For the rich and 'the real', ageless Brady confirms Super Bowl greatness

We could bang on about New England and Tom Brady and Bill Belichick and all the numbers that confirm what we already know: that they’re the greatest football team in NFL history, confirmed by their 13-3 victory over the Los Angeles Rams.

We’ll get to that in a minute.

Untouchable: Tom Brady (No.12) celebrates a touch down during Super Bowl LIII.Credit: AP

But first, let’s go outside the $2.1 billion Mercedes-Benz Stadium and find the real people attending Super Bowl 53.

Let’s go past those sitting in the $100,000 seats on the 50-yard line; past the Patriots fans gorging themselves on slabs of nachos and washing it down with Bud Lite; past celebs like Danny DeVito, Woody Harrelson, Kevin Hart and Billy Slater. Yes, Billy Slater.

Let’s head up the dirt hill to the tailgate party where we are drawn by the intoxicating mix of barbecue smoke, two-litre bottles of 1800 Silver tequila, and a DJ pumping out Lil Wayne’s Uproar in a carpark full of GMCs, Dodges and other enormous American cars.

Up on the hill is where we find Quinn Clark, 35, an education assistant who doesn’t have a ticket to the game but will happily watch it on one of the televisions residing on the back of someone’s truck.

“These are the real people, up here on this hill,” she tells me. “This is the real Atlanta.”

She lives in Atlanta but she’s wearing a Patriots jersey.

“I love winners,” she says. “And Tom Brady’s a winner”.

Smart choice, Quinn. Brady is a winner and almost painfully so. He can no longer fit all of his Super Bowl rings on one hand because he has six of them. At 41, he’s the oldest quarterback in history to win the match.

Where does he now reside in American sports’ pecking order? After Ali? After Jordan? After Nicklaus? He is, at the very least, sitting at the bar with them even if the Brady haters will struggle to admit it.

For one fleeting moment, though, it didn’t look like being Brady’s night. It didn’t look like being the Pats’. His very first pass was intercepted just minutes into the game. That’s only happened twice before in Super Bowl history.

The play broke the internet but it didn’t break the Patriots’ spirit nor their defence, which slowly rubbed the Rams into the synthetic turf. It was gripping but boring all in one. Most NFL post-season matches go down the last three seconds. This one never seemed in doubt even if it was until the final minutes.

Patriots fans are among the loudest I’ve heard at a sporting event. Their support is almost palpable, although it helps when they outnumber the opposition’s. They occupied most of the seats in the 71,000-seat stadium.

When Patriots defensive tackle Danny Shelton hit Rams running back CJ Anderson in the second quarter, he jumped to his feet and urged the faithful to lift them further.

New England's Kyle Van Noy celebrates in confetti after game.Credit: AP

Then linebacker Kyle Van Noy sacked baby-faced Rams quarterback Jared Goff and there was little doubt that the Rams were going to be strangled out of this match. It was going to be a Belichick special. Wide receiver Julian Edelman was named Most Valuable Player but it should’ve been given to the coach.

“We’re only about Tom Brady, aren’t we?” asked Patriots linebacker Kyle Van Noy amid the tinsel and glitter on the field after full-time.

Not always but Brady had some hand in the result; like the pass he threw to Rob Gronkowski in the fourth quarter with the score still locked at 3-3.

In the huddle, Edelman told Gronkowski: “We need another one from you, bro. We need a huge play.”

On the next play, Brady launched his best pass of the Super Bowl 29 yards downfield.

Gronkowski launched himself above the Rams’ Cory Littleton and Marcus Peters to complete the play, right on the goal line.

The Pats scored the only touchdown of the match on the next play.

“It’s crunch time,” Gronkowski, who is still uncertain about whether he will play next year, said afterwards. “I knew it was going to come to me. I just had a feeling.”

Dynasty: New England Patriots Kyle Van Noy, and Rob Gronkowski celebrate the Super Bowl victory.Credit: AP

While Brady made the right moves when it mattered, Goff did not.

With four minutes remaining, he went agonisingly close to finding wide receiver Brandlin Cooks with a 35-yard pass only to see it fumbled in the end zone.

On the very next play, he went there again but the pass was intercepted and the match was lost. Cooks didn’t seem to know it was going that way. Patriots cornerback Stephon Gilmore, who took the intercept, did.

“I saw it the whole time,” he said. “I never took my eyes off it. I looked it in. I can’t believe he threw it.”

On this night a year ago, the Philadelphia Eagles buried the Patriots with a touchdown with two minutes to go. At times this season, the Patriots’ dynasty looked like it was about to be toppled. Talk about a fallout between Brady and Belichick have been bubbling along all season.

They’ve revelled in being the team nobody likes. New England versus Everyone.

Brady thrives on it, too.

“I don’t want people to tell me I’m great,” he said in the build-up. “I can’t use that. I want them to tell me I can’t.”

After the match, the tailgate party was still heaving on top of the dirt hill, where I had earlier met Qaadir Mlatamo.

He was wearing a T-shirt. On the front: “TOM F…KIN BRADY”. On the back: “BITCH I’M THE GOAT”.

So he’s a Patriot fan?

“Hell no,” he sniffs. “I’m from New York. I just like the shirt.”

Andrew Webster travelled to Atlanta as a guest of ESPN.