12

by Casey Sherman

  “Look, there’s no room for error now,” McCourty told his defensive teammates.

  There were others who believed, too, like Tom’s dad.

  “This is gonna be the greatest comeback ever,” Tom Sr. texted to his family group chat. “I gotta believe. And I believe.”140

  High above the field in the owner’s luxury suite, Robert and Jonathan Kraft felt sickened. They were trying to figure out what the hell was going on with their team. How could a Belichick-coached squad fail this badly in the franchise’s seventh Super Bowl? Yet, like Tom Brady Sr. and the players on the field, the Krafts did not abandon all hope.

  “Think he’s giving up at 28–3?” Jonathan asked his dad about their quarterback.

  The elder Kraft was stoic and contemplated the possibilities. Before he could answer, Jonathan said what they were both thinking: “No fucking way.”141

  Twitter and a host of NFL players watching from their couches certainly gave the Patriots zero shot at a comeback.

  This game is a classic case of one team playing on ‘All Madden’ & the other team playing on ‘Rookie,’ tweeted Seahawks center Justin Britt.

  I repeat DEFENSE WINS CHAMPIONSHIPS #SB51, tweeted Giants defensive end Justin Tuck, who had tortured Brady in the 2011 Super Bowl won by New York.

  Another celebrity who was quick to give up on the Patriots was Boston-bred actor Mark Wahlberg, a so-called Patriots superfan and friend of both Brady and the Kraft family. After the score hit 28–3, it seems Wahlberg had witnessed enough and could stomach no more. He left NRG Stadium with his wife and two sons. His abrupt exit was captured on video and immediately went viral.

  “Diehard” Patriots fan Mark Wahlberg left Super Bowl LI early, NFL Memes tweeted out to 426,000 followers.

  Wahlberg’s surrender to the moment was symbolic. It was difficult for any New England fan to watch the bloodletting. It was a car crash, but in this instance, you wanted to look away. This was even the case for Brady’s close friends. The quarterback had made cameos in Wahlberg films and TV shows, including Entourage and Ted 2, the latter of which involved a raunchy scene in which Wahlberg and his come-to-life teddy bear Ted try unsuccessfully to steal the quarterback’s sperm. When Deflategate broke, Wahlberg told US Weekly that he texted Tom to offer up support.

  “I sent him a message—saying from a guy who’s been there, [not to] worry about it,” said Wahlberg, who has faced sharp criticism over the years for committing a racially motivated hate crime that he served prison time for as a teenager. “‘Keep your head up. It will all blow over.’”142

  Wahlberg did not have his friend’s back on this day, but Brady’s teammates did.

  “Let’s go, baby,” Edelman said to Tom. “Going to be a hell of a story.”

  Brady nodded silently. His jawline was rigid. No one liked a challenge more than Tom Brady, and now he had the biggest one of his career. His flawless fourth-quarter comeback in the 2001 Super Bowl in New Orleans over Kurt Warner and “The Greatest Show on Turf” had planted the seeds for his legacy and put him in the conversation for great clutch quarterbacks. At the time, though, it was considered to be just a fluke performance from a new young quarterback who looked like he had some potential.

  His next two Super Bowl victories in 2003 and 2004—and the accompanying playoff masterpieces along those journeys—built on his growing legend. As the years went on and he and Belichick racked up record-breaking season after record-breaking season, his legacy continued to grow. The 2007 perfect regular season and his fifty touchdowns that season showed he was among the best ever. His Super Bowl losses in ’07 and ’11 gave critics ammunition to knock him down a peg.

  Deflategate gave them more gunpowder.

  Now what lay in front of him was the opportunity to orchestrate the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history and lay waste to the critics once and for all.

  “Let’s go now. Let’s start showing some fight!” Brady shouted to his teammates on the sidelines with just 8:31 to go in the third quarter and the scoreboard showing the lopsided 28–3 tally. “We’ve got to play harder, tougher. Harder, tougher, everything.”

  In the next series, Brady began to make his move. He took what the Falcons gave him and made them pay. A twelve-yard pass to White was followed by a short run from Dion Lewis. And then on a huge third and three Brady tossed a screen to Edelman, who faked an end around and tossed a deep bomb to Lewis that fell just beyond the outstretched arms of the running back, landing incomplete.

  But this game was not going to be won on trick plays.

  Groans from Patriots fans could be heard from Foxborough to Houston. TVs switched off. Twitter again sounded Brady’s death knell. This one was over. The fat lady was singing.

  It was fourth down and the Patriots were at their own 46-yard line. There was nothing left to lose. Punting it away would have been delaying the inevitable by giving it back to Ryan for the chance to put the game completely out of reach.

  So Belichick and McDaniels made the call to go for it. A do-or-die fourth down in the most difficult of circumstances.

  Like other all-time sports legends such as Michael Jordan, Babe Ruth, and even Tom’s hero, Joe Montana, Brady had displayed the ability to perform at his highest level when it mattered most. Not only that, but perhaps more so than any other athlete in history he seemed able to simplify each of these huge moments and treat it as if it were just any other play.

  Out of the shotgun formation, he dropped back and fired a pass in the flat to Amendola, who scrambled seventeen yards for one of the biggest first downs in Patriots history. Brady had made the throw thousands of times before.

  The drive was alive. A two-yard pass to Amendola. An incompletion to Edelman. And then, on third and eight, Brady bounced in the pocket, saw no one to pass to, and rambled up the middle of the field, tucking the ball and picking up fifteen yards for another big first down.

  In spite of Blount’s costly fumble in the first half, Belichick stuck with the veteran workhorse. The former Oregon Duck running back rambled off consecutive carries of four, nine, and finally a more modest two yards. Fans perhaps were wondering why the Patriots were running the ball when the clock was their primary enemy at this point in the game, but it was a strategic decision that paid dividends. What it did was show the Falcons they weren’t going to just fling the ball all over the field and instead would continue to pound the ball. This decision helped to tire out the Falcons defense.

  The final Blount run made it second and goal at the 5-yard line. New England then substituted out the big back for the more versatile pass catcher White. With the shifty running back aligned to Brady’s left alongside him in the shotgun, White bolted on the snap of the ball into the flats and caught a quick dump-off pass. He immediately slammed on the brakes, sensing the tackler behind him was ripe to overrun the route. The would-be tackler whiffed, allowing White the space he needed to dive into the end zone.

  “Good job, good job,” McDaniels said to the young back as he came off the field.

  “When White scored that first touchdown late in the third quarter, it was one of those bizarre football crowd reactions that is hard to forget,” Matt Chatham, who was in attendance, later recalled. “It definitely wasn’t an explosion of cheering and applause—more like a nervous release of pent-up energy. Patriots fans were well represented in the Super Bowl crowd that day, but they had barely anything to cheer about up to that point. I’m not so sure there were that many people letting themselves think ‘maybe’ at that point. They were more just glad to finally have something to express some happiness about.”

  There was only two minutes left in the third quarter when Gostkowski came out and missed the easy extra point as the ball clanged off the upright.

  Stephen Gostkowski didn’t have his best year kicking in 2016, but he still had one of the strongest legs in the league. He had missed just three extra points during the regular season but shanked one the previous week in the AFC championship game against the Steelers. Thi
s one was much worse.

  Esquire writer Luke O’Neil, who covered the team all season and wrote a scathing piece three days before the Super Bowl about Brady’s support of Trump and how it challenged his fandom, was at the game wavering between doing his job and rooting for the team he’d loved since he was a toddler. He spent the game searching for places to smoke cigarettes so he could calm his frayed nerves.

  O’Neil had created a private Facebook group a few years earlier dedicated to jaded Patriots fans who were homegrown Boston friends of his. The group was originally named for former player Brandon Spikes and referenced an XXX-rated scandal the former linebacker was involved in. Over the seasons, the name changed, but the tone remained the same: this group lived and died with their team, even when their loyalty was challenged by the likes of Deflategate and the team principals’ open support of President Trump.

  During the first three quarters, the group chats wavered between apathy over the blowout and near happiness as some posted that the team got what it deserved because of its support for the divisive Trump. After the missed PAT, O’Neil posted, simply, “Over.” The schizophrenic thread’s mood shifted with each nail-biting play and was a microcosm of the national social media conversation as this game morphed from boring blowout to perhaps the greatest game ever played.

  Patriots hopefuls did the math and determined that should the team even be able to mount a serious comeback, the missed extra point would almost certainly be catastrophic.

  That gaffe aside, the defense had to stand up strong again.

  Now trailing 28–9, New England tried a surprise onside kick, but it failed miserably. The kick went eleven yards and was recovered by the Falcons’ LaRoy Reynolds, an undrafted free agent special teamer out of the University of Virginia who was in his first year with Atlanta. Causing additional pain, the Patriots were called for illegally touching the kick before it went the required ten yards, giving the Falcons an extra five yards.

  It was yet another sign of hopelessness and frustration as Matt Ryan and company took over at the New England 41-yard line with an eighteen-point lead and just two minutes left in the third quarter. It was easy to assume they would march down the field and at the very least extend their lead with a field goal.

  And it felt even more certain when Ryan took the snap on first down and fired a laser to receiver Austin Hooper for a nine-yard gain.

  But the defense would have something to say about the outcome of this series.

  “No more mistakes. No more ‘my bad.’ Everything gotta be perfect,” linebacker Dont’a Hightower growled.143

  The dreadlocked defender had become the unquestioned leader of the Patriots defense and was known for big plays in big games. During the Super Bowl against the Seahawks, it was Hightower’s shoulder tackle on Marshawn Lynch that had led to Malcolm Butler’s game-winning interception on the next play.

  It was time for Hightower and his unit to step up once more.

  On second down with one yard to go for the Falcons, Patriots defensive end Trey Flowers shot the gap and took down running back Tevin Coleman for a one-yard loss. That negative gain was compounded by a ten-yard holding penalty that pushed Atlanta back to the 41-yard line and out of field goal range. New England took the penalty, setting up another second-down situation. Atlanta would need to march eleven yards for a first down. On the following play, Ryan’s pass was incomplete, bringing up a critical third down.

  The NFL MVP took the shotgun snap and gazed downfield. He had no idea that a freight train was heading his way. Patriots linebacker Kyle Van Noy, a midseason pickup from the Detroit Lions, broke through the line and smothered Ryan, slamming him to the turf.

  Like many New England players, Van Noy was another castoff who had struggled in Detroit before getting traded to New England for some late-round draft picks. Born in Reno, Nevada, Van Noy was an All-American linebacker at Brigham Young University who was taken in the second round by the Lions in 2014.

  He spent two seasons in the Motor City. The first season, he was hampered by an abdominal injury but was a role player who saw action in eight games. In 2016, he started seven games and made thirty-nine tackles but was still considered to be a disappointment.

  The new Detroit general manager in 2016 was Bob Quinn, a longtime Patriots scout who got his start in pro football under Belichick. When Quinn’s former boss and mentor called looking for a linebacker, Van Noy was made available. Belichick got him and a seventh-round pick for a sixth-round pick. It was a steal, as Van Noy stepped right into the Patriots rotation in late October of 2016 and was a key part of the defense that helped the team win fourteen regular-season games. It was another classic Belichick move. He was the high priest of finding diamonds in the rough and giving struggling players new life.

  The Van Noy sack now stands as one of the most crucial in Patriots history, but it didn’t go as expected for the big defender. He had originally intended to go for the football and try to knock it out of Ryan’s grip, but the quarterback protected it well so the defensive end crashed into Ryan with all of his 245 pounds.

  The tackle on Ryan pushed the Falcons back to their 49-yard line and out of field goal range. Atlanta’s players were exhausted now. New England had watched the Falcons punch themselves out while the Patriots players had plenty left in them when they needed it. The countless hours of sweat and grit running up that steep hill in Foxborough all season now made perfect sense.

  “I think it was a huge factor in our ability to play longer and harder when it counted most,” offensive line coach Dante Scarnecchia said later of the hill-running practice.144

  The third quarter was coming to a close and the Patriots were down 28–9, but they were still showing a willingness to fight.

  Robert Kraft looked at his son as they surveyed the situation once again.

  “Do you think we’ll win?” the elder Kraft asked.

  Jonathan Kraft thought a beat and considered the score.

  “It’s possible, but not probable,” he said.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Unsung Heroes

  Fourth Quarter

  As Tom Brady got the ball to begin the fourth quarter of Super Bowl LI, the offense found itself pinned at its own 13-yard line with the clock reading 14:51. Statisticians declared the probability of the Patriots’ mounting a comeback to win the game at less than 0.4 percent.

  The drive starter for New England’s offense came with one of Brady’s best throws of the game, a sneaky fifteen-yard completion to rookie wide receiver Malcolm Mitchell. It was the first of several key catches down the stretch for the wiry, six-foot-one Mitchell.

  A graduate of the University of Georgia who grew up in Valdosta, Georgia, Mitchell was a two-way player and was second on the Bulldogs in receptions and receiving yards his sophomore year. But a nasty ACL injury suffered against Clemson in the first game of his junior season put him out for the season. He won comeback player of the year the following season, and had a stellar senior campaign, leading the team in receptions with fifty-eight, for 867 yards. Despite being named an All-American, the injuries pushed him down the draft boards.

  He was another typical Belichick “character guy” whom the coach had his eye on and was happy to snatch in the fourth round. Mitchell was a team captain, almost a prerequisite for a Belichick draft pick, and had an inspiring story of perseverance and overcoming obstacles. His mother, Pratina Woods, had survived breast cancer when he was young and struggled in a bad marriage.

  When he was just ten years old, she moved Malcolm, his sister, and his brother from Tampa to Georgia to get away from her abusive husband. The family lived with her mother, with Malcolm relegated to an air mattress on the floor as his mom tried to find a job. She landed one at a call center and in 2005 got a homeowners’ loan through a nonprofit after several previous rejections, and she and her children moved into a small single-family home in Valdosta.

  It was a pivotal moment for the young family, and for Malcolm, as he drew life lesso
ns from his mother’s struggles and accomplishments in the face of tall odds. But injuries and family issues were not the only challenges Mitchell had to overcome. When he got to college, he could barely read. Yet again, instead of hiding from his problem, he faced it head-on. Malcolm joined a local women’s book club. He was the only male and he was the youngest by twenty years. He patiently learned to read novels like Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn, and Me Before You, by Jojo Moyes, and has attributed the book club to changing his life. His off-the-field accomplishments earned him the David Jacobs Award his senior year, an award given annually to the player who best portrays courage, spirit, character, and determination. He became so enamored of reading that he even published his own children’s book in 2016 called The Magician’s Hat, which promotes the joys of reading.

  When Mitchell arrived at Patriots training camp that previous summer, he was ready to study and worked hard to grasp the team’s complex, timing-based offense. Brady liked what he saw in Malcolm. The receiver had big hands, which allowed him to gain yards after the catch because he could grab the ball in stride and never slow down. A receiver’s success with the Patriots was determined solely on his connection with Brady. If the quarterback trusted you, you could expect big numbers. If he didn’t trust you, you were cast away to the wideout’s version of Siberia.

  Brady trusted Malcolm Mitchell. The rookie had a decent regular season, catching thirty-two passes for 401 yards and four touchdowns, and was a viable fourth or fifth option in the Patriots’ loaded receiving corps.

  That vote of confidence was exactly why Mitchell’s number was now being called over and over by Brady in the fourth quarter. Their first connection of the game came on a deep comeback route where Mitchell only gained separation for the blink of an eye as he broke back to the sideline at the top of the route—the precise moment when the ball was delivered low and to the outside, where only Mitchell could possibly catch it. The killer combination of the timing of Tom’s release, the velocity of the ball racing into the tiny window before the defender could turn, and the pinpoint placement of a ball that traveled over thirty-six yards in the air was awe-inspiring. Brady was playing to perfection and Mitchell was ready.