12

by Casey Sherman

  “There are some days in practice you don’t catch a pass from Tom at all. That doesn’t mean you don’t try your best,” Mitchell recalled. “So in the game, if one drive you don’t get a ball, it really doesn’t matter. You have another drive coming up and maybe you do get a ball. You just want to make sure you’re prepared for whatever opportunity that comes from him. That’s how I think about it.”145

  The next play was a seven-yard strike again to Mitchell that moved the ball to the Patriots’ 35-yard line. Next, James White picked up the first down, bursting through the line for six yards. The offense was finally getting its groove back.

  But was it too late?

  On first and ten, Brady saw Edelman streaking and lofted a bomb. It was the kind of play that Tom loved to go for—a home run that would leave the defense reeling. But this one was a swing and a miss. It went incomplete.

  On second down, Brady went back to the reliable rookie, hitting Mitchell for eighteen yards that took the offense into Atlanta territory.

  “That was all repetition, practice—you’ve already run it enough with Tom,” Mitchell said, reflecting on the drive. “We’d been doing that all year, honestly, so even though it’s a big situation, it feels like a routine route.”

  The Patriots had moved the chains to Atlanta’s 41-yard line and a first down. Number 12 kept pushing. For the first time in Super Bowl LI, the game was slowing down for the legendary quarterback. He could see the entire field. James White ran a simple short hitch route, turning back inside to Brady. The quarterback spotted defensive back Robert Alford’s break on the play and fired the ball to the outside, beyond Alford’s reach. The ball was surgically placed in a spot about two feet off the ground just millimeters away from Alford’s extended arms but within White’s grasp. Brady couldn’t have located the football any better than he did.

  The game clock now read 12:24.

  After an incomplete pass to Amendola, Brady went back to his second tight-end option, Martellus Bennett, with a twenty-five-yard inside fade that once again featured coverage tighter than Lady Gaga’s halftime outfit. But Brady dropped the tip of the ball into a small hole where only Bennett, with his six-foot-six frame, could reach it. The defender simply had no chance.

  It was first and goal from the Atlanta 7-yard line. But the Falcons refused to make it easy.

  Brady took the snap and was sacked by Grady Jarrett under the crushing weight of a powerful three-man rush. A six-foot, three-hundred-pound defensive end out of Clemson, Jarrett was only a second-year pro but was playing with reckless abandon, not unlike the way Michael Strahan, Justin Tuck, Jason Pierre-Paul, and the rest of the Giants defensive corps did in those infamous Giants Super Bowl victories in 2007 and 2011 that had left Tom battered and bruised.

  Jarrett was in Brady’s face all day, causing mayhem, disrupting his rhythm, and making life hell for the offensive line. The Falcons defense was not supposed to be the strength of this team, but their speed, power, discipline, and intensity had been more than the Patriots could handle up to now.

  The protection on the sack was solid, but at a pivotal moment Jarrett just made a great move in a three-man rush, pursued Brady into a vulnerable area of the pocket, and took him down. It was Jarrett’s second sack of the night, with the first coming on another big play—a third and eighteen at the Atlanta 48-yard line back in the first quarter when the game was scoreless.

  While Jarrett made a fantastic play, it was also a subtle mistake by Brady. Had he stayed put or slid to his right, he would have seen the routes he was seeking had actually opened up. Number 12 is generally considered one of the best in the business at pocket movement and manipulation, but on that play he made an error that cost him a dangerously big hit and a missed opportunity at a touchdown throw. It could have been catastrophic, but they were still alive, albeit five yards back to the 12-yard line.

  A pass to White only netted two yards, and on third down Jarrett made his monstrous presence felt again, this time beating right guard Shaq Mason on a tremendous one-on-one interior swim move, propelling himself over, around, and through the Patriots protection. Brady lost another five yards, pushing the Patriots back to the 15-yard line.

  Gostkowski completed the drive with a 33-yard field goal that seemed like a hollow victory, even though it closed the gap to 28–12. With just 9:44 left on the clock, the deficit seemed insurmountable.

  Before Brady could get the ball back, New England’s defense needed a swift series to prevent the Falcons from draining too much of the game clock. Despite the fact that the Patriots had all three of their time-outs left, a couple of successful first downs by Matt Ryan and this Super Bowl would be over.

  After a Gostkowski kickoff, Ryan took over at the Atlanta 27-yard line with just 9:40 on the clock. The Falcons called a run on first down and Tevin Coleman sprinted for a quick eight-yard gain before getting brought down by Trey Flowers and safety Logan Ryan.

  The clock wound down to 8:31.

  By this time, Falcons owner Arthur Blank, the billionaire founder of Home Depot, was on the sidelines. He came down when the score was 28–3 to celebrate with his team. The seventy-four-year-old owner had set the Internet afire following his team’s win in the NFC title game when he danced with his players during their locker room celebration. He looked even more joyful when his team was up by twenty-five against the Patriots as he watched giddily on the field with his wife, Angela Macuga. Robert Kraft, who could see his fellow owner smiling on the Atlanta sidelines, respected Blank immensely and didn’t think he was showboating with his sudden appearance on the field.

  “That being said, he had reason to gloat,” the Patriots owner said.

  It’s not something Kraft would have done, and he thought his friend was making a big mistake. Kraft had been in this situation many times before. Nothing was settled until the game clock hit zero. There was still too much time left before the confetti cannons fired.

  Blank, wearing a black pinstriped suit and a red, white, and black tie with the Falcons logo, had purchased the team in 2002, and this was the team’s first Super Bowl appearance under his ownership. Atlanta had been to the Super Bowl only once before, in the 1998 season, losing to John Elway, Terrell Davis, and the Broncos.

  The Falcons owner was now poised to deliver the franchise’s first Lombardi Trophy and the city’s second-ever world championship following the Braves’ 1995 World Series title.

  But while Blank envisioned a victory parade, Robert Kraft continued to study the game clock.

  There was still time.

  Falcons head coach Dan Quinn and his offensive coordinator, Kyle Shanahan, son of three-time Super Bowl–winning coach Mike Shanahan, discussed what to call next. Shanahan was just twenty-seven when he was named receivers coach for the Houston Texans in 2006, making him the youngest position coach in the league at the time. He later coached for the Redskins and Browns before landing in Atlanta in 2015 with a reputation as an innovative offensive mind who was unafraid to throw the ball all over the field. With an explosive tandem like Ryan and Julio Jones, he had two of the league’s best. He and Quinn had trusted their star quarterback all season to make big plays in important moments. They lived and died on Ryan’s arm and Jones’s freakish athleticism.

  Quinn was also young at just forty-six and had coached on staffs under some of the league’s best over his sixteen years in the NFL, including Steve Mariucci for the 49ers, Nick Saban with the Dolphins, and Jim Mora and Pete Carroll with the Seahawks. He was on the sidelines when Seattle lost to the Patriots in Super Bowl XLIX. He was determined not to let the game slip away from him as Pete Carroll had done.

  Quinn and Shanahan reviewed their call sheets. They knew a big play could return the momentum to their favor and keep Brady on the sidelines for at least another couple of minutes.

  On third down, with just one yard to go and only 8:31 left in the game, Matt Ryan lined up in the shotgun once again, signaling to the Patriots and the world that he was going to throw. Hig
htower was lined up to the far left of the Patriots’ defensive line. The ball was snapped and Ryan started to drop back as he looked downfield. Receiver Aldrick Robinson was wide open. So was Jones across the middle.

  But Hightower blew past Falcons running back Devonta Freeman. The overmatched back whiffed on his attempt to block Hightower, and the speedy linebacker accelerated and smashed into Ryan cleanly just as the quarterback prepared to unload what surely would have been a first-down completion, if not a touchdown. Hightower swatted at the ball and it came loose.

  The linebacker and Ryan crashed to the turf. So did the ball. Quick-thinking Patriots lineman Alan Branch was right there and pounced on it.

  Brady looked up at the giant stadium screen.

  “Our ball!” he shouted. He turned toward his offense and shouted it again: “Our ball!” It was the Falcons’ first turnover of the postseason. Matt Ryan was stunned.

  New England now had possession of the ball at the Atlanta 25-yard line.

  “The back had me. He didn’t see me ’cause I was outside,” Hightower told teammate Rob Ninkovich on the sidelines after the big play. “So he looked, and went.”146

  Just as with his big play on the Seahawks’ final series in Super Bowl XLIX, Dont’a Hightower’s heroic play on Ryan had a seismic impact. The momentum had swung violently in favor of the Patriots for the first time in the game. Now it was the Falcons who were back on their collective heels. Owner Arthur Blank shook his head and looked down at the turf, his dark eyes vacant. The NFL MVP walked wearily toward the Falcons’ bench. Just minutes before, Ryan was the odds-on favorite to earn Super Bowl most valuable player honors. Now he appeared lost as Tom Brady trotted back onto the field.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  The Steep Climb

  There was now just 8:24 left on the clock in the fourth quarter, and it was first and ten and the Falcons pass rush sent another message to number 12. If he was going to bring his team back, he would have to earn every yard. Dwight Freeney, a veteran defensive end who won a title with the Colts ten years earlier, had haunted Brady for years. The quarterback called him “a machine.” Now the machine was lined up on the opposite side of the ball wearing a Falcons helmet. Brady placed his hands under center, took the snap, and dropped back, faking a handoff to Blount, who sprinted up the middle through the offensive line. As the quarterback continued stepping back, Freeney rushed the line, beating left tackle Nate Solder around the outside, and pounced on Brady’s back as he attempted to step up in the pocket. Tom protected the ball but went down with a thud to the turf under the 270-pound crafty veteran. The play lost five yards, but perhaps more importantly, it shaved another forty seconds off the clock.

  After the Freeney sack, the margin of error dropped to zero.

  “Over,” an exasperated Luke O’Neil posted again to his Facebook group.

  “I stopped watching,” one group member admitted. “Should I start watching again?”

  The superstitious bunch of wisecracking Patriots fans leaped on their friend.

  “No. Don’t change anything you’re doing,” one posted.

  Patriots fans across the country went through similar exercises. People who had switched seats at the beginning of the fourth quarter went back to their original seats. Fans who had taken off baseball caps put them back on. Nothing brings out hardcore OCD more than a nail-biting sports comeback attempt, especially when a Boston team is involved.

  Brady pulled himself off the turf and walked angrily back to the huddle.

  “Let’s fuckin’ go!” he shouted. He breathed deeply, trying to regain his composure. He called the next play and got under center. It was second down and a long fifteen yards ahead for a first down.

  The ball was snapped at the Atlanta 30-yard line.

  Brady spotted James White open in the flat and hit him with a strike for four yards. Falcons defender Keanu Neal brought the shifty back down as the clock ticked to 7:03.

  It was third and eleven. A field goal was not an option. Number 12 got into the shotgun, flanked by White. Hogan, Amendola, Edelman, and Mitchell lined up in spread formation. Mitchell ran a fast comeback route and nearly broke cornerback C. J. Goodwin’s ankles when he got to the first-down marker as he quickly cut back to face his quarterback. Goodwin tried to stay with the route but fell just as Brady’s powerful spiral landed squarely in Mitchell’s hands.

  First down.

  Next, number 12 hit Amendola for eight yards to bring the ball down to the Atlanta 6-yard line. There were just six minutes to play.

  They were in the hurry-up offense and lined up quickly with five receivers wide. As Brady so often does, he noticed something he liked before the snap and gestured to Amendola to widen his split to be farther away from the formation.

  As the receiver adjusted his alignment slightly, he recognized that he would receive off and inside coverage from the defensive back across from him. Without the shift, there was ambiguity on the coverage, but the defensive back barely moved with Amendola’s slight shift, alerting Brady that coverage on any out route was likely to be taken with inside leverage. In other words, the defensive back could never get to a perfectly delivered ball low and to the outside at this down and distance. This subtle recognition is what the experts like to call football IQ.

  The play unfolded precisely as number 12 imagined it would. He took the snap out of the shotgun and Amendola ran an out route. Brady placed the ball precisely where it needed to be as Amendola cut at the goal line. It was a perfectly thrown ball that Amendola hauled in as he crossed the goal line.

  Up in the luxury box, Gisele Bündchen jumped up and down clapping for her husband. Robert Kraft high-fived his friends. He wore a wide smile. Jonathan Kraft exhaled but still wasn’t smiling.

  It was at this moment that fans rooting for and against the Patriots realized they were witnessing something special, perhaps even historic.

  Twitter erupted, with Brady’s opponents heaping praise on the quarterback.

  Lol. Because Tom Brady is Tom Brady, tweeted Ravens defensive back Brandon Boykin.

  Too much time for #12, offered Minnesota Vikings offensive guard Jeremiah Sirles.

  WOW. Never count Brady out. EVER, Dolphins defensive end Andre Branch added.

  Number 12 immediately held up two fingers, signaling that they were going for the two-point conversion to bring the game—amazingly—to a one-score affair. What had seemed impossible just minutes ago was now very real.

  With the score 28–18 and just under six minutes left on the clock, Josh McDaniels looked at the two-point conversion options on his play sheet and called “Ride 34 Direct,” a direct snap to a running back who runs through the middle of an offensive line using a zone blocking scheme. It was a play the Patriots had used thirteen years earlier against the Carolina Panthers in Super Bowl XXXVIII in the same exact stadium, then called Reliant Stadium.

  Against the Falcons, the play made perfect sense once again. James White lined up to Brady’s left while slot receivers were aligned on each side and Martellus Bennett was posted a step behind the offensive line. White went in motion and settled to Brady’s left, slightly in front of his quarterback. Just as it happened in 2004, the snap came from center David Andrews and White snatched it out of midair. Brady leaped to simulate an errant snap and White plummeted into the end zone.

  The score was now 28–20.

  “Hey, this could get interesting,” referee Carl Cheffers said to linesman Kent Payne.

  “Now we’ve got a ball game, folks!” announcer Scott Zolak screamed on the Patriots radio broadcast.

  The Patriots still needed a gargantuan defensive stand against the league’s top-ranked offense.

  With just 5:56 remaining, the Falcons were prepared for an onside kick and lined up with their best ballhandlers—the “hands team”—within ten yards of the Patriots kick line. Belichick and special teams coach Joe Judge talked it over with defensive coordinator Matt Patricia and decided that the defense deserved a shot a
t winning this game, rather than risk giving Matt Ryan the ball back just a couple tosses away from field goal range.

  Gostkowski booted the kickoff down to the Atlanta 3-yard line and the returner took it back seven yards. Matt Ryan and Julio Jones had one more shot to knock out Brady and the Patriots.

  Now it was Falcons fans who were praying for a miracle. Owner Arthur Blank remained on the sidelines, exposed and stoic as he awaited the fate of his franchise.

  Matt Ryan appeared to be returning to form now. On his first play from scrimmage, he hit Devonta Freeman with a short slant that the speedy back took for thirty-nine yards before he was hauled down by Patriots rookie linebacker Elandon Roberts.

  The clock ticked down to 5:18.

  The next play went nowhere, but on second down and nine yards to go, the Patriots’ valiant comeback attempt seemed to be wiped out in one nightmarish play that hearkened back to their two soul-crushing Super Bowl losses to the Giants.

  Ryan stood in the shotgun as Julio Jones jogged in motion behind the line and set up to his quarterback’s right. Everyone in the stadium knew that a pass to Jones was likely. He’d been pretty quiet for most of the game, but his specialty was big plays and this was the time for one. His coaches and his quarterback felt he was due.

  The Patriots got a good rush and the pocket started to collapse. But Ryan stepped up and started running toward the line of scrimmage. Just before he got to the line, he cocked back his million-dollar arm and let one fly downfield. Jones was double-covered. Cornerback Eric Rowe leaped and swatted at the ball but missed as it sailed just over his fingertips and into Jones’s outstretched hands. Duron Harmon, who had rallied the troops at halftime, provided safety help over the top but couldn’t get to Jones in time to disrupt the catch.