Lost in the Miami Miracle was Tom Brady’s uncharacteristic mental mistake at the end of the first half.
With only seconds remaining in the first half and the Patriots out of timeouts, the quarterback took a sack. Time expired, preventing New England from a chip-shot field goal.
“There’s no excuse. You just can’t let those things happen. It’s definitely my fault,” Brady said Monday on his weekly radio show on WEEI.
The Patriots took over the Dolphins 15 after a second blocked punt of the half. (Yes, technically it wasn’t a blocked punt since it traveled 2 yards beyond the line of scrimmage, but statistics sometimes lie.) New England called its final timeout of the half after Brady completed a 13-yard pass to Rob Gronkowski to the Miami 2.
After two incompletions, the Patriots faced third-and-goal with 14 seconds left. Brady inexplicably allowed Robert Quinn to sack him for a 7-yard loss rather than throwing the ball away.
Brady explained afterward he lost track of how many timeouts the Patriots had.
“It was just a bad play,” Brady said on his radio show Monday. “We called a timeout after we got the first down, and we ran a couple of plays. I just wasn’t. . . . It was third down, and I thought, OK, well let’s not throw an interception and just had a few other things going through my mind and just took it for granted. I don’t care how long you play, you’ve got to just stay really aware of those situations. You just can’t give away free points like that. It was just a very bad play by me.”
By the third question Monday about his mental mistake, Brady seemed to have enough of that line of questioning. He instead appeared ready to put his mental miscue -- and the loss -- behind him.
“That rarely happens. It’s kind of an anomaly,” Brady said. “I’m not going to overly evaluate it. Just a bad play.”
Just like the “desperado” final play rarely happens. On Sunday, both happened to the Patriots, which is how they turned victory into defeat.