says-pitt-researcher

 

 

16 thoughts on “The Brady Factor”

  1. Yeah, best QB to ever play the game. Personally, I do not like the guy and his pro-Trump crap, but, dammit, that was the most amazing Super Bowl I’ve ever seen. 5 Super Bowl wins and this last one was pure genius. Best QB to play the game.

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  2. Even with your spectacular commentary, I will not watch.
    Hope you are well though

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  3. Your blow-by-blow was pretty impressive! Glad you were (physically) able to enjoy the latter (most exciting) part of the game.

    I didn’t start watching until the second half and like most, figured it was going to be a blow-out. In fact, I was mostly Face-booking … and then things started going crazy! Most definitely a nice win for the Pats. Again.

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    • Thank you Nan 🙂

      It was no doubt an edge of the seat hand wringer for Patriot fans and a heartbreaker for Atlanta Falcons fans, and it looked so much like a blowout that had this been the regular season I might well have walked away at halftime.

      With several months of scarcity for a football fan ahead though, I stuck with it. Glad I did.

      I’m temtpted to nag Mak about how even the girls over here can watch the game, but he’d probably send his killer Koala after me 🙂

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  4. The Patriots are only half the story.

    As a long suffering Rams fan, I recognized all the signs of an epic meltdown about to happen. I’ve witnessed several dozen of them. It required this meltdown to create the right conditions for the chance for Brady to cement his place in NFL lore. The Most Valuable Player really should have gone to the entire Atlanta team for failing to play 4 quarters of football and some credit for the 2.5 quarters they actually played.

    I did feel good for the ex-Rams on the Patriots to actually experience not just a play off game – yes, Rams fans, it is possible – but a championship. But you require a defense to collapse and an offence to sputter into ineptness and make rookie mistakes over and over in order to create the right conditions for Brady & Co. to have the opportunity to step up and deliver a historic comeback. Kudos to them for playing all 4 quarters and overtime.

    So let’s not forget it takes one team to really shoot the pooch for another team to have that kind of comeback as well as extraordinary players to pull it off..

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    • And that, as Paul Harvey used to say “is the rest of the story.”

      You bring up a great point. Sometimes for an offense to excel, it takes a defense to fall short. And vice versa.

      Sometimes it is just one team managing to get that golden manifestation which goes unseen, is unmeasurable, completely invisible, yet entirely real, momentum.

      I felt like that 3rd quarter TD with the failed point after, is where the Pats picked up the momentum. Regardless of whether is was a slowing defense or an offense gaining the upper hand, the momentum stayed with them right through the OT win.

      Quick question, how do you feel about losing coach Fisher?

      The reason I ask is I know he took a lot of the heat for the Rams failings, but we had him here in Tn. with the Titans and it was a damn shame to lose him. We only got back to .500 this year since he was let go. Hopefully the next few years will see improvement.

      But yeah, how do you feel about Fisher? I think he is a great coach and it just didn’t work out with the Rams… am open to other perspectives 🙂

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      • The Titans are on the brink of being a really good team, I think. You already have almost all of the pieces in place with a good draft ready to fill in the rest. I expect Mariota will be a top 5 QB next year in a weak division. Look at how that has helped Green Bay.

        Fisher was needed to complete the transition to LA. (Ram fans knew this was going to happen the moment owner Stan Kronke bought a lot of land in LA.) The man can draft defense well but knows next to nothing about offense and it showed year after year after year with pathetic offenses ranked at or very near the bottom. I was happy to see him arrive and jjust as happy to see him go and I’m very excited about McVay and Phillips and what they can do with so much untapped talent. Special teams is a really good unit. Fisher was on the brink of setting a new NFL record for the most number of losses with a career built on mediocrity. No other coach in history has had such a long career losing so his purpose was something other than winning. Now it’s time to start winning with another team – the Chargers – moving to LA to compete for the market. Kronke is investing over 2 billion in the new stadium so the pressure is there to find mediocrity unacceptable. The Rams have to find a way to consistently win and the ownership willing to pay. That’s a good combination.

        I hope McVay can work his magic with Goff and teach receivers how to run timing routes for him. Oh… and actually catch balls. The Washington run game was outstanding so a transplant would help. Once again, the highlight of my year might be draft day but at least with Fisher gone I might have to save sticking my fork in them until later in the season. One can dream… The Titans, on the other hand, are rising fast and worth being excited about.

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        • I haven’t been watching the Rams closely the last few years, but it seems to me they won a lot of games they probably should not have, and lost many they should have won…

          Sometimes even if you have a grade A coach, they can’t do much with a B grade team. And sometimes a grade A coach can turn a B team around and make something out of it.

          I’ve always thought while at times even good coaches should be shown the door, mostly they get a raw deal with teams that for whatever reason just dont quite achieve the level of excellence required to win consistently. It can’t all be the coach. Coaches are one piece of the puzzle. There are offense/defense coordinators/ scouts/owners/salary caps/O line and D line coaches/player skill and or experience/ and me me me players, and if every piece of that puzzle doesn’t quite gel, teams with consistent win records just don’t happen. And if that scenario plays out long enough it IS time to show the coach the door. Because he is the guy that has to make all of those puzzle pieces fit. IMO 🙂

          The Titans are not selling me yet. They had a decent year here, but I have been fooled too many times to think they are going to see a playoff game any time soon. I so want to believe they will make the next step, but I still see the vaunted swiss cheese defense and on/off again offense. I really really want to be pleasantly surprised, but ain’t holding my breath.

          Until they can whup the Texans and the Colts at least with a 50% ratio and be consistent outside the division, they will probably do no better than 3rd within the division. Which means no playoff hopes…

          But what the hell if they can still hit .500 I’ll take it. Sucks being a fan eh?

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  5. You lost me at the word ‘football’.

    But I’m now wondering if an amazing game is a miracle cure for the flu? 🙂

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    • Yes ma’am. It will cure carbunkels, cold sweats, cold sores, the flu, speckled canary pox, and rabbit fever. And just about anything in between.

      (I made one of those up) 🙂

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