History

They’ll be rewriting the NFL’s post-season record book in Super Bowl XLIX.

 

Win or lose, Tom Brady will be breaking records today. His sixth start will break a tie with John Elway. Every passing yard will break his own record for playoff yardage (7,017). If he throws a touchdown pass, he’ll break his own record for playoff touchdown passes (49). If the Patriots win the Super Bowl, he will break his own record for playoff wins (20).

With Super Bowl XLIX, the New England Patriots tie the Pittsburgh Steelers and Dallas Cowboys for most appearances in the Super Bowl with eight and head coach Bill Belichick ties Don Shula with six.

But you knew all that.

It just kind of crept up on us, didn’t it? Maybe we took it for granted. With Tom Brady under center the Patriots are 160-47-0 (a 77% winning percentage) in the regular season, 20-8 (71%) in the post-season. Losing has been an anomaly, a disturbance in the force, a bleary Monday morning where nothing seems quite right.

And here we are. Super Bowl Sunday.  

The Patriots may not take home a fourth Lombardi Trophy tonight. The Seahawks are the defending champs and they have the best defense in the NFL. (You know what defense wins, don’t you?) Vegas says it will be close (it doesn’t get any closer than pick ‘em) as do most of the pigskin pundits and bobbleheads. A three point win, one way or the other. Whoever gets the ball last wins (or loses because, you know, defense). Maybe a pick-6 or special teams score is the difference. Maybe we’ll get the first overtime in Super Bowl history.

And maybe the Patriots do win that elusive fourth championship.

I think they will.

And I don’t think it will be close.

Because Tom Brady is Jonathan E, the indomitable hero of “Rollerball.” Brady and the Patriots simply shouldn’t be this good. Not in the salary cap era, not in a sport engineered for parity. Four Super Bowl appearances in 14 years isn’t supposed to happen. 14 straight winning seasons isn’t supposed to happen. 12 AFC East wins with six in a row and five straight playoff byes isn’t supposed to happen. Six AFC Championship game appearances over those 14 seasons isn’t supposed to happen.

But it did happen. Just like Jonathan E, the powers that be would like Tom Brady to go away. The prospect of Brady playing into his 40s, turning the NFL playoff record book into The Book of Tom, marketing his own line of avocado ice cream, making the debate about who is the greatest NFL quarterback of all time a moot point, leading the Patriots to a ninth, tenth or more Super Bowl appearances would be The League’s worst nightmare.

They changed the rules of Rollerball to beat Jonathan E; they changed the rules for officiating (maybe?) the game to beat Tom Brady. The League can’t force Brady to retire any more than the Energy Corporation could make Jonathan E quit but they could smear his good name with innuendo, calling into question everything that he’s accomplished and smugly asserting they are simply doing their job.

Of course, Tom Brady didn’t do it alone. This is football. It’s a team sport, perhaps the ultimate team sport. It takes all eleven men doing their jobs.

And Brady isn’t the only one on the Patriots with a chip on his shoulder, he isn’t the only one on the roster with something to prove, who’ll be wearing his heart on his sleeve tonight. Tom Jackson said after Bill Belichick cut Lawyer Milloy back in 2003 that every player in that locker room hated Belichick. It was a ridiculous statement, of course, and at the risk of sounding equally ridiculous I will say this: Every player in that locker room loves Bill Belichick. Run through a wall? Check. Every player in that locker room has Tom Brady’s back and Brady has theirs.

All three phases of the game. That’s what it’s going to take.