Tom Brady stars in fourth quarter as New England Patriots win thrilling Super Bowl XLIX
Monday 2 February 2015 12:06, UK
Tom Brady threw four touchdown passes to lead the New England Patriots past the Seattle Seahawks 28-24 in a sensational Super Bowl XLIX.
Brady led a fourth-quarter comeback from the Patriots to secure a fourth Super Bowl ring, but it still took a last-gasp interception from Malcolm Butler to deny the defending champions victory in Glendale, Arizona.
The game proved to be an absolute thriller, with the Patriots leading 14-7 before giving up 17 unanswered points and then regaining their momentum in the last 15 minutes.
Brady, who was making his sixth Super Bowl appearance, was in almost irresistible form in the opening quarter, bar an interception made by Seahawks nickel back Jeremy Lane, who suffered what appeared to be a serious arm injury at the end of what turned out to be his last play of the game.
The Patriots used a dink-and-dunk short-passing game to good effect but it took them until the 9:47 mark in the second quarter to open the scoring when Brady found Brandon LaFell from 11 yards for a touchdown.
Once the scoring started points came frequently, especially in the last three minutes of the half, as Marshawn Lynch first dived over from three yards to level the scoring for Seattle.
Brady linked up with Rob Gronkowski from 22 yards to quickly put the Patriots back in front 14-7, but Russell Wilson managed to engineer a Seahawks scoring drive in only 29 seconds, his touchdown pass hauled in by Chris Matthews, who was picked up from a job in a sports store less than a year ago.
Seattle took their first lead early in the third quarter on a Steven Hauschka field goal and they extended their lead to 10 points when Wilson found a wide-open Doug Baldwin for a three-yard score.
But Brady is not the kind of player to ever give up and, with Julian Edelman and Shane Vereen to the fore, he was ruthless in a scoring drive that ended with a four-yard pass to Danny Amendola.
Three points down, they quickly stopped Seattle's offense and started another quick drive down field, this time Edelman - he had nine catches for 109 yards - the recipient of his touchdown pass.
There were just over two minutes left on the clock for Wilson to try and work his magic, and he came so close, albeit helped by a huge slice of luck when Jermaine Kearse dropped a pass only for it to bounce off his body and back into his hands as he was falling to the ground.
Lynch, who had 102 yards on the ground, ran the ball down to the one-yard line, but he was not given the responsibility of getting the ball into the endzone, with Wilson instead asked to pass by coach Pete Carroll, only to find Butler on the goalline and end their hopes of a repeat victory.
Brady, who beat off Edelman to win the MVP award, ended the game 37-of-50 for 328 yards and four touchdowns and two interceptions as he tied the legendary Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw with a fourth Super Bowl ring.
He also passed Montana's record of 11 Super Bowl touchdown passes, taking his career total to 13.
