“Fairytale season” is a description that is stamped on way more championship campaigns than really deserve it. But it truly applied to what culminated with the fifth Super Bowl title for the New England Patriots in last February’s Super Bowl. The Patriots trailed the Atlanta Falcons by 25 points midway through the third quarter, a seemingly insurmountable lead. But then the Patriots fortunes went on a scoring rampage to win 34-28 and complete the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history. But as the “Drive for Five” reminds readers, the season began with quarterback Tom Brady serving a four-game suspension for the “Deflategate” scandal of 2015. Just how the team managed to survive that key loss and still come out on top with Brady at the helm at the end makes a compelling story.
Here’s an excerpt from Drive for Five:
“[The] final play of the season from scrimmage pretty much tells you everything you need to know about the 2016 Patriots’ offense.
“The crowning moment didn’t involve a majestic, floating bomb of a pass from [Tom] Brady to [Rob] Gronkowski or [Chris] Hogan. It wasn’t a bull run up the middle from [LeGarrette] Blount, or a quarterback sneak from the quarterback. Instead, it was a toss play to [James] White, a running back who was fundamentally an afterthought when it came to the ground game to that point in his career. And 12-plus months after he was undressed by Von Miller in the 2015 AFC title game, Marcus Cannon delivered the last block of the season, knocking linebacker Deion Jones out of the way just enough to allow White to sneak into the end zone, going the last yard with safety Ricardo Allen on his back.
“Two guys who were offensive afterthoughts the previous offseason, at the center of the play that gave the Patriots a title. For all the talk of greatness of the rest of the roster, the final play of a championship season involved two guys who were forgotten elements at the start of the year.”
