Greatness is defined by moments. In the NFL, certain plays encapsulate a player’s career, underscoring what that player’s contribution was to the game they put their blood, sweat, and tears into. Most great athletes have one of these moments. The legends have a couple. The greatest of all time, in any sport, has a laundry list of career-defining plays. Then, there’s Tom Brady. Polarizing, envied, worshiped — he is the embodiment of greatness. For a player like him, no single play can truly quantify his brilliance. However, the one moment that crystallized the legend of TB12, for all sports fans, was the New England Patriots’ historic comeback against the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl LI.
Every football fan had their own experience with this game. Regardless of team affiliation, the first half of the game was shocking. Entering the game, the Patriots were three point favorites, with most viewers expecting the game to be a tightly-contested, down-to-the-wire affair. These same fans were baffled, as midway through the third quarter, the Falcons were already closing in on a superbowl victory, leading by the later infamous score of 28-3. Brady and the Patriots’ offense was invisible, while the Falcons’ MVP quarterback Matt Ryan was painlessly matriculating the ball down the field. Everything that could have gone wrong for the Patriots was going wrong, and the decade-old dynasty that was led by Tom Brady and head coach Bill Belichick was coming into question. Despite Brady’s hope fading, the greatest couldn’t give up that easily.
In times of dismay, the greats never falter, and with Tom Brady being the epitome of greatness, he followed course. Despite being down 28-3 and slowly losing hope in his team’s chances of winning, Brady remained cool on the outside, with a level of calmness that one couldn’t imagine having in the state of calamity surrounding him. With an outward confidence to his coaches and teammates, Brady sent a message that he wouldn’t be giving up, hoping that those around him could buy in too, and that they did. In a split second, the energy in Houston’s NRG stadium, where the Superbowl was being hosted, seemed to have changed. Despair and hopelessness from Patriots fans and players turned to tranquility. A comeback was written off; no one had any expectations for the team that was down 25 points with a little over one and a half quarters left in the game. The superbowl was over in most people’s eyes.
Luckily for the Patriots, Tom Brady had other plans. Brady, the single greatest winner in NFL history, built his career on an unmistakable pocket presence. Often mocked for his lack of mobility, the main weak spot in Brady’s game was his inability to scramble after a play broke down. However, down 25, Brady needed to embrace the unconventional if he wanted to have a chance at glory. Trying to will his team to victory, Brady was forced into his only rushing attempt of the night on a 3rd and 8 at the Falcons’ 35 yard line. Unwilling to go down, Brady galloped for 15 yards, igniting the comeback. Aided by his suddenly suffocating defense, Brady and the Patriots rattled off 25 straight points to bring the game to overtime. In the process, sports fans were treated with one of the greatest plays in superbowl history — Patriots’ wide receiver Julian Edelman's diving fingertip catch while contested by two defenders. Even before entering overtime, the aura surrounding the game transformed. A quietness engulfed the stadium. Brady had made a comeback for the ages, and the outcome of the game was finally sealed. The game no longer felt like a superbowl between the New England Patriots and the Atlanta Falcons, but simply a stage on which Tom Brady would finally prove to the world that he was the greatest to ever do it, period. After winning the overtime coin toss, he drove down the field and Patriots running back James White punched the ball in from the 2-yard line, giving the Patriots another superbowl title and cementing Tom Brady’s status as the greatest player in National Football League history. And in typical fashion, he did it with the Tom Brady magic many love to hate.