Tom Brady is set to call a game between the Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears for the second time in three weeks on Saturday, with the two rivals battling at Soldier Field following a close tilt at Lambeau Field. As the Packers and Bears meet again in such a short span, it reminded Brady of how he won one of the biggest games of his career.
In the latest edition of “Story Time with Tom,” Brady shared how his familiarity with the Kansas City Chiefs‘ led to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers‘ victory over them in Super Bowl LV.
“One instance where I thought I knew a defense really well was in Super Bowl LV, Bucs-Chiefs,” Brady said. “I studied for two weeks. We played the Chiefs earlier that year and I kinda saw the trend of how they continued to play, and I just locked in like I never had before on film study for those two weeks. I knew the rotation of the safety so well — [Daniel] Sorenson and Tyrann Mathieu. I had such a good feel when they were going to blitz and the ball always came out of my hand very quick.
“I always said I knew them better than they knew themselves. I was a veteran player at the time, so all my film study was so efficient and it was such a huge advantage for us in that game.”
If you recall, that Super Bowl was the most decisive of Brady’s seven Super Bowl wins. The Buccaneers took down the Chiefs, 31-9, with Brady leading Tampa Bay to a scoring drive on five of its six possessions from late in the first quarter through the end of the third quarter.
Super Bowl LV played out much differently than the Chiefs-Buccaneers matchup in November of that season, which Kansas City won, 27-24. In that game, the Chiefs actually got out to a 17-0 lead before the Buccaneers came back late to pull within three and nearly win the game.
The Buccaneers might have solved something with their strong second-half performance in that game, but Brady had also solved the Chiefs in his film study just hours before Super Bowl LV.
“I remember sending clips to my teammates the morning of the game,” Brady said. “I was just filming things on my iPhone of my computer screen and sending them to my teammates, ‘Hey, if we get this look, this is what I want you to do.’ There was probably like, seven clips.
“I think all of my teammates were like, ‘This dude is a complete psycho.’ That was less than 18 hours before kickoff of the Super Bowl.”
Statistically, Brady didn’t have his best performance in Super Bowl LV. But he was pretty efficient, completing 21 of 29 passes for 202 yards and three touchdowns, helping Tampa Bay essentially control the game wire-to-wire.
Tom Brady led the Bucs to victory over the Chiefs in Super Bowl LV. (Photo by Cliff Welch/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
While that Super Bowl win was the best example of Brady knowing an opponent so well that he used it to his advantage, he shared that there was an instance where his intimate knowledge of an opponent actually worked against him. That came when they took on the Indianapolis Colts in the 2007 season, which marked Brady’s eighth meeting against them in five seasons.
Brady shared that in the prior meetings with the Colts ahead of the 2007 matchup, they ran 2 Tampa coverage — where the middle linebacker turned and ran out to the middle of the field and the linebackers keyed on his vision to move on a string. As the Patriots prepared to face a 2 Tampa coverage that Brady called “very predictable” all week long, the Colts threw a curveball at them.
“We get to that game, and instead of playing that coverage 2 Tampa, they played this 2 Match coverage, where instead of the Mike running down the middle, the Mike locked down close to the line of scrimmage to the third eligible wide receiver toward the middle of field, which screwed up our game plan,” Brady said. “So, it was like going into the game planning for this one coverage, and all of a sudden, the game plan was directed toward beating that coverage. Then, the Colts came in and were like, ‘Checkmate, we’re playing 2 Match,’ which forced me to hold the ball and allowed [Dwight]Freeney and [Robert] Mathis to get home and sack me.
“I remember after the first play in the game when I saw it, I was like, ‘Oh, no. You mean they’re playing 2 Match today?’ We had to go over and manipulate the game plan. … It was an epic game.”
The matchup, which featured the 8-0 Patriots against the 7-0 Colts, was largely controlled by the defenses in the first half. But, as Brady said, he and the Patriots’ offense eventually found a rhythm as the game progressed. He led the Patriots to a touchdown in their final two drives before they ran the clock out, helping New England secure a 24-20 victory. Brady threw for 255 yards, three touchdowns and two interceptions in that game.
Tom Brady’s past knowledge of the Colts’ defense nearly hurt the Patriots in their 2007 matchup. (Bob Leverone/Sporting News via Getty Images)
Saturday’s Packers-Bears matchup is a bit different than the two matchups that Brady mentioned, considering they’re division rivals. But he expects the familiarity with the opponent to both help and hurt the quarterbacks (Jordan Love, Caleb Williams) on Saturday.
“There’s no fear on either side because there’s no intimidation factor because you play each other two times a year and you kind of know your matchup,” Brady said. “Those are a lot of times the toughest games, division opponents, because they know you so intimately well. It’s not like you can sneak anything by them.
“I used to look back at those games, the second time around playing a division opponent, and say, ‘What were the few things they did that were successful against us? OK, we’re probably going to get more of those things.’ Then, you plan for those. The one thing that’s hard in football is planning for ghosts. It’s hard to, ‘Well, they don’t play this coverage, but let’s run designed plays for it in case they do.’ You can really only game plan for what they do.”
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