A historic Super Bowl win for the Patriots
The biggest comeback, the first overtime, and the winningest quarterback the game has ever seen—the 51st Super Bowl will go down in history as the best one ever played.
To date, the Super Bowl has produced some magical moments, however, for years it has been more about the event than about the game itself. It’s not hard to see why as every year the National Football League (NFL) pours millions of dollars into turning a single night into a global spectacle.
Coming into Super Bowl Sunday, my expectations were low. When you compare the Atlanta Falcons and the New England Patriots, there was no doubting that the Falcons were the clear underdogs. Now, I love an underdog story as much as the next person, but I expected to see the Patriots march their way to their fifth Super Bowl win with little to stand in their way.
This would mean another Super Bowl filled with fireworks (literal ones over the stadium), a sparkly halftime show, and below-average football.
I was so wrong.
As the stage was set for Lady Gaga’s flawless (as always) performance, I was processing that the Falcons were leading 21-3 at halftime.
Comebacks in football are normal in the regular season, but when it comes to the Super Bowl, it’s unheard of. No team has ever come back in the Super Bowl from being 21 points down—no team has even come back from being 10 points down.
So, I sat there thinking, “This is it.” The Falcons will win and Tom Brady will lose his shot at becoming the winningest quarterback in NFL history—a loss he arguably deserves.
Brady has been the subject of multiple investigations into the cheating ways of the New England Patriots. Most recently, he fought for two years to overturn a four-game suspension given to him by league commissioner Roger Goodell over #DeflateGate.
Super Bowl 51 presented Brady with an opportunity for redemption, but the start of the second half didn’t look any better for the Patriots. With 17 minutes left in the game, they were down 28-3.
ESPN reported that, at this point in the game, the Falcons had a 98.9 per cent chance of winning the game.
Then began one of the biggest collapses in sports history. As Atlanta began to crumble under the pressure, Brady proved why he is the best of the best, throwing a record 466 yards in the game, and a record 43 completions.
Brady led his team on four straight scoring drives to tie the game at 28-28. Then ensued the first overtime in Super Bowl history.
At this point, I was cheering for the comeback. What the Patriots were able to accomplish was simply spectacular.
A lucky coin toss win gave the ball back to the Patriots and they made no mistakes in storming across the line to score the winning touchdown. The final score was 34-28 for New England.
Now, whether the Patriots deserved to win a fifth Super Bowl or not is up for debate, but there is no denying the absolute brilliance that Brady displayed in the second half of this game.
With this victory, he has become the winningest quarterback of all time, and capped off the night with his fourth Super Bowl MVP award.
Photo by Keith Allison via CC BY-SA 2.0.