Before the game went fever-dream wild, before there was a tense exchange of final possessions, before we started refreshing the TB12 website waiting for the artfully curated I’m not retiring announcement that he seemed to be luring us into, there was a 44-year-old man taking an empty shotgun snap at his own 25-yard line, down 24 points, halfway through the third quarter. And the lot of us—Rams coach Sean McVay and quarterback Matt Stafford included—thought the game was just beginning.
Think about that for a moment. Regardless of Tom Brady’s status as the greatest player in NFL history, he was also the oldest active player in the league this year; playing on an offense that has been depleted of some of its star power; trailing by more than three touchdowns; facing a defense that contained Von Miller, Jalen Ramsey and Aaron Donald; and many of us shrugged our shoulders, casually referenced Super Bowl LI when the Patriots came back from a 28–3 deficit to stun the Falcons in overtime, and figured it was just a matter of time before we had some watchable football on our hands.