Man in the Arena (2021) s01e07 Episode Script

1
♪♪
At that point in my life,
physically I was still doing really well.
Mentally, I was still very sharp.
Emotionally, I had to deal
with some challenges.
And I read "The Four Agreements."
You know, don't take things personally.
It's not about you all the time.
Don't make assumptions. Try your best.
You know, be impeccable with your word.
And I got pretty good at
applying a lot of those things.
We can do better than that, all right?
Let's get in the end zone.
I've tried to really
be a leader in that sense
for the people that I'm around.
Hey, we gotta put together
a drive, huh?
It's two minutes left in the game.
You're down by ten points.
Should I whine?
"Oh, what happened in the first quarter?"
"Oh, what happened in the second quarter?"
Like, no. This is the situation we're in.
What are we gonna do about it?
Are we gonna fix it,
or are we gonna cry and bitch,
complain that it's not the way we want it?
He caught it!
What attitude are you
gonna take on, you know?
Are you going to take on an attitude
that you're gonna overcome the challenges
and obstacles
and adversities that you face?
Are you gonna be part of the solution,
or are you gonna just complain?
'Cause if you're gonna complain,
that's not gonna solve our problem.
We all sit around and have bitch sessions
about all the things we don't like,
and blame this,
blame that, blame this person,
blame the ref, blame the weather,
blame your sister, blame your agent.
There's some battles you have to fight,
and some you can't.
You can't fight them all.
It's gonna exhaust you.
I have a belief that I'm
gonna inspire through action,
and I wanna inspire people
through doing the right thing,
trying to portray a positive attitude.
Oh, yeah!
You tell me what works.
You look at my body of work
and tell me if that works for me or not,
and if it's worked for the
people that I've been around.
- Oh, my God!
- We did it, Josh.
- I love you, buddy!
- We did it!
I believe that you gotta bring people up.
If you want something different,
you gotta bring
the best out in other people.
It's not just bringing
the best out in you.
But you're only gonna bring
the best out in other people
if you empower them to be their best, too,
which you encourage 'em, you support 'em,
you care for 'em.
That's what leadership's all about.
It's the alleged cheating scandal
launching a thousand
saucy headlines: Deflategate.
The NFL, quote,
"was investigating the possibility
the Patriots deflated footballs."
I didn't, you know, have any, uh
you know,
I didn't alter the ball in any way.
Who handles the balls
after the ref hands them
back over to team custody?
I have no idea.
That's not part of my process.
I don't know. I don't,
you know, I didn't
I don't have any, you know
I'm not a conspiracy theorist.
I don't I have no explanation for it.
I don't know what happened
between the time that I touched it, and
You know, really till Monday morning,
I have no idea what
happened with the balls, so
Like I said, sometimes
some of the toughest things you deal with
end up being the best things
because you realize
the people that you can rely on
that love you and support you
through, you know,
something like this, so
The pass is intercepted at the goal line
by Malcolm Butler.
And after the wackiest lead-up
to a Super Bowl ever,
the New England Patriots
are the NFL champions.
So I'm the oldest, the wisest.
You're watching.
My name's Julie,
and I am the second oldest.
My older sister Maureen, then me,
and then Nancy, and then
Tommy's our little brother.
To open the ball
I'm Nancy Brady.
I'm Tom's third sister.
Older, wiser.
I think that we all four,
you know, have similarities.
Okay, Julie.
Probably personality-wise,
Tommy and Julie are probably
the most similar.
I think competitive-wise,
Tommy and I are probably
Probably the same person.
What do you think makes a good
He was just the cutest little brother.
I don't know.
Always supporting all of us sisters.
He was very much involved in our lives.
With the older siblings,
you're always going to their practices,
and he just kind of would tag along
up to wherever we had to go.
I mean, I was older.
I was kind of doing my thing.
I was busy all the time,
you know, going to practices.
So they would just be the ones
kind of tagging along.
When I would be pitching
in the All Star Tournament,
I remembered, you know, turning around,
and I saw my brother,
like, up on the lightposts
watching the game.
He would just be always
supporting me and just watching.
Tommy was always watching.
He had three older athletic sisters
who always wanted to check on him.
I think he always kind of
would have liked a brother,
and so he looked at the older boys
with a lot of adoration.
We grew up on a street on Portola,
and there were probably,
like, 30 kids on our street,
and so there's a bunch of older boys
that would go out and play football.
Tommy would go out there
to play with them,
and they would tell him to go deep.
"Run long, Tommy, run long."
And they would never
throw it to him.
And he would get so mad, you know.
At that time he had a voice like us,
so it was very high, and he'd be, like,
"Come on, guys, throw me the ball."
And then the next day he'd come back out,
you know, with the same shirt on,
and he would try and play with them.
I mean,
my parents didn't let him play football
till he got to high school
and so I was already at college.
I remember surprising him.
I kind of drove home from college
to watch his game.
And it was high school,
so, I mean, it was fun watching him,
but they sucked.
My mom loved
Joe Montana growing up.
She loved his baby blue eyes,
and, I mean, we were a 49er team
and would root for them.
But I think when Tommy started playing,
that really changed it,
where it cemented
how much we really loved
watching football.
Good afternoon. My name is Tom Mackenzie.
I'm head football coach
at Junipero Serra High School.
I'd like to introduce
my starting quarterback from
this past season, Tom Brady.
You know, we just loved him,
and I think, you know,
we always were very protective of him,
which, you know,
I don't think that ever changes.
We are so proud of him!
The scandal over footballs
in professional football
will not go away,
and in fact it's taken on new life.
That was a lot about
who had power and authority.
And, you know, what it started out as
versus what it became
are two totally different things.
It started out as,
like, the whole air thing,
and PSI of the football.
So the sequence of events is
in a locker room
that was about 71 degrees,
the Patriots' balls were checked
to be 12 1/2 PSI.
They go to the field.
It's colder.
They have a long time to equilibrate.
What happens to the pressure
when you go from warmer to colder?
It drops, right?
And we'll get to that ideal gas law.
Now, instead of thinking ideal gas law,
they thought cheating,
and everything went downhill from there.
I think when they figured out,
like, maybe that was wrong,
it kind of went into something else,
and then when they
couldn't really fight that,
they went on to something else.
And it was like, wait,
we're not even looking at
what the whole initial issue
was here of this football.
A lot of people
we're waiting for that moment
to kind of dig in.
It was vicious.
People should be more on Tom Brady.
In New England, we should
be upset with Tom Brady.
You think he's welcome back at the house?
And a bad sport, freaking baby.
Tom Brady, who is a cheater
Listen, everybody hates the Patriots.
This never-ending saga continues.
It's been 462 days
since the AFC championship game.
Now, there have been some twists
and turns along the way,
but today for Tom Brady,
it's back to square one.
Brady will have to sit
the first four games of the 2016 season,
and backup QB Jimmy Garoppolo
will be taking the snaps.
Maybe that's a little bit
of a disappointment that you feel
when you do accomplish
something like we did,
that it becomes a distraction.
It takes away from what you believe
this team had accomplished,
and that people want to try to
minimize those accomplishments
by certainly talking about
a deflated football.
I think anybody who stepped on a field
and has defended Tom Brady
or defended any great quarterback
knows there's much more
to being a great quarterback
in the National Football League
than the PSI of a football.
And there's a great line
that I always kind of adhere to.
If you're explaining, you're losing.
So I never like going
"But, but, but, but, you know.
I ee-ehh!" You know.
Wrong. Answer wrong.
So I don't need to defend myself, man.
I've defended myself for a long time.
I said what I had to say multiple times
I didn't alter the ball in an way.
In front of a lot of different people
In court, in public.
I felt I had given them what they needed
to make the right decision, but, you know,
I feel like they had
their mind made up, so
There was nothing that I could do
my mom or dad could do.
Like, we couldn't protect him.
We couldn't
We couldn't rationalize it.
It didn't make sense.
You gotta know when to fight,
and you gotta ultimately know
when it's taking
too much out of you to fight.
I could see on the TV,
like, how he was just
It just was taking such a toll on him.
You know, and I realized
that I wasn't gonna win.
So it's hard to beat
31 billionaires in court.
And, you know, I thought
we gave it a great fight,
but in the end, you know,
just dealing with the results
of what a New York circuit judge
decided, you know,
I was decided to put that behind me
and then move on to the next year.
I think the hardest thing is Tommy
is such a amazing ambassador for football,
and I just think it was a huge injustice.
What's your first impression
when I say "that 2016 season"?
Oh.
That was a hard year.
That was a really hard year.
So, um
Just We had a lot going on with my mom
and Tommy.
I remember getting a call.
I don't remember exactly when,
but there were some concerns that she had
'cause she wasn't feeling great
for a period of time.
She was going in for a little checkup
where they found out she had breast cancer
and she also got myeloma.
The breast cancer,
she had to start
getting treatment right away.
I don't know. I don't think you ever
think about your parents,
who are invincible,
having to face, you know,
a potentially terminal disease.
I tried to remain poised
and said, "Mom, don't worry.
We're gonna get through it."
And then I automatically
Maybe it's a little bit of
a toughening up that I've had,
but maybe I'm not the most
empathetic or sympathetic.
I'm trying to solve it.
"Hey, Mom, come on.
This is what we gotta do.
You know, we got to send you
to this person, this person.
We're gonna fix this."
I think to see my mom
watch my brother
go through this experience,
feel for him and empathize with him.
There was a lot of pain during that time,
a lot of stress during that time,
and, you know, wanting
to protect her baby,
she probably internalized a lot of things.
I think my brother just said, "Enough.
Like, this is enough. It's just enough.
We're just gonna"
you know, "It's just enough."
Oof.
My parents are probably
the two most important people
in all of our lives.
They were very involved,
and my dad, you know,
he would always coach,
and my mom was always at home
when we'd come there after school.
We were literally
the friggin' Brady Bunch.
I mean, my mom and dad are just
They're just perfect together.
We sat down. We ate dinner as a family.
No television.
All right
Thanks again.
Each one of us knew
that we could go out and do whatever,
win, lose,
and their love never wavered.
They really believed in us.
Even when I didn't
really believe in myself,
they believed in me.
My dad would always say, like,
"I'm not gonna beat my child down."
You know, the world is there for that.
I'm just gonna support you and love you.
I think that's
what a parent is supposed to be.
♪♪
I think there was a degree
of all the back and forth
that took a toll on the emotions
of everybody in my family,
my extended family, my teammates,
and I think putting that behind us
was really important.
Knowing that I was gonna be
suspended for four games,
I was gonna use it as an opportunity
for me to find a little more balance
in some areas that I haven't had.
Brady ran a little bit
with the first team,
but for most of the day,
he was on the second field
with the second team.
How unusual was that
to see that all day today?
I was always the one that
was leading the first team reps
since I took over for Drew.
Now, they had talked to me a little bit,
said, hey, you know,
we're gonna prepare Jimmy.
We gotta get off to
a great start during the season.
He's gonna get some reps.
That was the first September
that I had off
since, uh, my eighth grade year,
so I didn't even know
what a September was like
without football.
I actually left the stadium.
I'm not playing in September.
We're already off
for the next couple days.
And I'm thinking I'd
really like to go to Costa Rica
to see my wife.
Get some rest, and then
take two or three days with her.
Jumped on a plane, flew
down to Costa Rica in August.
Again, a new experience.
I had never done that,
but it was really good
for our relationship.
Gisele is so wonderful for him.
She always is looking at, you know,
the positive side of everything, you know.
And she always says,
"Why is this happening for me?"
Not, "Why is this happening to me?"
You know, a very small gesture like that
allowed me to recognize
the things I need to do
in our relationship
to make sure that
she feels supported, too.
Because she supported me
for the previous year and a half.
She held me up when I was weak and angry
and sad and depressed,
and that was a really dark time.
It actually worked out
awesome for them.
He saw our family.
Like, I mean, we haven't
had a family holiday together
in, oh, my God, since he was at Michigan.
My mom was about ready
to start chemotherapy.
I think personally,
that was very difficult for her
to see her son kind of raked
through the coals like I was,
so we wanted to really support her,
and we all decided as a family,
we're all gonna go golf at Pebble Beach.
Imagine: kid from the Bay Area
who dreamed of being at Pebble Beach.
My dad took me late
in the 1980s just to watch.
It was really important
for my mom and dad to see him,
but I think it was probably
really important
to be there for my mom and dad
and, like, for him to be a son.
Like, you know, he's Tom Brady,
a football player,
but he's Tommy: son, father, brother.
One of the great highlights
of my life was on the 18th.
My wife was walking out
with my daughter Vivian.
I had my nieces and nephews
running up and down
the fairway on the 18th.
The Pacific Ocean's on the left.
Waves are crashing, and I was reflecting
and having some perspective
on the situation
and realizing that
this is what matters most,
and being with my family
at a very vulnerable time,
I was gonna do my best
to forget about football for a little bit
and catch up on some
other aspects of my life.
It's a big day
in the big house in Ann Arbor,
as BTN is here to check out
the Michigan Wolverines
as they host the Colorado Buffaloes.
They're happy they don't have to play
against Tom Brady,
who is out for the coin toss today.
I decided to take Jack with me to Michigan
because I wanted him to experience
all the incredible things
that I had seen when I was there, too.
And he was a young age
where he was becoming
more understanding
of what his surroundings were
and, you know, the kind
of things that his dad did
when I was younger, when I was in college.
Gosh, you know, that's the furthest
anyone went away from our family.
I'm silly.
It wasn't like we could be at,
you know, Michigan all the time
or check in on him.
He had to grow up.
You know, it was very challenging
to go from kind of the womb of my parents
and the protection
of San Mateo, California,
being the youngest of four
with three sisters who were protective
and being my dad's only son,
to leaving the nest and going to Michigan
and realizing, "Oh, man,
these guys are way tougher than me.
Come on, Brady, Griese. Hurry up.
I mean, obviously when
you're playing college sports,
you're so busy, so there's not
a lot of time, you know.
When we could get back
to Michigan, we'd watch.
And then of course, on TV,
and that's when I really
started to see him,
you know, like,
"Wow, he's a good quarterback."
I met my friend
who was my mentor, Greg Harden,
and he really challenged me to grow up.
And the point was
stop worrying about what
everyone else is doing.
Stop worrying about
what everyone else thinks.
Just do the best with what you got.
I think he was,
like, the fourth quarterback
on the depth chart when it started.
Kind of like the Patriots.
And he just worked his butt off, you know.
And he always knew he would get his shot.
It's Michigan on offense first
at the 25-yard line.
And that was a turning point in my life.
What do I have to do
to control my emotion?
What do I have to do
to control my performance?
Michigan wins in overtime!
Rather than
place blame on other people
for the way that things didn't go
the way I wanted in my life.
And I think Tommy carried that
throughout his entire career,
where it's like, no excuses.
Um, I think that's something
he always lives by.
If he's not happy with something,
you know, he will change it.
Tom Brady is our star star quarterback,
University of Michigan,
and we understand he's going to
have an outstanding performance.
Thank you, Tom.
Nah, because I'm gonna sack him.
- Oh, yes, yes.
- I'm gonna sack him.
Hey!
What do you say?
Mom, wait. He's tying me up.
And there they are. There they are.
There's the kids, in the mud already.
Aw, kids, kids, kids.
Because of his career,
he's not able to be
at a lot of Jack's functions.
It's just professional athletes.
You know, taking him to Michigan,
taking him to his old college
was very special.
You know, he had never
been to a college football game.
I had never been to
a college football game.
I threw him a touchdown pass
in the corner of the end zone,
and he really ate it up.
I mean, he just he loved it.
I got to talk to the team before the game,
got stand on the sideline.
Got to go out there for a coin toss.
Even though they were small moments,
you know, really brief,
they were really important to me,
and they really kept me going, too.
No Tom Brady.
As you know, suspended for four games.
Jimmy Garoppolo
will get the start tonight,
the first of his career,
and they're minus Rob Gronkowski
and some other key people.
So I watched the first game.
I was in the gym working out,
and the team was working out.
I felt like I wanted
to be working out, too.
I'm nervous, I'm pacing.
These are all my boys out there playing.
I'm kind of living
and dying with every play.
Up the middle
That season we had a lot
of the same backs coming back.
We had LeGarrette.
That's how you run, boy.
D-Lew was coming back off injury.
James White was starting
to really come into his own.
Defense was very good.
And I felt like
we upgraded our tight end room.
We upgraded our receiver room.
We drafted Malcolm Mitchell.
Catch made by Mitchell.
Gets away from the defender.
- To the 20.
- We got Chris Hogan.
Lobs it down the left side.
- Hogan wide open!
- And I remember
getting a call from Belichick.
About getting Martellus Bennett.
I had loved Martellus' game,
so we signed him.
The second game,
the Miami game, I worked out.
Can't play much better
than Jimmy Garoppolo has to this point.
Blount with a hurdle
and extra yardage.
And he got driven into the carpet.
Then the third game,
my wife and I went to Italy.
'Cause we never took
a honeymoon when we got married,
but we figured,
you know, we have this moment.
I woke up in the morning,
and I was just following
because I didn't have it.
I was just following on my phone.
Jacoby Brissett,
the rookie from North Carolina State,
is about to become
Went to the Amalfi Coast
and had probably one of the
best moments of our marriage.
Romantic experience,
obviously just us, the two of us,
but also, she was my workout partner.
They're working on Sunday.
I gotta work on Sunday, too.
We're throwing my big bag
of, like, resistance bands
and football equipment
over the top of this fence,
this little mini soccer field
and she's holding the rubber band rope
as I'm sprinting.
You know, talk about
someone who's supportive.
And the Patriots
have not been shut out at home
since November 28, 1993.
Ended up going back that Monday
after the team had lost to Buffalo
to start again, to start the season.
And I'm someone that is fiercely
competitive,
and if you're not with me,
you're against me.
And I realized that, okay,
this year I just play 12 games,
and I was gonna do the best
with the 12 I got.
And rather than whine
that I don't get to play all 16,
go, "You know what?
Let's use this as an advantage."
As if this dude,
who is clearly an ultra competitor,
who is a four-time
Super Bowl champion, okay,
who's been to six Super Bowls,
as if he needed additional motivation.
Coming off the suspension,
we headed to Cleveland,
and we played great, and we won,
but I knew that the real homecoming
would be week 6 at home
against Cincinnati.
This game was circled by Patriots fans.
The chance to welcome
Tom home after five weeks away
quickly became the toughest and
most expensive ticket in town.
I think everyone recognized,
"Aw, the big dog's still here."
Let's go!
First time home, sixth game of the year.
Here we are again, on to Cincinnati.
I wanted to play great, you know,
and our team wanted to play great.
Let's go, baby.
- I'm rooting for you, Tom.
- Let's go whup some.
I love you.
The support that we got for him
made the whole Deflategate enduring.
Without the fan support,
it would have been a lot harder.
They were so happy to have him back.
They were out for blood.
They were out for blood.
To be able to see him,
like, run on the field,
that's one of the things
that we love to do.
It's sort of silly, but to see
that, like, excitement still,
that love of the game,
I mean, it felt good.
It was like hell, yeah,
he's back, you know.
He's, you know, he's bent, not broken.
- Let's go, babe.
- Whoa!
- Let's go.
- Let's go.
I just remember the crowd
screaming "Brady, Brady,"
'cause I had so much support.
Number 12 back at quarterback.
I wanted to go represent
what I was all about,
and the way I could do that
was on the football field.
And that's how I chose to explain myself.
To the end zone.
I'm gonna show you guys, you know,
kind of what I've always shown you.
Just keep reminding you.
Brady's first home touchdown
of the 2016 season.
Brady!
Number one!
I'm liking the defense.
They were tired. Give me a little time.
Just use these in-cuts.
We just gotta keep working them.
- All right.
- They're there.
Tom takes the snap.
Firing for Gronkowski.
Low throw at the goal line. He caught it!
Touchdown, Patriots!
Home touchdown pass number two
for the big guy, number 12.
Look where that guy was.
I know, but what a throw by Tom.
It was just an unbelievable throw.
I think that's the mark
of a great football team
is to control what you can control.
And I can understand
why they didn't like us.
You don't want the team that wins.
You know, if we're gonna lose,
they gotta come beat us.
Went back to a homecoming game
against San Francisco,
and I remember running out
for pregame warmups,
and the whole crowd
was chanting "Brady, Brady."
And Chip Kelly ran by me, and he was like,
damn, there's more people here for you
than there are for the Niners.
When you win 201 games,
which no other quarterback has ever done,
I think our quarterback deserves
- Yes, indeed.
- Special.
We finished, I think, 14-2.
Got into the playoffs,
and we are ready to win.
Welcome to Foxborough's Gillette Stadium
and the AFC championship game.
On the field,
he's like a lion, you know.
He is the fiercest competitor.
With my folks and us,
he's very, you know, humble and sweet
and kind and loving.
And that season,
he was just always checking on my mom.
The thought of potentially,
like, not beating this,
you know, it wasn't an option.
At the same time,
to see her go through
such pain, losing her hair.
Football for me at that time
was like more of a distraction
from what my mom was going through.
You know, but that year was really hard
because we didn't go as much, you know.
'Cause my mom was sick
and my dad wouldn't go without my mom.
My mom was going through
chemo and radiation
over the course of the whole season,
and my dad was there
every step of the way.
I always call him every week.
"How's Mom doing?"
"She's really struggling today."
It's my sisters, fortunately,
that were there to support my mom and dad
at this time in their life
that they didn't know how to navigate.
I think my dad's probably missed one game,
one or two games in his whole life.
So he was with my mom,
and they would they always
watch, sit next to each other,
hold hands, you know.
They pray. They do their whole
little routine that they do.
You know, my dad
needed a lot of support, too,
It was very difficult for my dad
and very sad and hard to see your wife
go through something
as challenging as cancer, um,
but my mom was a trouper,
and I think she found strength
that she didn't know she had.
And I think my dad found strength
that he maybe didn't know that he had.
I mean, I know them
not being at his games that year
was really hard,
and I remember him telling me
that not to worry, we'll be
You'll come to the Super Bowl.
So just get through all your treatments.
The one thing I know about,
when Tommy says something,
you believe him.
And so probably for my mom,
like, that was what she needed to hear.
They stayed so strong for us kids,
and we tried to stay strong for them.
I tried to be there
while I could for my parents,
and always said, "Mom,
I'm gonna get you to Houston," you know.
"I'm gonna get you there."
16-2 now going into
the Super Bowl at Houston
against a really great
Atlanta football team.
Who would have ever known
that would go down
as the greatest Super Bowl ever played?
Tommy believes
in his team every year.
We always say, you know,
after spring training,
"What do you think?"
"Oh, we're gonna be good.
We are going to the Super Bowl."
I think we all
kind of felt the same thing.
I think when he was saying that,
it was like we believed it
and this is gonna be the payback
and he's probably gonna win.
It's the Brady/Belichick factor,
and then add extra motivation to it.
You like the chip on his shoulder?
The chip, the suspension,
the Deflategate thing,
and then his mom, man,
to win this in front of her, I just
We still weren't sure whether my mom
was gonna make it to Houston,
even as we got into Super Bowl week.
She wanted to come, but she just
didn't have a lot of strength.
Just finished my last chemo,
and just wanted to thank you
for all your love and support,
and I couldn't have done it
without my family.
And I love you all, so
She needs this partner in crime.
Me, too. We'll see what happens next.
She's gonna be great.
You know, I think, on about
Tuesday or Wednesday,
she made the decision that she's coming.
You know, she wasn't gonna
miss out on that game.
You know, it's a lot of tears of joy
saying, "Mom, I told you.
We're gonna get here for you."
Put whatever odds you want against us.
Like, we're still here, you know.
And I think it was running parallel
to, like, everything my mom
was going through, you know.
We're still here.
And it just felt like,
you know, it's not done yet.
The three-time Super Bowl MVP,
Tom Brady tonight,
playing in his seventh Super Bowl,
the most of any player
in Super Bowl history.
I was pretty poised.
We were going against
a really good football team.
Their offense was unstoppable.
They had, you know,
Matt was an MVP that year.
Devonta Freeman, Tevin Coleman.
They had a rookie, Austin Hooper,
who was really good,
damn good offensive line.
Julio, Sanu, Gabriel.
So they were gonna score points.
Hey, get 'em ready, Tom. Get 'em going.
The first part of the game
was they were just fast.
They were fast on defense.
You just didn't understand
that their linebackers ran 4.4, 4.5.
Their safeties ran 4.4.
Couldn't get away from them, you know.
The rush was on us.
Whoo! Whoo!
Break his man!
Break him in the.
We're trying to pound the ball.
We finally got a little momentum
in the run game,
and then Deion Jones made a hell of a play
stripping LeGarrette as we were
getting into their territory.
Blount is tackled
and the ball pops out
and Atlanta's recovered.
Yeah!
And, uh, you know, they got the ball.
Do our job now.
Hey, we're gonna come back, LG.
At that point, it was, like,
not the way you want to start the game.
New England turns it over
on the LeGarrette Blount fumble.
No score in the second period
here at Super Bowl LI.
I'm gonna trust you on that, though.
They'll hand it to Freeman inside.
Devonta starts out.
Wide left. He'll score standing
into the end zone.
He took a big leap,
and Atlanta has grabbed
the lead in Super Bowl LI.
♪♪
He caught it! Touchdown, Atlanta.
And Matt Ryan absolutely shot
a laser in there to the rookie.
Atta way! Let's go!
It was like, are you kidding me?
After everything we went through,
like, are you kidding me? Please, please.
Let's go make 'em pay, fellas.
Let's go make 'em pay.
Third down and six.
Brady in the gun, takes the snap.
Four man rush. He's pressured.
He throws down the middle.
Pass is picked off.
It's coming back to the right.
Alford on the run to the 40.
Galloping to the 40 of New England.
Goodbye.
Robert Alford makes a hell of a play.
He felt it, and he just jumped the route.
And I, just as I let it go,
literally as it was leaving my fingertips,
I was like, "Oh."
So I took off running for him.
I dove. I didn't have
any chance of getting him.
Um, he was out of my grasp.
And, uh, you know, you look up
and you see this dude
running the other way,
and you're like, ", man.
If we lose this game, you know,
that's gonna be the play."
You know, that's the play
I'll be thinking about
for the rest of my career.
And I remember sitting on the bench,
like
Pick six in the Super Bowl?
Man, that's just that's losing football.
Right from the beginning,
right, of that game,
we just kinda we're losing.
We kept feeling
lower and lower, you know.
Like, oh, God.
Like we gotta get something rolling.
Hey, it's Tom Brady, though, man.
I know, I know. I'm never comfortable.
We about to put up
40 something on their.
What I'm saying, they never
seen anything like this.
Hey, let's go, boys. You're all right.
A lot of football.
If you look at the first half,
it's not like we weren't
moving the ball, you know.
We moved the ball.
We just didn't do anything with it
once we got in the scoring zone.
We crossed the 50,
and we had no production.
I don't know how many times
we crossed the 50.
It might have been
two or three or four times
with zero points.
Come on!
Let's go!
And we finally, right before half,
kicked the field goal.
But we went in at halftime,
and we were like, look,
all this shit we got is still good.
Like, you look at that call sheet,
this is all gonna still work.
And so at halftime,
we're just kind of sitting there.
We're were not really enjoying
the whole halftime show.
I remember my kids looking at me,
and they're, like, I just want to go home.
Like, I just wanna go home.
It's gonna be a tale of two halves.
There it is.
Completely different half this half.
Coach Belichick said,
"Fellas, 21 points
is not gonna be enough to beat us today."
Let's go, baby.
- Gonna be a hell of a story.
- Hell, yeah.
Do you believe we're gonna win?
- Yes, I do.
- Let's just play our best half.
I don't want anybody to do
anything that you can't do.
Don't try to make it all up in one play.
- Just play each play by itself, okay?
- Yup.
Come on, boys. Let's see what we got now.
Let's see what we got.
I think that we started saying, "Listen,
all we gotta do is, like, score, you know.
If we score in the first drive,
we're back in it.
Got out there. We got the ball.
We had a really great field position.
Had a chance to hit a third down pass.
Julian and I didn't connect.
Maybe we had a chance
to get it if he caught it.
Kicked it to them and, psshh.
It's a touchdown, it's a touchdown,
it's a touchdown!
28-3, man,
and I was like
We need a lot of to go right now.
28-3, man.
Coach said 21 points ain't
gonna be enough to beat us.
28 points might be enough
to beat us today.
And I remember looking down the row,
and everybody was just,
like, totally defeated.
You know, like, "Oh, my God, it's 28-3."
Are we gonna get blown out?
Like, we're getting embarrassed.
It just felt like
the Atlanta fans were so loud.
Atlanta! Dirty bird!
Oh, my God, you know.
Where are the Patriots fans?
You're not thinking about
winning the game at that point.
You're thinking about
how do we not embarrass
ourselves at this point?
It's a different mentality.
We gotta score, man.
Like, we gotta,
we gotta be proud of the fight.
Come on, boys. Let's go now.
We gotta lock in now. Laser focus.
You know, and we had been in situations
where we had been down.
Now, we'd never been down that much.
You know, usually you're down
ten in the Super Bowl,
it's tough to overcome.
We're down 25
with three minutes left
in the third quarter.
Start playing tougher.
Harder, tougher, everything.
Everything we got.
I just kept saying
And it's easier said than done
But we just gotta get one score.
Like, let's maintain our poise,
maintain our execution,
do our jobs,
and we'll score. We'll score.
And it's a 15-yard scamper
right up the gut for a 39-year-old man.
Yeah, we're down 21-3 at half,
but, yeah, we had an advantage
'cause we ran a lot of plays
and we felt like they were
gonna be pretty gassed.
We're gonna put you right back in.
We're gonna put you I know that.
It's a long game
from the beginning of warmup.
It's a long first half,
then there's a long halftime.
It's a long day indoors, in a dome.
You're gonna overheat.
Let's go make something, you know.
Let's make it happen.
And the way we're gonna do it
is by scoring once.
That is across the goal line!
Touchdown, Patriots.
There's one, and maybe, just maybe
Let's go, let's go.
And I was like, great.
That's what we needed.
Good job.
That's how it starts right there.
All you need is one.
Well, we got the first touchdown,
and we were, like, thank God.
We got a touchdown.
We're not gonna just, you know,
bow down and tap out.
That's what the I'm talkin' about!
I feel like the way he
handled the situation that year,
he taught my kids
you're always in charge
of how you respond.
You know, if you're gonna compete,
you're gonna have to be able to take on
what everybody else is gonna say to you.
Hey, let's go now. Gotta answer.
Gotta answer. Gotta answer.
It is all Atlanta to this point.
Falcons 28. The Patriots 9.
Come on, TB12!
We know it's a long shot, but it.
Let's we got nothing to lose.
Like, we're already down.
Brady looks to the right again.
Now will be sacked.
Oh, my goodness!
Nice job!
Call it again, guys. Call it again.
Brady, flushed, sacked again.
Grady Jarrett has done it!
Two sacks in the drive!
Then we kicked a field goal.
Now it's 28-12.
A lot of needs to go right,
but it's a two-score game.
So with 9:44 to go in the fourth quarter,
the Falcons 28 and the Patriots 12.
Need a turnover, D.
We got plenty of time.
We just gotta score
a touchdown, bro.
All right, we need a play.
My man Hightower blasts Matt Ryan.
Knocks the ball, Alan Branch picks it up,
and we're like
Yeah!
We're in business.
When he friggin' nailed that guy,
it was like, oh, my God,
we're coming back.
The whole energy in our
I mean, at least
in our entire family, shifted.
I just don't ever count Tommy out.
Everybody knows Tommy
as the football player,
but he's so much more than that.
Just to watch him grow
and be humble with all his success and
Touchdown, Patriots!
He's one of the luckiest
people in the world, you know,
to be doing something
that he loves so much.
Pats will go for two,
5:56 to go here in the fourth.
Brady realigns, Edelman in short motion.
Direct snap to James White!
And we got the two-point
conversion to James White.
Yeah! Yeah!
Let's go. Let's go.
And it's a one-score game.
Hey, who's surprised they're making a run?
I mean, it's really amazing how
the line played in that game.
Knowing, down 28-3,
there's only one thing
they're doing at that point:
rushing the passer.
And I still had time to throw.
Hey, this could get interesting.
Yeah, it could.
Hey, it's gonna stop.
Let's go.
Falcons 28, Patriots 20.
Now we gotta go take
advantage of our opportunity
and tie this game up.
And now Atlanta's offense
has gotta answer.
Matt out the back door.
Freeman wide open
and out to the 48 yard line.
There they go.
And now they start crossing the 50.
Max snaps it to him.
New England trying to get there.
Matt throws one of
the most incredible balls.
Julio makes one of the most
incredible catches
on our sideline.
He made the catch!
Unbelievable!
I just shook my head.
It was a game of inches.
That will live
in Super Bowl history right there.
And we had now
a lot of plays in that game.
At that point,
they were in field goal range,
and they had a great kicker, Matt Bryant.
New England trying to get there.
Matt flushed to the pocket,
and he'll take a sack.
And they start going backward.
The holding play, there was a sack,
a negative run.
All those things knocked them
out of field position.
- We got Tom Brady.
- We got Tom Brady.
He the greatest of all time, bro.
Hands down, bro. Like, hands down.
And let this quarterback
get the surgical knife out, and let's go.
We had two-plus minutes
to go down and score to tie the game up
if we got the two-point conversion.
I think the first down was incomplete.
Second down, I took that hit.
Brady slow to get up.
And the ref came up.
He said, "Tom, are you okay?"
And I said, "Yeah, I'm good, I'm good."
I took a good clean hit, you know,
I wanted to fight through it.
No one was taking me out of the Super Bowl
with three minutes left in the game.
I would say from that point on,
it was basically autopilot.
At the end of the day,
he's still my little brother.
That doesn't change.
That feeling doesn't change.
When I watch him, you know,
playing even today,
it's, like, it's the same feeling I had
when he was playing on Portola Drive.
♪♪
The clock stopped at 2:28.
Shotgun snap to Brady.
Stands in, throws
down the middle for Edelman.
Ball's tipped.
I caught it. I caught it.
Oh, my God. We like, it was just
Did he catch that?
- Did he make the catch?
- He's got it!
- He did!
- You gotta be kidding me!
At the 40!
Barely, right?
A couple fingers on the bottom.
The ball never hits the ground.
I mean, that was unbelievable.
And so many other times with the Giants,
I mean, we were one catch away
from winning those Super Bowls.
It just tells you how amazing
the body is, too, you know.
A lot of muscle memory kicks in.
A lot of subconscious thought.
Amendola plucks it at the 25.
And we were going
against an opponent
that played a great game.
They didn't play bad, you know.
Matt Ryan may have had
a perfect quarterback rating.
Touchdown, Patriots!
I mean, if you were to say
that the league MVP's
basically gonna have
a perfect quarterback rating,
I'm gonna throw a pick six,
and we're somehow gonna
find a way to win that game?
I mean, no one would believe that.
That's almost impossible.
57 seconds to go.
A two for the tie.
Well, it comes down to this.
Reaches across
the goal line for a score!
It's a tie game in Super Bowl LI.
Yeah! Yeah!
Don't ever count Tom Brady out.
It's the best I've seen,
and put on a show here.
From the suspension standpoint,
once that was over, that was over.
That was in the past for me.
You know, I wasn't gonna dwell on that.
It was an F-E-A year.
There was a lot of support from my wife,
a lot of support from my kids,
a lot of support from my family.
But it was a mutual unconditional support
for my parents,
what they were going through.
Let's go score and win this thing, baby.
For your mom.
For your mom, bro.
You know, my parents
taught us a lot of lessons,
but they lived it,
you know, and we're living it.
We're trying to watch their example
and how they treat one another
and how they treated us
and how they prioritize.
That's truly what life
is all about, and even sports.
It's learning things,
but it's living things.
F-E-A, man. 'em all, man.
They ain't cheering for you anyway,
so you may as well go out there and win.
'Cause, you know, we're not
gonna go try to please everybody
and get everyone to like us
by losing, you know, that's
that. We're not doing that.
We're gonna, you know,
we're gonna 'em all.
Overtime. 28-28.
Two yards from
a fifth Super Bowl championship.
♪♪
Driving forward!
Diving to the goal line!
- It's good!
- A touchdown!
And a title for the Patriots!
I can't believe it.
They have completed
the greatest comeback
in Super Bowl history,
led by the greatest quarterback
in Super Bowl and NFL annals.
- Oh, my God!
- I love you guys.
That's something for me to remember
for the rest of my life.
If there's one game that signifies
what our team was always about, it's
You are the greatest!
Super Bowl LI.
What'd I say at halftime?
It's gonna be a hell of a story.
I love you, bro.
We are so proud of him!
We were walking to Tommy.
He was looking for us.
He was crying, and we just hug,
and he just says, you know, "I love you."
For Tommy, we couldn't have asked
for anything more than that.
You know, that year
had its challenging aspects of it,
and the way that it culminated
with us all being together
after the game with my mom,
just, you know, giving her a big hug.
And my dad, and everyone was crying,
and it was just a really emotional time.
And we won the game,
but my mom won, too,
and my family won, too.
I've never met anyone
like my brother.
I think he lives his life
to really be the best at something.
He is 100,000% committed
to being better
than he was the day before,
and I just don't know
that you meet many people like that.
But at the end of the day,
it was his family,
I think, that has gotten him through,
you know, some of those really
difficult chapters of his life.
This is my life. This is my real life.
This is not I'm not playing a role.
I'm not an actor, I'm a I'm an athlete.
And I found a way to persevere
with some discipline,
um, some determination,
and through having a lot
of support by incredible people.
We are so happy for Tommy.
You know, just to be able
to say, hey, you know what?
I'm not what you said I was.
And, um, I mean, I feel like
he proved to everybody
that, you know, who he is
and what he stands for.
I just think he's a class act
in the way he handled it.
The inspiration
comes from a lot of people
that look up to me.
No cameras allowed. No cameras allowed.
And knowing that I have more left.
I get to put my best out there
doing what I love the most.
And I don't think you ask,
you know, Bruce Springsteen,
"Hey, you had enough?"
Like, you know, Monet or Picasso.
"You're good, man."
Or U2, "Oh, you're okay."
Or Tom Hanks: "Why you still acting?"
I think that that was a great lesson
for the kids in our family.
It's not what you planned, you know,
and it might not even be the truth
because life is tough
and things aren't always fair
and things don't always go
the way that you think they're gonna go.
And then you always have to find,
you know, the lesson in it.
Why is this happening for me?
And it's always
what you do after the fact.
I didn't want to,
you know, ride off to the sunset
knowing that I had a lot left to prove,
a lot left to prove to me.
When I say "prove,"
I don't need to prove
through wins and losses.
I want to prove that I could still play
at a championship level, you know.
That's what I want to do.
When I know that I can't do that anymore,
that's where I'm gonna hang 'em up.
But I wasn't there yet.
I get text messages
all the time, you know,
and I'll send messages
when I see a lot
of other athletes compete.
"Great win, man. Great job."
And then the text back is,
"Man, that was hard."
And I'll say, yep. They all are hard.
They're all hard,
and you wouldn't want to do it
if it wasn't hard.
You're damn right it's hard,
'cause that's how sports
are supposed to be.
When you reach the top
of the mountain in sports,
it's hard.