Hurley: Tom Brady, Patriots Author Victory That's Hard To Remember, Impossible To Forget
FOXBORO (CBS) -- In the past 15 years of Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, there have been simply too many huge moments, incredible plays and unpredictable twists to properly compartmentalize each and every instant. As a result, all of the success and failures, the highs and the lows -- they all blend together as one massive football collage that's taken a decade and a half to paint.
Still, in the minutes and hours following one specific game, it's typically easy enough to remember the previous 60 minutes of football. Yet by the time the final seconds ticked off the clock on Saturday night, after Devin McCourty knocked Joe Flacco's final prayer to the turf, the game that had just taken place lacked detail. It frankly seemed like a wild blur.
Despite the deep volume of games played, it's difficult to recall a game that saw these wrinkles, this excitement, these comebacks, this struggle. This was a real battle. It was football. And by the end, it was hard to piece it all together, but one thing remained clear: the scoreboard.
It read: Patriots 35, Ravens 31.
"Yeah, probably," Patriots head coach Bill Belichick said when asked if it was one of the craziest playoff victories of his postseason career. "Well, I don't know. We've had some ... but yeah, it was, look, that means I've been doing this a long, long time. But there's nothing like a playoff game. There's nothing like a playoff win. The regular season is great, but when you play these games it's single-elimination and the urgency and what's at stake for you and your team and what you've worked five-plus months for to get to this point all comes down to one game or in some cases, one play or one series or whatever it is. That just heightens everything.
"But yeah, it was a wild game," he continued, "but I'm just thankful that our players hung in there and made the plays they needed to make to get us a victory."
That victory was certainly hard-fought and seemed to be in doubt on more than one occasion by the 68,000 fans in attendance and the millions watching at home. The Patriots fell behind 14-0, recalling memories of the Ravens' 33-14 win in this very building five years prior, an afternoon that's also known as the most embarrassing home playoff loss of the Belichick-era Patriots. Yet on this day, Tom Brady connected with Rob Gronkowski on consecutive passes to pick up 62 yards in a matter of seconds. Moments later, Brady called his own number and ran it in for a touchdown from the 4-yard line.
The Patriots had life.
"I can't say enough about Tom Brady. There's a reason why everybody knows his name," said offensive lineman Ryan Wendell. "The guy knows what he's doing."
The Patriots took over once more, still trailing by a touchdown, when they welcomed their first stroke of luck. Julian Edelman, after making a catch across the middle, fumbled the ball deep in New England territory. Despite the fact that he was surrounded -- and subsequently smothered -- by four white jerseys, Edelman somehow emerged from the pile with the football.
"Thankfully, I was able to get up and get that ball," Edelman said after the game, "but you do that a few more times in this next game, sometimes it doesn't fall your way and that can cost a game."
The Patriots capitalized on that blessing (any fumble recovery requires a healthy amount of good luck) by turning it into a 10-play, 67-yard touchdown drive to tie the game.
All was right in Foxboro. Until, again, it wasn't.
Driving with the hope of taking a lead before halftime, Brady badly underthrew Gronkowski, and Ravens linebacker Daryl Smith intercepted the pass.
"It was just a terrible play by me," Brady said. "We finally tied it up at 14. We had a chance to actually go ahead for the first time in the two-minute drive there, and I just made a terrible decision."
The Ravens made it hurt, too. Six plays, 57 yards and just 53 seconds later, Flacco hit Owen Daniels in the back of the end zone, giving the Ravens a seven-point cushion at halftime.
And yet again, it got worse. The Patriots went three-and-out to start the second half, and the Ravens promptly converted a fourth-and-6 with a 35-yard pass to Torrey Smith. On the next play, Justin Forsett was left all alone for a 16-yard catch-and-run for a touchdown.
For the second time in a matter of an hour, the Patriots trailed by 14 points. The once-reinvigorated crowd fell silent again, save for some scattered boos. The Patriots had already come back once, but to come back twice would require some creativity.
Fortunately for them, they have one of the most creative coaches in history.
The man who has called for intentional safeties and quarterback drop kicks and punts had another trick up his sleeve. After Bryan Stork, the starting center, had left due to a knee injury, Belichick employed a perhaps-never-before-seen strategy of using four linemen on three separate plays. One player -- twice Shane Vereen, once Michael Hoomanawanui -- declared himself to be ineligible, which caused great confusion on the other side of the ball and helped the Patriots drive 80 yards in 3:34 to cut the lead back to a touchdown.
The formations caused a minor controversy. Ravens coach John Harbaugh earned a penalty for arguing that the Patriots were stretching the rules, and he said after the game that it was "clearly deception." Brady, unmoved, replied thusly: "I don't know what's deceiving about that. They should figure it out."
Trickery over, on the ensuing drive the defense finally showed up. The Patriots forced a three-and-out, and the Patriots took over at their own 31-yard line trying to tie the game.
It was then that the Patriots finally pulled the emergency cord that's been attached to Julian Edelman's back since he entered the league as a Kent State quarterback-turned-wide receiver.
The Patriots let Julian throw the football.
Edelman motioned right to left about 5 yards behind the line of scrimmage. Brady took the snap from under center and fired to Edelman on the left side, resembling a screen pass which the Patriots have run innumerable times over the past few seasons. The Ravens bought it and sold out in an effort to attack Edelman.
Edelman, of course, had other plans, as he shuffled the ball in his red gloved hands and lobbed a picture-perfect deep ball to a streaking Danny Amendola.
After dozens and dozens of television broadcasters have reminded viewers again and again (and again) that Edelman played quarterback in college, the Patriots at long last put those skills to use. And after Amendola finished high-stepping his way through the end zone, the game was tied, 28-28.
"You've got to unload everything you've got to win against a team like that," Edelman said, adding that it's been a dream of his to throw a touchdown pass in the NFL since he was 8 years old.
Edelman also said he "secretly" practice that play with Amendola for a long time. And at just the right time, they made it public.
"I've gotta make some rules that he can't throw it better than I can, but he did," Brady said of Edelman's first-ever NFL pass, a 51-yard touchdown in the playoffs. "It was pretty sweet."
So there it was. Tied, 28-28. Even Steven. Nineteen minutes and 20 seconds left to play. One team's season was going to end, almost assuredly in heartbreak, while another team would be moving on to live another week.
It was at that point that the game swung every which way, following the path of a skiff lost at sea.
Flacco was intercepted by Devin McCourty; the Patriots went three-and-out after Brady twice missed a wide-open Gronkowski by a country mile.
Pats punter Ryan Allen that added insult to injury, kicking the ball out of bounds at the 20-yard line. The Flacco interception, for all intents and purposes, gave the Ravens two free yards.
Three plays later, Jamie Collins broke through the middle of the Baltimore line, stripped the ball from Flacco and then crawled on top of the loose ball, setting up the Patriots inside the Baltimore 5-yard line. Or so they thought. There was a flag on the play -- illegal contact on Darrelle Revis, the All-Pro cornerback who was made to look rather ordinary on this day -- and the Ravens were given new life.
The Ravens would later convert a fourth-and-1, one of three successful fourth-down conversions on the night, and drove inside the Patriots 10-yard line. New England stood tall, and on third down, Flacco threw the same pass to Daniels that served as the dagger bookend to the first half. This time, though, Daniels let the pass bounce off his hands, and the Ravens settled for a field goal.
Deep breath.
It was then that Brady was faced with a real "show-me" drive. The quarterback has had his issues with the Ravens, the team that's second only to the New York Giants in terms of tarnishing the future Hall of Famer's legacy. Fair or unfair, the quarterback always soaks in all the glory and is drenched in all of the blame following a playoff game, and in that sense, there was a lot on the line for the 37-year-old quarterback.
With a limited number of years remaining in his career, staring another all-too-early conclusion to his season right in the face ... Brady handled the challenge rather well.
Completion to Brandon LaFell, 7 yards.
Completion to Edelman, 8 yards.
Completion to Vereen, 8 yards.
Quarterback sneak, 2 yards, first down.
Incompletion -- throwaway.
Completion to Gronkowski, 4 yards.
Completion to Amendola, 6 yards.
Completion to Hoomanawanui, 9 yards.
Completion to Edelman, 6 yards.
Completion to LaFell, 23 yards.
Touchdown.
Ballgame.
With everything on the line, Brady went 8-for-9, hitting six different receivers and driving 74 yards in 5:04.
If it hadn't been done by the same man so many times before, it would have been unbelievable. Instead, it was, as they say, "Vintage Brady."
"Tom is, he was just … he was Tom," Edelman explained.
Of course, the lobbed pass with the perfect touch gave the Patriots a four-point lead, but the game was not quite over yet. There was the whole matter of stopping the offense that was being led by Flacco, he of four touchdown passes and a five-game postseason winning streak.
And things got dicey for the Patriots' defense. They couldn't stop a fourth-and-3 from the Baltimore 42, when Flacco hit Daniels for a 17-yard gain. And after Chandler Jones was penalized for offsides, the Ravens went to work with a first-and-5 from the Patriots 36-yard line and plenty of time on the clock.
It was then that yet another unpredictable play transpired. In a year when the additions of cornerbacks Revis and Brandon Browner inspired most analysts and pundits to praise the revamped defense, it was the actions of Logan Ryan and Duron Harmon that clinched the game. Many mocked Belichick for his insistence drafting so many players from Rutgers, the alma mater of both Ryan and Harmon that is not exactly known as a football powerhouse, yet it was that duo of 2013 draftees that came up with the biggest play in the biggest moment.
Ryan covered Torrey Smith up the left sideline as Flacco hurled his patented arching deep ball toward the end zone. Harmon, at safety, played the pass like a center fielder, waiting patiently near the left boundary before leaping into the air and coming down with the football.
Pandemonium.
From there, it was all over, but for the portly lass singing. Brady took three knees, seemingly soaking in the moment by staying down for several seconds each time. Clearly, he wanted to enjoy this one.
The Ravens called timeout with 14 seconds left, forcing a New England punt. Jacoby Jones found no space for a return, and the Ravens had one last chance.
With Gronkowski on the field on the defensive side of the ball, Flacco sent one more deep pass toward the end zone. This one came down into a sea of navy, white, silver and black. McCourty leaped and spiked the pass down to the turf.
The game was over. The Patriots had won. And everyone inside Gillette Stadium witnessed something they'd never forget -- from whatever they could remember.
Read more from Michael Hurley by clicking here, or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.
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