Super Bowl LI may go down as the crowning achievement in Patriots quarterback Tom Brady’s career, and the moment when he was anointed as the greatest player ever. But it wasn’t Brady’s greatest game.
That’s the word from Brady himself, who says he made far too many mistakes in the first three quarters for his great fourth quarter and his overtime touchdown drive to make it the best game he ever played.
“I don’t really think that is necessarily the case,” Brady told Peter King of TheMMQB.com. “I think it was one of the greatest games I have ever played in, but when I think of an interception return for a touchdown, some other missed opportunities in the first 37, 38 minutes of the game, I don’t really consider playing a good quarter-and-a-half, plus overtime as one of the ‘best games ever’ but it was certainly one of the most thrilling for me, just because so much was on the line and it ended up being an incredible game. There are so many things that played into that game—a high-scoring offense, a top-ranked defense, the long Super Bowl, four-and-a-half-hour game, the way that the game unfolded in the first half versus what happened in the second half … so it was just a great game.”
Brady threw for 466 yards in Super Bowl LI, by far the most he’s ever had in a postseason game and a total he’s only topped in the regular season once. But he threw only two touchdowns, had that pick-six and his passer rating of 95.2 was just the 14th best postseason game of his career. So statistically, you can’t call it Brady’s best game.
But was it the best given the circumstances of falling behind 28-3 and still finding a way to win? Brady doesn’t think so. Plenty of others will disagree with him.
