Foxborough, Mass.
“Ro-ger! Ro-ger!” they chanted in the third quarter before switching to “Where is Roger?” in the fourth.
Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, who was suspended by commissioner Roger Goodell for the first four games of this regular season, will take what many have branded as his Deflategate Revenge Tour to the season’s final game, Feb. 5 in Houston.
But late Sunday night, Brady was not playing along.
“I didn’t hear that chant,” Brady said following the Patriots’ 36-17 victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers in an AFC championship game to forget. “I did hear them singing to Bon Jovi, though. That was pretty cool.”
A season that began with Brady serving a four-game Deflategate suspension could conclude with Goodell handing the Patriots the trophy for what would be their fifth Super Bowl triumph engineered by Brady and coach Bill Belichick. But Brady was not acknowledging on Sunday that there was any unusual sense of personal accomplishment accompanying this latest trip to the sport’s biggest stage, the Patriots seventh Super Bowl appearance with Brady and Belichick.
“Well, I think that’s because of the hard work of a lot of people, you know, from my coaches to my teammates to our families who support us,” Brady said. “It takes a lot of people and a lot of effort, a lot of hard work over the course of many months. This didn’t start at 6:40 tonight. This thing started in April. It really started before that. In free agency we were picking up guys like (Chris) Hogan and drafting guys like Malcolm Mitchell. … It’s a lot of hard work. It’s only two teams left standing, and I’m happy we’re one of them. That’s what our goal is. And it’s nice to be able to achieve that.”
Belichick wasn’t going there, either.
“Every year has its own challenges,” he said. “Whatever they are, they are. Every team faces them. Every team has to deal with them. We dealt with them. Other teams have dealt with them. … It’s a special year because it’s a special team. It’s a special group, and they’ve all worked together. But there are always challenges that we have to overcome.”
The challenge now for the Patriots will be dealing with quarterback Matt Ryan and the revved-up Atlanta offense. The Falcons were every bit as dominant earlier Sunday in beating the Green Bay Packers, 44-21, in the NFC title game.
“We ran into a buzzsaw, and we didn’t have enough to keep up with them,” Packers coach Mike McCarthy said.
Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay offense could not keep pace with the Falcons, who led the NFL in scoring offense during the regular season. Now it’s up to Brady and the Patriots to try.
New England’s defense should present more obstacles for Ryan and the Atlanta offense. The Patriots led the league in scoring defense during the regular season. It is a defense that improved steadily throughout the season after once being regarded as a potential postseason liability.
“I think there’s a lot of noise, always,” Brady said. “Sometimes you don’t always have it figured out four games into the year. And there’s a lot of moving parts. The second half of the year … I practiced against those guys every day, and it’s hard to complete passes against them. I know if I can complete them against our defense, then we should be fine on Sunday because our guys do a great job in the passing game. … We’ve got a good defense.”
Patriots cornerback and former Super Bowl hero Malcolm Butler was not quite ready to switch gears in the postgame locker room and begin thinking about defending the Falcons’ standout wide receiver, Julio Jones, in the Super Bowl.
“You’re going too far,” Butler said. “I’m enjoying the moment, man.”
Even so, Butler acknowledged that this victory will not be that satisfying ultimately if the Patriots do not finish the task in Houston.
“It don’t mean anything unless you win,” he said. “We’re just enjoying it, man. We’re glad to have the opportunity to go. Hard work pays off.”