Daylight savings ended Sunday, so it’s only fitting Tom Brady turned back the clock.
The worst year of the GOAT’s career almost hit rock bottom on Sunday. Instead, with just a few moments left to play, Brady orchestrated his 69th game-winning NFL drive. And oh, it must have felt nice.
Brady moved the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 60 yards in just 35 seconds with no timeouts, a vintage Brady drive capped by a one-yard touchdown pass to Cade Otton that lifted the Tampa Bay Buccaneers past the flailing Los Angeles Rams 16-13 Sunday afternoon.
Tom Brady Rallies Buccaneers Past Rams
The Buccaneers only led for nine seconds in the second half — but it was the only seconds that mattered. Tampa Bay outscored Los Angeles 10-0 in the fourth quarter to win for just the second time since Sept. 18.
Even after that ugly slump, the Bucs at 4-5 would be the No. 4 seed in the NFC if the season ended today. If that sounds like an indictment of the NFC South, it should be.
The Bucs were the only team from their division to win Sunday. The Falcons lost a heartbreaker to the Chargers, and the Panthers got annihilated by the Bengals.
For most of the afternoon, it looked like the Buccaneers would join them in the L zone. Brady’s receivers were either hurt or unable to catch the football. Scotty Miller dropped a touchdown on the Buccaneers’ penultimate drive that should have sealed the game for the Rams.
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Instead, LA couldn’t pick up a first down with less than a minute to go and punted back to Brady.
If it felt like a movie you’ve seen before, it should. Brady has been stealing souls since 2001.
But after an awful couple of months — which included the announcement of his divorce from Gisele Bündchen — Brady seems like he lost his fire for the game.
Then Sunday happened.
Los Angeles Rams Are in Deep Trouble
The improbable win bumped the Buccaneers’ odds of returning to the postseason to 61%, per FiveThirtyEight.
The Rams, meanwhile, are in a world of hurt. The choke job dropped them to 3-5 on the season and into the 10th seed in the NFC. The defending champs are two and a half games back of division-leading Seattle through nine weeks — with two games against the Seahawks still to play.
But playoff talk is irrelevant if they cannot fix a totally broken offense. The Rams are averaging just 16.4 points per game and are near the bottom of the league in almost every significant offensive category.
Sunday was more of the same. The Rams managed just 206 yards — 69 of which came on one play — and nine first downs against the Buccaneers. Their final four drives netted just four yards. Ten of their 14 possessions were done in three or fewer plays.
The Rams are very bad — and don’t seem likely to get appreciably better.
“Not good enough, not even close to good enough, and I’m a part of that,” Rams coach Sean McVay said after the game. “… Changes have to be made, adjustments have to be made. We can’t continue to go on like this.”
Until the final few seconds of Sunday’s game, Tom Brady surely felt exactly the same way.