12

by Casey Sherman

  The Steelers beat the Dolphins and went on to play the red-hot Kansas City Chiefs, while the Houston Texans beat the Raiders, who were forced to turn to the untested Connor Cook after losing star quarterback Derek Carr and backup Matt McGloin to injuries. Cook made his first career start in the playoffs, which christened him the first quarterback in modern history to do so. The Texans, even without injured sack master J. J. Watt, proved too much for the injury-depleted Raiders and cruised to a 27–14 victory, punching their ticket to Foxborough.

  Over in the NFC, the Falcons, too, were awaiting their divisional-round foe, while many were closely watching the Giants. New York snuck up on the league in 2007 and 2011, had beaten the favored Patriots in those Super Bowls, and many were wondering if a third rematch might be in store. Some fans lusted for another shot at the Giants, which they saw as the ultimate redemption, but others shuddered at the thought of dropping a third Super Bowl to Eli Manning’s team.

  Those dreams and concerns both ended wild card weekend when the Giants, who no longer had the guidance of former coach Tom Coughlin, were demolished by Aaron Rodgers and the Packers. The Seahawks, meanwhile, crushed the Lions and earned a date with Atlanta.

  A week later, Matt Ryan embarrassed the Seahawks’ “Legion of Boom” defense, racking up 338 yards and three touchdowns as he led his team to a 36–20 victory.

  Brady was good but not great as he threw two interceptions against Houston, as many as he had all regular season. He also tossed two touchdowns, but the offense was carried by the reemergence of running back Dion Lewis, who became the first player in NFL playoff history to score touchdowns rushing, receiving, and kick returning. In the end, the Patriots claimed an easy 34–16 win that sent them to their sixth-straight AFC championship game, an NFL record.

  That same weekend, Ben Roethlisberger and the Steelers narrowly defeated the Chiefs, 18–16, setting up New England’s third AFC title game against Pittsburgh and Brady’s second against Roethlisberger. The Steelers had gone 11–5 in the regular season, including a 27–16 loss at home in week seven to the Patriots without their starting QB, and looked solid in their playoff victories over the Dolphins and the Chiefs.

  Clouds hung over Gillette Stadium for the AFC championship game and it was a chilly 41 degrees. Weather played no factor as the Steelers once again proved no match for Brady and the Patriots. The revenge tour was in its second-to-last stage as a number 12 was near perfect, connecting on thirty-two of forty-two passes for 384 yards and three touchdowns, including a backbreaking thirty-four-yard flea-flicker bomb to receiver Chris Hogan, who had played college lacrosse for Penn State, in the second quarter. It was the kind of play that tore the heart out of an opponent.

  Roethlisberger was mediocre and the Patriots tallied four unanswered scores in the second half. The Steelers fumbled on their own 26 and Roethlisberger threw an ill-timed interception, while the stout New England defense shut down Pittsburgh all day. When the clock ticked to zero, the scoreboard read Patriots 36, Steelers 17, and New England was on its way to Houston for a league-record ninth Super Bowl.

  The win also marked Tom’s league-record seventh conference title. It was also the seventh for Belichick, who passed the Dolphins’ Don Shula for the most conference championships by a head coach in NFL history.

  By the time the game ended, the Patriots already knew their opponent. Earlier in the day, Matt Ryan and the Falcons had beaten Aaron Rodgers and the Packers at the Georgia Dome by a lopsided score of 44–21. Ryan had been even better than Brady in his championship, throwing for 392 yards and four touchdowns.

  And with that, the heavyweight matchup was set. Super Bowl week would have all the traditional hype, but the story line was already clear: would Tom Brady get his ultimate revenge against Roger Goodell and the NFL? Or would his scorched-earth season end in bitter disappointment? To no one’s surprise, the team refused to talk about it, except in vague terms. As he tends to do, Belichick ignored the questions completely and focused solely on the X’s and O’s and an opponent that he knew had one of the most prolific and difficult-to-contain offenses in the history of the sport.

  Matt Ryan was a touchdown machine, Atlanta’s running backs were the most productive in the league, the defense was young, fast yet hungry, and receiver Julio Jones was simply embarrassing defensive backs and tearing the top off of the league’s best defenses week after week.

  Ryan was enjoying the best season of his career, but there were still those who doubted whether he had the heart and mettle of a true champion. His previous playoff record was a dismal 1–4 and he still had much to prove to fans in Atlanta and around the league.

  A former number three overall pick in the NFL draft out of Boston College, Ryan had a stellar regular season in 2016, with a nearly 70 percent pass completion percentage and the fifth-highest quarterback rating in history. The Falcons signal caller’s regular season was one for the record books and stood among the best quarterback seasons in league history, alongside Brady’s performance in 2007, Aaron Rodgers’s in 2011, and Peyton Manning’s in 2004. His statistics were that good.

  The Falcons won eleven games to clinch the NFC’s second seed as Ryan and his star-studded receiving corps continued their winning ways throughout December and January.

  Atlanta rolled through the playoffs, racking up record-smashing stats as Ryan went a stunning fifty-three for seventy-five for 730 yards with seven touchdowns and no interceptions.

  Bill Belichick raved about how good Ryan and the Falcons were.

  “One guy can’t stop them and we can’t just stop one guy,” the coach said at his first press conference at NRG Stadium in Houston. “They have too many great players…they create a lot of problems for a defense. We’re going to have to play good team defense…I’m sure we’re going to have to make some in-game adjustments and figure out some things as we go. They’re tough. They’re averaging forty points in the playoffs, highest-scoring team in the league through a sixteen-game regular season, which, that says a lot right there.…They’re really good and they’re consistent. They move the ball and hang up a lot of points every week. It’s obviously the biggest challenge of the year…best offensive team that we’ve faced. We’ll have our hands full, we know that.…It’s a very difficult offense to stop.”

  With all that in mind, Belichick didn’t seem to care about some tweet two years ago about deflated balls. He didn’t seem to care about Roger Goodell. And he certainly didn’t seem to care about the reporters’ questions regarding his coaching legacy.

  “I really don’t think about any of that,” he said. “I just try and think about how we can prepare, compete, and perform our best Sunday night against the Falcons. That’s a thing for you to write about. I’m just trying to get ready to coach the game and our players are getting ready to play it. We want to go out there and compete on Sunday night. All the rest of it is what it is.”118

  The coach then heaped praise on the Falcons, as he’s known to do about every opponent, but in this case, the numbers he threw out along with the facts about Atlanta’s dominance raised questions as to why the Patriots were favored in the game.

  For many professional athletes, the limelight and the pressure can get to be overwhelming. They make mistakes. They say the wrong thing. They get heated, frustrated, and angry. Brady had been careful to avoid falling down the Deflategate well as reporters hounded him throughout the season about his suspension. Now number 12 was back at the Super Bowl podium and he wasn’t going to be distracted by the redemption narrative. At least he wouldn’t admit that he was.

  “I’m focused on this game and the importance to our team. We’ve worked really hard to get to this point, and the attention should be on this game, and it’s been a fun week to prepare for a great opponent. It’s going to be a great game,” he said in his first Super Bowl week press conference.

  He was asked about his mother and the adversity he had faced throughout the season.

  “It’s personal with my family and I�
�m just hoping everyone’s here on Sunday to share in a great experience,” he said. “But, it’s just been a tough year. Every family goes through different things and my family’s always been a great support system for me, and hopefully we can make everyone happy on Sunday.”

  Brady also showed respect for the fans who stuck by him.

  “It’s great for your team, but there’s also a lot of people that made an investment in you. They spent their time and energy on their weekend. They’ve worked their tails off all week for those two days and when Sunday comes on and they can do anything and they choose to watch the Patriots,” he said. “They made an investment in us and we want to reward that. We want our fans to know that all the time they spent cheering for us has paid off.”

  In one of his last public comments before the game, Belichick struck an ominous tone. For those expecting Tom and company to cruise to victory and cement his legacy, the veteran coach reminded the world that the Falcons were not to be taken lightly.

  “One thing about this game is you’re playing against a great team…and the Falcons are a great team,” he said. “Certainly we don’t want to play this game from behind you know, 24–0 or 24–3 or something like that, you know where Green Bay ended up last week. We’ve got to avoid that. It’ll be a long night if we don’t.”119

  He didn’t know just how prophetic those words would be.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The Ties That Bind

  As scheduled, Galynn Brady successfully completed her chemotherapy and radiation two weeks before the Super Bowl, and as her son promised, the Patriots would be playing for the world championship in Houston, Texas.

  However, there were complications stemming from her medical treatment, and Galynn developed pneumonia followed by a severe case of shingles. Her doctors questioned whether it was a good idea for her to make the trip from California. But she was determined. The tickets were purchased, the hotel booked, and twenty-four hours before the scheduled flight, doctors finally cleared her for takeoff.

  “I put my [surgical] mask on, got on the airplane, and decided to go,” she recalled.120 “I wanted to be there for Tommy and I wanted to be with our family. Everyone was going to the Super Bowl and I didn’t want to miss that.”

  Galynn’s battle with cancer was not made public, but there was a rumor circulating among those covering the game that she was sick.

  Asked at a press conference a few days before the game if his mother would be attending, Tom told reporters, “I hope so. I don’t know. I’m planning for it, but we’ll have to play it by ear.”

  He said she needed medical clearance to fly because of her condition but wouldn’t discuss any more of the personal details.

  “Um, my mom has been dealing with some health issues. Those are personal things that our family is dealing with,” he said. “I think there are a lot of things that change your perspective on football over the years. When you come in the league and you’re twenty-three years old, it’s everything. It’s still incredibly important because it’s my job, but you know my family and the relationships I have are ultimately the most important thing.…This year has just been a very challenging year, but a great year. We’re at this great point, and we just have to go finish the job.”

  On this day, he embraced the non-football questions and elaborated on what his mind-set had been for the season and gave a glimpse into just how he was able to put aside the noise and focus on football at such a high level. So many other players of his caliber have crumbled under the pressure at some point or another in their careers—whether due to injury, off-the-field drama, contract problems, diminished performance, or other adversity.

  “As a football player, a lot of different things come at you at different times,” he said. “When I’m dealing with football, that’s where my focus needs to be, and I think over the years you just learn about compartmentalization and what your life has to be because you can’t bring things from the outside to your job because everyone is counting on you.”

  Brady also gave some rare insight into his family life and talked about Gisele’s role in keeping their busy household running every day while he focused on the day-to-day rigors of an NFL season.

  “My wife does everything for the kids in the morning. I’m out of the door at six o’clock. When you do that for five months it gets tiring for them,” he told reporters. “You owe so much to your family and your wife and your spouse or people who support you because they’re bearing the burden at home for us to live our dreams. Our dream is so important, but it’s not their dream. They’re sacrificing a lot of their lives for what we do, and you want to be able to reward them as well. That’s what makes it such a special day.”

  It was a glimpse into the quarterback’s personal life, one that he might not have divulged as a younger man. But this was an older, wiser Brady and one who had become extremely adept at controlling his own messaging rather than letting the tabloids or the sports media craft his image. He’d taken to social media more and more over the previous couple of seasons, even hiring a new social media coordinator to oversee his brand.

  The result was a more personal touch. Pictures with Gisele and his kids. Snarky memes taunting opponents after victories. Inspiring messages to his fans. Giveaways. Much like the Players’ Tribune has allowed players to deliver their messages directly to the fans without the interference of a reporter, columnist, or talking head, Brady harnessed the power of social media—and Facebook in particular—to humanize himself as much as possible without violating the integrity of the so-called Patriot Way.

  It was a fine line he walked to create some hype for himself and the Patriots without crossing over into trash talk or creating distractions that would raise Belichick’s scorn.

  The morning of the Super Bowl was a perfect example. With Brady having answered a few questions about his mother’s health situation, he posted a picture on Instagram and Facebook of he and his father kissing her on the cheek.

  “Sandwich kiss for mom at Picture Day!!! Go Pats!!!!”

  The picture received 453,000 likes and 22,000 comments.

  Also that day, Galynn’s daughter-in-law Gisele, the most famous supermodel in the world, treated her to a personal makeup session.

  Number 12 had also been very outspoken about his father in the days leading up to the game. During one news conference, he filled up with tears while calling his dad his hero. But in the context of what was going on with Galynn at the time, it was clear Tom was not just giving lip service to a man who had been a great father. He was paying tribute to his dad for being the man his mom needed during the fight of her life.

  Tom Sr. also fought for his son. By the time of the Super Bowl, he was still wounded by what felt like a smear campaign against his son and was furious when critics tried to diminish his accomplishments.

  “When it happens to your son, it’s a whole different context,” the elder Brady told KRON radio in San Francisco. “Or your daughter or any one of your kids, and I think any parent kind of understands that. They’d rather take the slings and arrows in the heart than have their kids take it.…For what the league did to him and what Roger Goodell constantly lied about is beyond reprehensible as far as I’m concerned.”

  Brady Sr. continued his rant. “[Goodell] went on a witch hunt and went in way over his head and had to lie his way out in numerous ways, and the reality is that Tommy never got suspended for deflating footballs. He got suspended because the court said that he could—Roger Goodell—could do anything he wanted to do to any player for any reason whatsoever. That’s what happened. The NFL admitted they had no evidence on him.”

  Unsurprisingly, the comments went viral as they showed just how personally the whole scandal was taken by the Brady family, despite Tom’s consistent public refusal to discuss the situation. Internally, the team was not happy that Brady’s dad had gone rogue and poked Goodell in the eye and stoked the Deflategate flames just days before the Super Bowl. Tom, as usual, was diplomatic in
discussing his father’s comments.

  “I’ve banned my dad from talking, so he’s no longer available to the media,” Brady joked on his contracted weekly appearance on the Kirk & Callahan Show on Boston’s WEEI 93.7 FM. “I love my dad. As any parent knows how much you love your kids. My dad has been my best friend my entire life. He’s always been my number one supporter. Hopefully he’s at the game cheering me on. He’s a great man and I love him to death. He’s taught me everything about life. Certainly about how to be a father because he’s been the best one a son could ever ask for. I try to pass those things on to my kids because he was so supportive of not only me but my three sisters [who] were all great athletes in their own right. My mom.…They’re still married after close to forty-six years. I’ve been very, very fortunate.”

  Brady told the radio hosts that he was focused on his family’s love and not Goodell’s so-called witch hunt.

  It was a communications strategy that came from the top of the organization, from Belichick specifically. One of the signs hanging in the tunnel in the bowels of Gillette Stadium sums it up with the words Ignore the Noise.

  The team had grown into as cohesive and committed a unit as Belichick had ever coached. Players didn’t directly address Deflategate or the suspension often, but internally there was no denying it was a motivating factor. The Patriots took it as a personal affront that anyone would claim their 2014 title was somehow tainted because of suspicion of underinflated balls.

  The 2016 team was filled with a healthy mix of seasoned veterans, young and hungry players overlooked by many teams, and a variety of journeymen and castoffs. They “ignored the noise” and embraced how Brady always put the team first, despite his high-profile celebrity persona and daily media demands.