It was a game that left the football world Brady Gaga.
After a first half in which he played like that impostor in a Tom Brady mask, the Patriots quarterback put on a Super Bowl performance for the ages Sunday, leading his team back from a 25-point deficit to beat the Falcons in overtime, 34-28.
Half the crowd at NRG Stadium was delirious, and half was stunned. But Brady was wholly spectacular, surpassing Hall of Fame quarterbacks Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw to win his fifth Lombardi Trophy — a fifth, too, for Bill Belichick, the most of any head coach.
“We all brought each other back,” Brady said. “We never felt out of it.”
The knockout blow was not a pass, but a run, a 2-yard carry around the right side by James White, who just pushed his way across the plane of the end zone on the first possession of the extra period — the first overtime game in the game’s 51-year history.
That the Patriots were even in that position was stunning, considering midway through the third quarter they trailed 28-3 and barely had registered a pulse. The Falcons looked as if they could coast through the second half and collect the franchise’s first Super Bowl win.
The Patriots are the first team to win a postseason game after trailing by more than 16 points in the final quarter. It also was the largest comeback in team history, with Brady’s previous best a 24-point comeback against Denver in 2013.
“We made history,” defensive end Chris Long said. “We absolutely, positively made history.”
With the win, the Patriots became the fourth team with at least five Lombardi Trophies, the 49ers (five), Cowboys (five), and Steelers (six).
The Patriots’ slim six-point margin was their biggest in any Super Bowl. Their previous four wins came by three, three, three and four points.
The Patriots had not trailed since Week 12, and the Falcons — led by quarterback Matt Ryan, the NFL’s most valuable player — had the league’s No. 1 offense and a staggering collection of weapons.
But the Patriots had Brady, which meant they never were really out of it. They wore down the Falcons’ defense, running 93 plays in 40 minutes, 31 seconds compared with the Falcons’ 46 in 23:27.
“We were just worrying about beating them by one point,” Patriots receiver Danny Amendola said. “We knew we had to come out in the second half and play, no matter what. They were coming at us with a lot of things. We just wanted to be resilient, we wanted to be tough mentally, and we got it done.”
Getting it done meant digging out of a 16-point hole in the final 5:56. That was accomplished with a 6-yard touchdown pass to Amendola, followed by a conversion run by White; then, a 1-yard run by White with 57 seconds left, and a Brady-to-Amendola conversion pass to forge a 28-28 tie.
The final tally for White was three touchdowns, two rushing and one receiving.
“We went into the locker room at halftime and said the game wasn’t over,” said White, who called the comeback “an amazing feeling.”
The Falcons and coach Dan Quinn are left to ponder what might have been.
With less than five minutes remaining and the Falcons looking to protect their eight-point lead, they moved deep into Patriots territory and had a first down at the 22. A field goal would have made it a two-score game.
But Ryan dropped back to pass on second down and was sacked for a 12-yard loss. On third down, he completed a short pass to Mohamed Sanu, but the Falcons were moved back again — and out of field goal range — by a holding call.
They punted the ball back to the Patriots, who had 3:30 to work with, an eternity for Brady.
Brady moved his team into position, including a 16-yard completion to Chris Hogan on third-and-10.
The signature play was a 23-yard pass to Julian Edelman, who somehow caught the ball as it fell through a tangle of three defenders. The catch was even more impressive through the lens of slow-motion replay cameras, Edelman double-clutching the ball mere inches from the turf.
sam.farmer@latimes.com
