After losing a court fight to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and serving a four-game ban to start the season, New England quarterback Tom Brady on Monday accepted something else from Goodell — the Super Bowl Most Valuable Player trophy.
The final touch for the 2016-2017 NFL campaign came when Brady and Patriots coach Bill Belichick spoke after New England’s 34-28 overtime triumph over the Atlanta Falcons at Super Bowl 51 in Houston, Texas.
“It’s a great honor for us, for me personally, to have both of these guys this morning,” Goodell said. “Tom, come on up and get your trophy.”
Photo: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY
Brady earned the award by sparking the Patriots to the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history, rallying New England from a 28-3 deficit to force overtime and then driving the Patriots for the winning touchdown in extra time, a Super Bowl first.
“It’s an honor to be here and to have the commissioner give me this award,” Brady said. “It took a miraculous effort. The lows of not playing great, then the highs of playing better and then at the end. It’s just a night I’ll never forget. It’s a great win for our team.”
Brady was to have missed the first four games of the 2015 season after “Deflategate,” when the Patriots were found to have used underinflated balls in a playoff win on their way to a 2015 Super Bowl triumph.
Goodell ruled that Brady had to have known about the underinflation.
Brady went to court and had the ban overturned, but an appeals judge reinstituted the ban and Brady dropped the fight, instead sitting out the first four games this season, when New England went 3-1 on the way to an NFL-best 14-2 record.
Belichick, asked if Brady might have been motivated by vengeance this season, dismissed the notion that Deflategate played any role.
“I think it’s really inappropriate to suggest that, in Tom’s career, he has been anything other than a great teammate, a great worker, and has given us every single ounce of effort, blood, sweat and tears that he has in him,” Belichick said.
“To insinuate that this year is somehow different, that he competed harder or did anything to a higher degree than he ever has in the past is insulting,” he said.
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