Welcome to first and 10, a roundup of all the (mostly) Patriots-related news you need to start your Monday. Grab your coffee and let’s get to it.
Before we start things, I want to write about a picture. Two pictures, actually. Here's the first one:
You probably saw it last night -- I Tweeted it out after the game with no explanation or caption. It's from our photographer, Adam Richins, who snapped it immediately after Sunday's wild finish. Look at it again. It's a remarkable shot for a few reasons, not the least of which is the fact it bookends nicely with the second image ... this one from the moments immediately after Super Bowl XXXVI. In both cases, it's a gobsmacked Tom Brady, incredulous at what has just happened. Seventeen years ago, it was an upset of the Rams in the Superdome. On Sunday, it was a dramatic overtime win over the Chiefs in Kansas City. The reaction is pretty much the same.
I've been lucky enough to have covered this team for a long time. And when this is all over and the quarterback is on to the next phase of his life and the coach is lounging on Nantucket with (Fill In The Blank) Rings bobbing just offshore, these are the games that will come to mind and images that will come flooding back when someone asks me to tell them what it was like to cover this team at this time in history. I tell the stories and show them those twin googly-eyed shots of the quarterback, both of them with his hands on his head in amazement at different points in his life, looking equally dumbfounded at how everything has managed to converge just-so to create one of the truly great dynasties in the history of American sports. Look at these pictures, I will tell them. Even the guy at the controls was occasionally astonished by the wonder of it all.
Who knows what's going to happen in a couple of weeks in Atlanta? Maybe the Rams end up vaporizing Brady and the Patriots, leaving the remarkable events of Sunday night in Kansas City nothing more than a historical footnote. Maybe we get an even more memorable picture of the quarterback celebrating his (and I can't even believe I'm actually even writing this) sixth Super Bowl ring. But the image of Brady after Sunday's remarkable win over the Chiefs, paired with the picture of him after that first Super Bowl win, will remain indelible in my mind, a pair of images that help define the dynasty and the greatness of the guy at the controls.
Now, on with the links...
1. Greg says that with Sunday's overtime win, Brady and the Patriots continue to defy conventional wisdom.
2. Greg's Game Report has the Patriots saving their best for last.
3. I had a piece on the running backs, who continue to do their part to help power the New England offense. “We’re built for moments like this,” shrugged Sony Michel after the game, the second straight playoff contest where he topped 100 yards on the ground.
4. I had Live Coverage humming all night long. Check out the recap here.
5. Kyle Van Noy's two sacks gave him the #StayCovered Defensive Play of the Game. “To be able to be on the field like that against a team like the Chiefs and come out with a win in their house, it’s tough to do," he said. "We have a resilient group. We work really hard. But props to them — it could have gone either way. We just made a few more plays than they did.”
6. It didn't take long after the game for players in the New England locker room to turn their attention to the Rams, with many of them saying they wanted some redemption for last year's loss to the Eagles. “I don’t want to feel like that again,” cornerback Stephon Gilmore said. “To go that far and come up short. … I want to win.”
7. Our guy Adam had a great series of pictures from Sunday's game. Check out his slideshow here.
8. Greg spent some quality time after the game with the fellas from the Patriots' Postgame Show on 98.5 The Sports Hub, and I talked with Matt Harab of SB Nation Radio.
9. We have a boatload of postgame video: Brady, Bill Belichick, Rob Gronkowski, Julian Edelman, Trey Flowers, James Develin and Sony Michel.
10. Overreaction Monday is going to be epic. Get your questions in now -- we'll kick things off at 1 p.m.
Extra Points:
This @SuperBowl Sunday will be 17 years to the day since these teams met in Super Bowl XXXVI (Patriots def. Rams 20-17).
Tom Brady & Jared Goff represent the largest age gap between opposing starting QBs in Super Bowl history - age difference is 17 years, 72 days (on game day).
— NFL Research (@NFLResearch) January 21, 2019