COMMENTARY
Of all the Patriots’ staggering achievements in their two-decade dynasty, there’s one obscure statistic that I struggle to comprehend.
In their nine Super Bowl appearances, they never scored a first-quarter touchdown, and in fact scored just 3 points in the opening quarter in total, a Stephen Gostkowski field goal in Super Bowl LII versus the Eagles.
Given the potency of their offenses through those years, that makes no sense. But it’s also a reminder of something else: Tom Brady and the Patriots usually made the magic happen in the fourth quarter.
With a little bit of envy kicking in that Brady — who was supposed to be in the fourth quarter of his career a decade ago — has taken a new team to the Super Bowl, I thought it would be cathartic to rewatch the fourth quarters of all of Brady’s Super Bowl appearances, to relish what we remember, and remember what we forgot …
Super Bowl XXXVI: Patriots 20, Rams 17
Score at the start of the fourth quarter: Patriots 17, Rams 3
Random observation: Willie McGinest didn’t so much hold Marshall Faulk as he did maul him like a hungry bear catching up to his prey.