ONLY one team consistently confounded Tom Brady during his two-decade rule in the American Football Conference (AFC): the Denver Broncos.
They were the only team that had a winning record against him while he was winning six rings with the Patriots, going 9-8 against Brady. Mike Shanahan is the only head coach to beat him five times, and Denver took three of four from Brady in the playoffs, twice in the AFC championship behind Peyton Manning.
Brady’s new kryptonite in the National Football Conference (NFC) is the New Orleans Saints.
They beat him for the third time in four tries Sunday when Dennis Allen dialed up a defense that denied Brady another of his patented game-winning drives in the closing minutes and deked him into throwing an interception that PJ Williams turned into a pick-six that sealed the Saints’ 36-27 victory.
“I just threw it to the wrong guy,” said Brady, who also had two second-quarter turnovers that New Orleans converted into nine points. “I had Mike (Evans) open. It cost us the game.”
The Saints, led by backup QB Trevor Siemian after starter Jameis Winston’s season-ending knee injury, took a 29-27 lead on Brad Johnson’s chip shot field goal after they stalled at the Buccaneers’ 5-yard line late in the fourth quarter.
That left Brady with a minute, 41 seconds and one timeout to get the Bucs into position for a field goal and his 51st career comeback.
So many times we’ve seen Brady chew up the clock and the yards on his way to leading his team to victory in these situations.
Not this time.
His first pass, to Evans, fell incomplete. His second, to Chris Godwin, was picked off by Williams, who returned 40 yards down the sideline for the touchdown.