Recalling The Best Of Tom Brady As Joe Burrow Awaits His Biggest NFL Moment

KANSAS CITY — As I sit in my hotel room, waiting for Sunday’s AFC Championship showdown between the Bengals and Chiefs, Tom Brady has reportedly retired from the NFL.

Like millions of fans around the NFL and the world, it’s a moment we all knew was coming but still a staggering one as we think about the legacy TB12 has left on the sport that consumes so many of us year-round.

There are so many memories that come rushing to mind when thinking of the 20 years of covering the most decorated and accomplished player in the sport’s history. So many fourth-quarter comebacks (42), so many throws under pressure. So many hits. So many times wondering how he got up from the turf. And so many games filled with mind-numbing statistics. And the number that means the most to Brady? Of course, the seven Super Bowl rings. “You wanna know which one is my favorite? The next one,” Brady famously said.

It started when Mo Lewis drilled Drew Bledsoe on Sept. 23, 2001. Two weeks after losing 23-17 to Corey Dillon and the Bengals at Paul Brown Stadium, Bledsoe was knocked out of the game with what turned out to be life-threatening bleeding following a punctured lung. Brady came in and the Patriots lost, 10-3. But they recovered and finished 11-5. They beat the Raiders in the snow in the “Tuck Rule” game in the final game of Foxboro Stadium.

They advanced to the Super Bowl when Bledsoe filled in for Brady in the AFC Championship in Pittsburgh. They were tied, 17-17, in Super Bowl XXXVI when Bill Belichick decided to put the NFL championship in the hands of his second-year quarterback. He was nearly strip-sacked on first down but drove them to the St. Louis 30.

In the playoffs, Brady led his team under pressure better than any quarterback who’s ever played, with a record nine fourth-quarter comebacks and it’s ironic that his career ends after leading his team back from 27-3 down in the second half last Sunday against the Rams. They were dead in the water until they weren’t. A Brady vs. Burrow dream in Super Bowl LVI was vanquished. Barring a rescinding of retirement, we’re not going to ever see Burrow take on Brady. That’s a shame.

I was there for 28-3 in Super Bowl LI in Houston. Watching him Sunday was watching that Super Bowl all over again until Cooper Kupp got behind the Bucs defense on a blitz of Matthew Stafford for a pass that set up the game-winning field goal. Done.

The Patriots were down 20-10 in the fourth quarter against Jacksonville a year after 28-3 and Brady did it again, finding Danny Amendola in the back of the end zone in the final moments. 24-20 Patriots. The Patriots trailed the Panthers Super Bowl XXXVIII and Brady led a 68-yard drive, capped by a go-ahead TD pass to Mike Vrabel of all people with under three minutes left. But the Panthers tied the game, only to have Brady weave his magic once more, thanks to a kickoff out of bounds from John Kasay.

Brady was all about winning under pressure on the biggest stage. Which brings us to Sunday here in Kansas City. You have two quarterbacks who have been all about clutch. Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes has been to the AFC Championship in all four years as starter. He’s been to the Super Bowl the last two seasons, and won two years ago when he trailed, 20-10, with 2:35 left in the third.

Last week, Mahomes was as perfect in the clutch as you could be, driving his team 44 yards in three plays over 13 seconds for the game-tying field goal and was 6-for-6 for 69 yards and the game-winning toss to Travis Kelce.

The flashbacks to Brady at a frenzied Arrowhead in the AFC Championship three years ago came flooding back to me as I was covering the Patriots and Brady in what would be their last of eight straight trips to the AFC title game. Brady and Mahomes went back and forth. Brady directed a six-play, 65-yard drive in 84 seconds to take a 31-28 lead with 39 seconds left. The Chiefs tied it only to have Rex Burkhead score on the first drive of overtime (sound familiar?) to send the Patriots to the Super Bowl.

Joe Burrow is a football fan. Will those kind of moments make him lose sleep the night before the biggest game of his career?

“I wouldn’t call it nervous,” Burrow told me Friday. “I would call it anxious excited, and it’s not before the game. I would say the night before the game when I’m thinking about all the possible situations. But once game-time comes, pre-game warmups, I’m loose, confident, ready to go.”

Like Brady, Burrow knows what kind of quarterback play it’ll take to get the Bengals to Hollywood in two weeks.

“Near perfect. I think every week of the playoffs has proven that,” Burrow said. “It goes through Kansas City and Patrick Mahomes has been near perfect for four years he’s been starting. That’s what it’s going to take for me. It’s not just a quarterback-driven game. It’s a team game. I think wins and losses usually come down to how each quarterback plays.”

There were lots of Brady-Burrow comparisons at the beginning of this season. Everyone wants to see who the next Tom Brady will be. I’ve had the privilege of covering Brady in his hey-day in New England and the start of what promises to be a truly special and championship-filled career for Burrow in Cincinnati.

But when I asked Burrow about Phil Simms comparing him to Joe Montana early in the season, Burrow cautioned, “let me be me.”

But in listening to Burrow you definitely get a Brady vibe.

“I don’t know about that. I just try to give my team the best chance to win, try to make plays out there,” Burrow said. “Throw the ball away when I feel like the ball needs to be thrown away and I try to extend the play when I feel like I have an opportunity to do so. It just depends on the situation. I’m not scared to take hits but obviously the lesson is the less you can take the better for your career.

“I just get up and play the next play. That’s what football is.”

No one got up from more vicious hits than Brady. Bill Belichick always noted how “no one has ever questioned how tough a quarterback Tom is,” every time he would be asked about the poundings he would take from Ray Lewis or Bart Scott and the Ravens. After taking nine sacks last week, many are wondering exactly the same thing about Cincinnati’s No. 9.

“At the end of the day, that’s what football is,” Burrow said. “It’s physical. It’s tough and I think as quarterback you have to be that way if you want to succeed in this league.”

Then there’s Burrow the leader.

“I think as a quarterback it’s important to be an extension of the coaching staff, to the media and within the locker room, just to portray the message that a head coach wants to portray throughout the team,” Burrow said. “So, I always try to do that and I don’t always have something to say but when I feel like I have something worth hearing I try to speak up and say my piece. If you start to say too much, guys kind of tune you out. So I try to pick my spots here and there to really have a message not every day but maybe once or twice a week.”

When the final meetings with Brian Callahan and Zac Taylor are finished Saturday night, Burrow’s head will hit the pillow one final time before heading out to Arrowhead Sunday morning.

“It’s pretty relaxing for me up until around bedtime, when I start to get to myself and not around the guys anymore, starting to think about the next day and I just find myself in my hotel room. I go to sleep, that’s over with and then it’s game day and the lights turn on.”

Joe Burrow Sunday will try to become the first quarterback since Brady to win a road playoff game at Arrowhead Stadium since Brady beat Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs, 37-31, in overtime in the 2018 AFC Championship. Mahomes is 7-1 at Arrowhead in the postseason and the Chiefs have won six straight at home since that loss. Burrow has never lost a playoff or championship game, going 3-0 at LSU and starting his career 2-0 with the Bengals.

“At this level, it’s for sure the biggest game I’ve played in. I think it’s tough to compare college games and NFL games because at the time, those are do-or-die situations and you look back and you got past those and it’s the NFL and it’s a different stage and it’s a bigger platform and all that. So I think it’s kind of tough to compare. These are the reason I play football. I play to get to these moments and to make plays and take advantage of my opportunities.

“I work really hard for these moments. If worked really hard and never got to a position I’m in right now, playing in the AFC Championship game and a chance to go to the Super Bowl, I think that would be tough for me mentally to work as hard as I do each week in the offseason to come in and go .500 every year and be a fringe playoff team. I work so hard so I can get in these moments and play well.”

How very Tom Brady of Burrow. Maybe, while relaxing and enjoying his first days of retirement, he’ll be pulling for Burrow and the Bengals Sunday here in Kansas City.