2014 New England Patriots: The Fourth Ring That Changed Everything
The search for a fourth ring had been elusive for Tom Brady. The New England Patriots quarterback had won Super Bowls in three of his first four years as a starter from 2001-04. But while the Patriots had continued to produce contending—even elite teams—over the next decade, and made a couple of more Super Bowls, getting championship #4—and thereby tying Brady with Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw for the most all-time for a QB—was still out there.
In 2014, at the age of 37, and starting to hear rumblings about his future, Brady not only won his fourth ring, he kick-started a closing push to his career that removed any doubt about his historical standing.
AN OFFENSE BUILT ON PRECISION
Brady’s actual numbers were a little pedestrian in ’14. His 64 percent completion rate ranked 14th among starting quarterbacks, and a 7.1 yards-per-attempt was subpar, at 21st in the league. What the veteran did was avoid mistakes and finish drives. He was only intercepted on 1.5 percent of his passes, a top-5 figure. And he posted a TD/INT ratio of 33-9.
Rob Gronkowski was the game’s best tight end, catching 82 passes for over 1,100 yards. Julian Edelman was a reliable target, leading the team with 92 receptions. Brandon LaFell was a reliable option, with 74 catches of his own. And Brady made frequent use of Shane Vereen out of the backfield, with Vereen catching 52 balls.
The diverse passing attack was enough to make up for a running game that, while having some big moments, didn’t produce over the long haul. No one back consistently emerged, the offensive line was non-descript and the Patriot rushing attack was 22nd in the NFL. But Brady and his core of receivers were enough to make this the fourth-most prolific attack in the league.
BELICHICK’S QUIET DEFENSE
Head coach Bill Belichick maximized a defense that was short on stars. The addition of Darrell Revis, an All-Pro corner, was a needed boon for the secondary and defensive end Rob Ninkovich finished with eight sacks. Ultimately though, this was a unit whose whole was much greater than the sum of its parts, finishing eighth in the NFL for points allowed.
SEPTEMBER SHOCKWAVES: QUESTIONS INTENSIFY
By this stage of Brady’s career and his run with Belichick, every season began with at least a few questions about whether this was when the decline would set in. Week 1 in Miami added to those questions. While the Patriots led 20-10 at the half, they couldn’t run the ball and they couldn’t protect Brady, who was sacked four times. The game got away and they lost 33-20.
A visit to mediocre Minnesota was up next. After spotting the Vikings a 7-0 lead, New England was able to get control of the trenches on both sides of the ball. Stevan Ridley ran for 101 yards. The defense generated six sacks, two apiece by linebacker Dont’a Hightower and end Chandler Jones. The latter also returned a blocked field goal for a touchdown. The Patriots pulled away to a 30-14 win.
New England hosted lowly Oakland in Week 3. Neither team played well, but Edelman’ 10 catches for 84 yards gave the Patriots enough offense to win 16-9.
If the Raider win was uninspiring, what happened on Monday Night in Kansas City was positively alarming. The Patriots were hammered up front, losing rush yardage 207-75. Brady played poorly and was intercepted twice. Facing a team that would ultimately miss the playoffs, Brady was pulled for 23-year-old Jimmy Garoppolo in a 41-14 embarrassment.
Belichick’s stoic press conference would only look forward, as he responded to every difficult question with “On to Cincinnati,” as a good Bengals team loomed.
But media speculation ran wild. At the very least, it seemed that Tom Brady’s days of being considered an elite quarterback were finished. There was even talk in some corners—including, reportedly, inside Patriot headquarters, that maybe Garoppolo’s time was coming sooner rather than later. The pressure was on.
COURSE CORRECTION
Brady was ready for the Sunday Night Football audience when Cincinnati came into Foxboro. He quickly threw a 17-yard touchdown pass to Tim Wright to get things going and the Patriots broke out to a 14-0 lead. Brady would finish 23/35 for 292 yards and no mistakes. Gronk caught six balls for 100 yards. And with Ridley leading the way, New England enjoyed a 220-79 rushing edge. The result was an easy 43-17 win. The questions weren’t gone, but the media dogs had been called off for another day.
The Patriots went to Buffalo to face a Bills squad that would narrowly miss the postseason. In spite of running game struggles, Brady was brilliant, going 27/37 for 361 yards and four touchdowns, spreading the wealth among his receivers. Ninkovich rang up three sacks and New England rolled to a 37-22 win.
A Thursday night home date against a bad New York Jets team started off well enough. Brady hit Vereen with a 49-yard scoring pass right out of the gate. Then the Patriots bogged down. They were outrushed 218-63 but kept getting key red-zone stops. The biggest stop came on a two-point play late in the game that preserved a 27-25 win.
New England’s offense heated back up against the subpar Chicago Bears a week later. Brady put on a show for the home crowd, going 30/35 for 354 yards, five TDs and no mistakes Gronk caught nine balls for 149 yards, while LaFell had 11 catches for 124 yards. The Pats hit the half-century mark in a 51-23 rout.
Now 6-2 and starting to roll, New England was set to host Denver.
STATEMENT WINS
The Broncos, led by Brady’s traditional nemesis, Peyton Manning, had beaten the Patriots in 2013’s AFC Championship Game. That game had been played in Denver. With the Broncos coming in at 6-1, this battle in the late Sunday afternoon window would be significant in shaping this year’s postseason picture.
New England simply dominated. In the second quarter, Edelman caught one TD pass and also brought a punt back 84 yards to the house, the highlight of a nine-catch day for the steady receiver. Gronk’s nine catches produced 105 yards. Brady tossed four touchdown passes. It was 27-7 by half and ended 43-21.
After a bye week, the Patriots picked up where they left off on Sunday Night in Indianapolis. The Colts, quarterbacked by Andrew Luck, were seen as a rising force to the Brady-Peyton Duopoly in the AFC. An otherwise no-name Patriot running back, Jonas Gray, had the night of his life, going off for 201 yards. New England completely shut down the Indy running game. The Pats led 28-20 in the fourth quarter and then pulled away to a 42-20 win.
Now 8-2 and having asserted themselves against two prime AFC rivals, it was time to take on contenders from the NFC. Hosting the playoff-bound Detroit Lions, Brady went 38/53 for 349 yards, spreading the ball around. The defense shut down Lion QB Matthew Stafford and the Patriots coasted to a 34-9 win.
On the final day of November, New England was in Green Bay for a late Sunday afternoon kickoff. Packer quarterback Aaron Rodgers was on his way to the MVP award, and this was a potential Super Bowl preview. Brady played a clean game, going 22/35 for 245 yards and no mistakes. But Rodgers was better, at least on this day, throwing for 368 yards and the Patriots were outrushed 130-84. Timely defensive stops kept them in it, but a 26-21 loss ended the winning streak.
Even so, New England was going into December with a record of 9-3 and holding pole position for the #1 seed in the AFC playoffs. Over the last eight games, Brady’s offense had averaged 32 points per game. They were a long way from the misery of Kansas City .
CLOSING OUT THE AFC EAST
The schedule lightened, but it didn’t necessarily become easy. The San Diego Chargers would contend for the postseason to the final week, and the Patriots trailed on the road 14-3 for a Sunday Night audience. Brady flipped a four-yard TD pass to Gronk, and it was 14-13 by the half. The defense then cranked up the pressure, getting four sacks, two by linebacker Jamie Collins. Brady and Edelman connected on a 69-yard touchdown pass. New England won 23-14.
Combined with a Buffalo loss earlier in the day, the AFC East was now clinched. In the broader race for homefield, the Patriots were tied with the Broncos, had a one-game lead on the Colts, and enjoyed the head-to-head tiebreaker over both teams.
WRAPPING UP HOMEFIELD ADVANTAGE
After catching everyone’s eye in Week 1, the Dolphins had settled into mediocrity. After messing around with Miami for a half, leading 14-13, New England took over in the third quarter. They scored 24 straight points, with Gronk and Edelman both catching touchdown passes and rolled to a 41-13 win.
The rematch with the Jets was every bit as teeth-grinding as the earlier Thursday Night game had been. Neither team ran the ball and Brady was sacked four times. But once again, New England was the team getting the key stops in the red zone. It was enough to prevail 17-16.
When Denver lost on Monday Night, the regular season outcome was complete—the Patriots had the 1-seed and the road to the Super Bowl would come through Foxboro. Brady just played for a half in the home finale against Buffalo, a game that ended in a 17-9 loss. New England was 13-3. It was time to make another run at the fourth ring.
THE RAVENS TEST
The Baltimore Ravens came to town for a late Saturday afternoon kickoff that would open Divisional Round Weekend. There was, perhaps, no team less likely to be intimidated by traveling to New England. The Ravens had won postseason games here in 2009 and 2012, along with a narrow loss in 2011.
And Baltimore came out rolling in this game. Joe Flacco tossed two first-quarter touchdown passes and the Patriots were staring at a 14-0 deficit. Brady answered with a short TD run before the end of the first period and then hit Danny Amendola on a 15-yard scoring toss to tie the game in the second quarter.
But Flacco answered with another touchdown pass before halftime, and then again in the third quarter. It was 28-14. New England was on their way to being outrushed 136-14. The early evening was looking grim.
Brady rallied the troops with a six-yard TD pass to Gronk to get back in the game. Then Belichick dialed up some trickery. Brady threw a pass down the line of scrimmage to Edelman that was officially a lateral. Edelman, who had played some quarterback in college, threw a 51-yard touchdown pass to Amendola.
The game went to the fourth quarter tied 28-all. The Patriot defense came up with a red zone stop to force a field goal. That was all the opening Brady needed. He would finish this game 33/50 for 367 yards, and his 23-yard TD pass to LaFell with five minutes left produced a 35-31 win.
ROLLING THROUGH THE RAIN
Indianapolis upset Denver on the other side of the AFC bracket, so it was the Colts who came to town for the 6:30 PM EST conference championship game a week later. LeGarrette Blount, the latest running back to be getting steady carries for the Patriots ran for an early touchdown. It set the tone for a night where Blount rolled up 148 yards on 30 carries.
New England was completely shutting down Luck and led 17-7 at the half. In the second half, everything from the rain to the Patriot offense came pouring down. Blount ran for two more scores. A little more trickery came from the offense, with tackle Nate Solder reporting as an eligible receiver and catching a 16-yard touchdown pass. The Patriots cruised home to a 45-7 rout.
They were going back to the Super Bowl. But a storm that went beyond the January rain was developing.
THE STORM THAT FOLLOWED
Indianapolis was reporting to the NFL that footballs being used by New England were not inflated to league standards—presumably making the ball easier for Brady to grip for passing and for running backs to protect. The “scandal” quickly escalated and become a full-blown investigation.
Covered with the intensity of a political saga, “Deflategate” dominated the media discussion in the two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl and lingered for two years that included extensive legal challenges and ultimately resulted in Brady being suspended for four games in 2016.
A CLASSIC SUPER BOWL
Beneath the headlines, a fantastic matchup awaited. The Seattle Seahawks were the defending Super Bowl champs and had one of the league’s great defenses led by “The Legion of Boom” secondary. Oddsmakers considered the game dead-even. And the oddsmakers were right. The battle in Phoenix was a classic in every sense.
It started out slowly, with neither team scoring in the first quarter. Brady threw an 11-yard touchdown pass to LaFell early in the second quarter. Then it heated up right before the half. The Seahawks got a tying score. Brady hit Gronk on a 22-yard TD pass with 0:31 left that seemed to assure the Patriots would go to the locker room with the lead…until Seattle’s Russell Wilson answered with a 11-yard TD pass of his own with two seconds left. It was 14-14 at the half.
The Seahawks seemed to be getting the upper hand in the third quarter, scoring ten unanswered points and getting a 24-14 lead. The Patriots couldn’t run the ball, and they were having hard time getting any deep strikes in the passing game. Once again, the outlook some bleak.
Brady kept firing away with precision, calmly picking apart a genuinely great defense with patience. He found Vereen for 11 catches and Edelman for nine more. Short touchdown passes to Amendola and Edelman gave New England a 28-24 lead with two minutes to play.
Seattle came down the field and got inside the three-yard line in the final half-minute. They had a timeout in their back pocket and running back Marshawn Lynch had rushed for 102 yards. It seemed all that was left was to give the back everyone called “Beast Mode” the football and it would be over. For one final time, the Patriot season looked bleak.
But perhaps trying to maximize the number of plays they could run, the Seahawks decided to pass. That was more understandable than conventional media coverage makes it sound—they did only have one timeout left and it was second down. Less understandable was the decision to throw the ball over the middle into traffic.
Corner Malcolm Butler jumped the rout and got a stunning interception. Newspaper headlines across New England screamed “The Butler Did It!” In an incredible ending to a magnificent game, the Patriots had a 28-24 win.
Brady finished 37/50 for 328 yards and was an easy choice for Super Bowl MVP. Perhaps just as easy was his own decision to give the truck he got for winning the award to Butler.
WHAT THE FOURTH RING UNLOCKED
It isn’t often that a three-time champion comes into a season with a monkey on his back, but Brady was at least close to being at that point in 2014. He ended it in triumph with his fourth ring. Two years later, he took his place in the record books with #5. He and Belichick won another in 2018. Brady then went on to Tampa Bay and won yet another Super Bowl in 2020.
The 2014 New England Patriot season was just the beginning of a historic final chapter for an all-time great.