Tom Brady has only three Super Bowl losses in his career out of 10 appearances. Two of those came at the hands of Eli Manning and the Giants — both one-score games, each decided by less than four points. So close, yet so far. But the other loss?
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That third loss came against the Eagles, with an eight-point difference. But if you believe Brady himself, it was his mistake that kept the game from being tied. He didn’t exactly mean to say it outright—but while breaking down the play (not realizing it was his), he accidentally called himself a bad quarterback, basically roasting himself over a moment that could have made a game-sealing difference.
Let’s rewind the clock to 2018: the New England Patriots fell to the Philadelphia Eagles 41-33 in Super Bowl LII. Trailing by eight with nine seconds left, Brady launched a Hail Mary pass into the end zone, only for it to be knocked down by Eagles defenders, sealing the win for Philly.
But Brady seemed to forget how that final play went down. About two months ago, when he joined Sundae Conversation with host Caleb Pressley, the host gave him a hypothetical about what advice he’d give a quarterback in the same situation he faced against the Eagles. Unaware that Pressley was referring to the QB’s own play, Brady replied,
“He doesn’t have to throw a Hail Mary at that point, he could try to gain something a little bit shorter with nine seconds left… I thought that with nine seconds left, I would try to get something short out of bounds to make the Hail Mary pass less far away.”
When Pressley confronted the QB, asking why he was lying to the hosts, Brady roasted himself: “I’m not lying. I’m telling you what a smart quarterback would do.”
It took a while for Brady to realize Pressley was talking about him and the scenario he was in against the Eagles in the Super Bowl. But once he caught on—and realized he was giving different advice for his own play—Brady laughed and admitted he made a “mistake.”
“Here’s the thing, when I play so many games, unless I win, they don’t really stick,” Brady said. “That was a mistake.”
Regardless, that loss must still sting for the QB, who was so close to adding another ring to his collection. Over a year after the New England Patriots fell to the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LII, Brady admitted to WEEI that he still wasn’t over it and spoke about the mental toll it took on him.
“You assume I’m over it? Come on now,” Brady told WEEI. “That’s a lot of mental scar tissue from that year. That was a tough game.”
Brady and the Patriots bounced back from their Super Bowl loss the very next season. They met the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl LIII and won, 13-3. Brady would go on to win one more Super Bowl in his career with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as they defeated the Kansas City Chiefs 31-9 in Super Bowl LV.
