0402020276
DETROIT FREE PRESS
040202
Monday, February 02, 2004
METRO FINAL
1D
Photo DAVE MARTIN/Associated Press
Patriots quarterback Tom Brady celebrates with coach Bill Belichick
after winning the Super Bowl.
MITCH ALBOM Free Press columnist
Copyright (c) 2004, Detroit Free Press
PATRIOTS BY A FOOT
NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT: BRADY GOLDEN
HOUSTON -- And then Tom Brady made a mistake. This was not on his resume. This
was not in his pregame feature. Mistakes were not part of the unflappable
golden boy image that had been crafted by a league hungry for a new King
Quarterback. But there it was. A mistake. A floating duck of a pass, lofted
hastily to the end zone with tight end Christian Fauria in mind.
It should never have been thrown. It was released under pressure. The Patriots
were only nine yards from the end zone, and you don't make mistakes nine yards
from the end zone. You throw it away. You take a sack. But instead, there was
the ball, floating up there, as ethereal as a reputation, and it landed like a
pop fly in the intercepting arms of Carolina's Reggie Howard and just like
that, the nail in the coffin was put back in the toolbox. The close-it-down
touchdown had just evaporated.
Instead of a New England countdown to a title, the Carolina Panthers were
seven minutes and a football field away from a lead and a possible victory in
Super Bowl XXXVIII.
It's a lesson learned over and over in sports. Don't give underdogs a chance.
Don't let them hang around. Don't give them the oxygen that allows them to
breathe, and if they can breathe, they can run, and if they can run, they can
win.
So here was Carolina, just a few plays after Brady's rare mistake, pulling out
its own magic. Jake Delhomme, the Panthers' unlikely quarterback, scrambled
free, bought time, then heaved the ball downfield to Muhsin Muhammad, who
caught it Willie Mays style, and left the defender behind, going all the way
for the longest play from scrimmage in Super Bowl history, 85 yards.
Oh. And the lead, 22-21.
Brady looked at the clock. He exhaled. These are the moments that define a
quarterback. Not his mistake, but the way he rebounds from it. Brady, for what
it's worth, looked about as worried as a guy who just deposited a lottery
check.
He trotted out, and proceeded to craft a 68-yard drive that consisted of two
big third-down completions, a 25-yard sideline strike, and a one-yard
exclamation point for a touchdown that regained the lead with less than three
minutes to go.
That would have been enough -- to repolish the image, to regild the future, to
once again prove that Brady's pregame notices were legit. It would have been
enough -- in another Super Bowl.
But it wasn't enough in this one.
Brady rings up another title
There was another superb quarterback in this Super Bowl. He didn't start out
that way. Jake Delhomme began the game looking like, well, a guy who started
the year backing up Rodney Peete. He and the Panthers could barely breathe in
the first quarter Sunday, much less gain any yardage. At one point, Delhomme
was 1-for-9 for one yard. I'm not making that up. One yard?
But by the fourth quarter, all that was forgotten. Delhomme had become the
cool Cajun he'd been labeled. And he marched his upstart offense right through
the Patriots' defense, with big passes to Muhammad and Ricky Proehl, who
pulled in a short touchdown pass to tie the score, 29-29.
There were 68 seconds left in the game.
Which meant Brady had to be Brady one more time.
"You tell me what quarterback you would want in that situation," Charlie Weis,
the Patriots' offensive coordinator, would say.
It's a fair question. Like a surfer knowing the ocean always gives you another
wave, Brady cruised out and delivered strike after strike, beating the
blitzes, hitting Troy Brown and Deion Branch and moving the Patriots just far
enough to grab the finish that their fans, by now, have gotten used to: With
four seconds left, Adam Vinatieri kicked a 41-yard field goal.
The Patriots won another Super Bowl.
And the Golden Boy -- with three touchdowns, 32 completions and a second Super
Bowl MVP award -- was golden again.
"Tom's a winner," said his coach, Bill Belichick. "He does what he needs to
do, and he does it as well as anybody."
Who's going to argue that now? Brady, by overcoming his own mistake, now has
two Super Bowl rings. That's as many as John Elway. More than Brett Favre.
And Brady is only 26.
A new-millennium Montana
Here's a question. How did such a lousy Super Bowl turn into such a great one?
Let's be honest. For the first hour of this game, you were begging for the
halftime show to start -- and never end. Nobody had scored. Two field goals
had been missed. There were penalties and drops and defensive wrestling. It
was as exciting as watching a copy machine break.
But the same Super Bowl that set the record for longest 0-0 score also was the
Super Bowl that saw 37 points scored in the fourth quarter, 19 by Carolina and
18 by New England. And from Brady's ill-advised interception, this thing was
guns-out, breathtaking sports. It had everything you could want -- big catches
from big receivers, step-up performances by the quarterbacks, and a redemption
tale of immense proportions, with Vinatieri making up for two earlier mistakes
and winning the game the way he won it two years ago.
Say this for the Panthers: They proved they belonged. They never got
intimidated, and with Delhomme's almost incomprehensible calm, they nearly
pulled a huge upset. Delhomme (16-for-33, 323 yards) helped make this Super
Bowl a battle of quarterbacks worthy of the showdown between legends Joe
Montana and Dan Marino back in 1985.
But just as one man had to be the winning quarterback in that one, so too did
one have to emerge victorious Sunday. Brady moves now into the realm of bona
fide superstar. Expect his face to be everywhere. He leaps Favre, Vick,
McNabb, all the rest. Super Bowls do that. Brady has become the first Joe
Montana of the new millennium.
And the Patriots have become, in these days of parity, the closest thing we
have to a dynasty. Two titles in three years, a young roster, and, believe it
or not, four high draft picks this spring.
I know this much.
They won't be drafting a quarterback.
Contact MITCH ALBOM at 313-223-4581 or albom@freepress.com. Catch "The Mitch
Albom Show" 3-6 p.m. weekdays on WJR-AM (760).
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