Super Bowl LI (51) was a very historic football game. This year’s Super Bowl had the NFC champions Atlanta Falcons and the AFC champions New England Patriots going head to head. The Atlanta Falcons had the number 1 scoring offense in the entire NFL. They were led by their quarterback Matt Ryan, who was named the NFL’s MVP for this season the night before the Super Bowl. Matt Ryan threw the football in the regular season for 4,944 yards and 38 touchdowns. The Falcons also have one of the best wide receivers in the history of the NFL, in Julio Jones. The duo of Matt Ryan and Julio Jones is one of the deadliest combinations the league has ever seen. A Super Bowl win for the Falcons would have put Matt Ryan into the elite circle of quarterbacks in the NFL. But the Patriots have this guy named Tom Brady. You could say that Tom’s spirit animal is a goat, because that is exactly what he is, he is the G.O.A.T. of the NFL. Tom Brady was suspended for the first 4 games of this season because of all of the Deflategate crap that got old after about the first month. But the Patriots did just fine without him at quarterback. They have probably the best backup quarterback in the NFL, in Jimmy Garoppolo. Garoppolo led the Patriots to a 3-1 record in the 4 games Tom was gone. When Brady came back, you could tell that he was focused on winning his 5th Super Bowl. In the regular season, the Patriots lost their great tight end, Rob Gronkowski to injury. Many people thought that there was no way that the Patriots could even make it to the Super Bowl without Gronk. But the Patriots have this coach named Bill Belichick and he’s pretty special. Bill has this way of just putting basically anyone of the field and making it work and winning a Super Bowl at the end of it.

But the Patriots had a lot easier road to the Super Bowl than the Falcons. The Patriots faced the Houston Texans in the divisional round of the playoffs. The Texans were probably the worst team in the playoffs and the Patriots looked like they were struggling playing them. Next the Patriots played the Pittsburgh Steelers in the AFC championship game. Once again, the Patriots beat them but it wasn’t a very promising performance. Both the Texans and Steelers were never really thought to be very strong title contenders, not to the degree of who the Falcons faced in the playoffs. In the divisional round, the Falcons played against the Seattle Seahawks. The Seahawks are always title contenders because of their elite defense they have every year. But the Falcons handled them very well and people finally started to pay attention to the Falcons as a team that could win the Super Bowl. But there was one thing standing in their way, the red-hot Green Bay Packers. The Packers were coming into the NFC championship game on an 8 game win streak and an amazing win over the Super Bowl favorites, Dallas Cowboys. But the Falcons dominated the Packers in the first quarter and never looked back, defeating the Packers 44-21 and headed to the Super Bowl.
Now we actually look at the Super Bowl. The Falcons scored the first 21 points of the Super Bowl and it looked like they were going to beat the Patriots in dominating fashion. At halftime, the score was 21-3 with the Falcons winning. After Tevin Coleman caught a touchdown from Matt Ryan to make the score 28-3, something happened that was unheard of. Keep in mind that no team has ever even come back from a 10 point deficit to win the Super Bowl. With 2 minutes left in the 3rd quarter, the Patriots finally scored their first touchdown of the Super Bowl. And then with 9 minutes left in the 4th quarter Stephen Gostkowski kicked a field goal to make the score 28-12 with the Falcons still leading. The Patriots then scored another touchdown to make it 28-20 with 6 minutes left. Then the catch happened. Tom Brady threw to a double teamed Julian Edelman, Edelman bobbled the ball, the ball hit off the Falcons defender’s leg and Edelman caught it right before the football hit the ground. It was just straight up an amazing athletic play by an amazing athlete. This catch will go down in history as either the greatest catch in Super Bowl history, or second only to David Tyree’s helmet catch in Super Bowl XLII. That catch set up an opportunity to score a touchdown and then make a 2 point conversion to tie the game up at 28. The game went to overtime, the first Super Bowl to ever go into overtime. The Patriots got the ball first in overtime and the Falcons never got a chance to score. The biggest takeaway from this year’s Super Bowl is that Tom Brady is the greatest quarterback to ever walk this planet. He now has the most Super Bowl wins with 5, than any other quarterback, or even football player to ever play in the NFL. Tom Brady truly is the greatest of all time. Oh and let’s not forget that the Falcons blew a 25 point lead. Just like the Warriors blew a 3-1 lead in the NBA Finals. #NeverForget.