For Tom Brady, one NFL stadium stands above them all — and it’s not the stadium he called home for nearly 20 years, nor is it the one that he won a Super Bowl at as the first team to win a Super Bowl in their home stadium.
Rather, Tom Brady believes that Green Bay’s Lambeau Field is the stadium that’s worthy of being called the NFL’s Taj Mahal.
“Anyone that’s never been there, if you love football and traditional football, the history at Lambeau Field is unmatched,” Brady said in the most recent edition of “Story Time with Tom.” “When you go in there, it feels like the Taj Mahal of NFL stadiums.
“There’s something mystical about it all. You feel like [Vince] Lombardi’s looking down over that field. The construction of it is amazing. It’s out in the middle of nowhere. It’s this incredible stadium that’s gotten built up over many years to get more and more fans into the stadium. It’s really unlike any other stadium I’ve played in.”
To Brady’s point, there’s arguably no stadium that has more history than Lambeau Field. It opened in 1957, making it the second-oldest stadium in the NFL at 68 years old, trailing just Chicago’s Soldier Field (which opened in 1924). However, Lambeau Field will soon become the NFL’s oldest stadium when the Bears move to Arlington Heights, Illinois, in the coming years.
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In terms of memorable games, Lambeau Field has played host to three NFL Championship Games, three NFC Championship Games and 25 playoff games. The most recent NFC Championship Game came in the 2020 season, when the Packers hosted Brady and the Buccaneers.
Brady’s Bucs got the upper hand that day, defeating Aaron Rodgers and the Packers, 31-26, in a matchup that the seven-time Super Bowl winner called an “all-time football game.” However, the game didn’t necessarily go exactly how Brady thought it would.
“I thought exactly that it was going to be one of the most tough, special games that I’ve ever been a part of,” Brady said. “It was really a weird game. We got off to a great start.”
As Brady said, he had helped the Buccaneers get out to a 14-10 lead before he threw a 39-yard touchdown pass to Scotty Miller that put his team up, 21-10, with a second left before halftime.
“Kind of a tricky situation. They were figuring out whether they should cover a shorter part of the field so that we could advance to a field goal,” Brady said of that touchdown pass. “But we took a downfield shot on a go route, and Scotty ran right by the corner and I just laid it up there and he made a great catch. It really fired us up before halftime and we needed a lot of that momentum.”
Brady threw his third touchdown pass of the day in the opening minutes of the second half when he connected with Cameron Brate for an eight-yard score following a Packers fumble, putting the Buccaneers up 28-10. But things quickly unraveled for Brady in the second half, throwing an interception on three straight possessions.
“It was like, the ball just — my decisions in the second half weren’t as good as they were in the first half,” Brady said. “I couldn’t believe that I let that ball fly into the opponent’s hands a few times, really carelessly.”
Brady’s mistakes allowed the Packers to slowly climb back into the game. By the end of the third quarter, the Packers had cut the lead to 28-23. In the fourth, the Packers drove down to the 8-yard line as they trailed, 31-23. After the Buccaneers forced an incomplete pass for a third straight play, though, the Packers opted to settle for a field goal with 2:05 remaining to make it a 31-26 game.
But that was the last time Rodgers and the Packers had the ball. The Buccaneers were able to pick up a couple of big first downs, including when Chris Godwin rushed for a six-yard gain on a third-and-5.
“We made a few good plays here late in the game and then got the ball after the defense made a great stop in the fourth quarter,” Brady said. “Then, we ended up finishing the game with the ball in our hands with a great drive to end. Great way to end the game. It was kind of ugly in the middle part of that game. Our defense balled out like they did the entire postseason.”
Tom Brady and the Buccaneers won the 2020 NFC Championship Game at Lambeau Field. (Photo by Dylan Buell/Getty Images)
As Brady had remarked that he could feel former Packers coach Vince Lombardi’s presence weigh over Lambeau Field, he left open the possibility that he might have been battling some Green Bay ghosts that day. But he also took accountability for his errant throws.
“I would just say I made a few s—-y decisions, which is why I threw those interceptions,” Brady said. “The next week against the Chiefs, now that was a clean game in the Super Bowl.”
That victory over the Chiefs gave Brady his seventh Super Bowl title, the most of any player in NFL history. But as Brady accomplished nearly everything in his NFL career, there’s one thing he didn’t do: a Lambeau Leap.
“You get your ass thrown right back and out of the club,” Brady said of why he never tried to do a Lambeau Leap during his playing career. “You go up into the Lambeau section, and then they’d toss you right back out. So, I don’t think anyone should ever dare try to leap up there and do a Lambeau Leap if you’re not in a Packer uniform.”
Not many players on the visiting team dare to try the Lambeau Leap, like Amon-Ra St. Brown. (Photo by Cooper Neill/Getty Images)
Brady will head back to Lambeau Field again on Sunday as he’s on the call for Sunday’s game between the Bears and Packers on FOX. Don’t expect him to try a Lambeau Leap, though.
“It’s pretty high up there. I’ll be in my fancy shoes,” Brady said. “I don’t know how much vertical I really have. Maybe 12, 14 inches. I’m not attempting the Lambeau Leap anytime soon. I’ll just stick to trying to find one of those cheeseheads or something like that.”
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