Last weekend, the New England Patriots faced off against the Atlanta Falcons in the biggest football game of the year: the Super Bowl. Heading into this game, the Patriots seemed the surefire victor, but Falcons fans were persistent in their support for their favorite team. In the end, it was the Patriots that took home the famous Vince Lombardi Trophy, winning 34-28, but the Falcons definitely did not go down without a fight.

 The game began with the Falcons taking an easy 28-3 lead, and it seemed that they would without a doubt take home their first ever Super Bowl win. Tom Brady, however, was not about to let that happen. Despite Brady giving up the first pick-six of his postseason career during the first half, the Patriots came back in the second to score 25 consecutive points to tie up the game and head it into overtime. In fact, this game was the first Super Bowl to ever go into overtime. Overtime in football is sudden death, meaning whoever scores a touchdown first, automatically wins without the other team getting a chance to respond (however, with a field goal they do). The Patriots won the coin toss, and thus started with the ball. Brady, doing what he does best, led his team to go down the field for 75 yards in 8 plays. In the end, it was James White who ran the ball over the line for the winning touchdown. With this win, Brady became the first player in NFL history to win five Super Bowls.

  Even though the Falcons did not end up with the win, they still gave a solid performance (in the first half, at least). Grady Jarrett, who plays defensive tackle for the Falcons, tied the record for most sacks in a Super Bowl, taking down Tom Brady an impressive 3 times. When the Falcons headed back to the locker room at halftime, it seemed obvious that they would take home the title. The team that came out of that locker room, however, was a completely different Atlanta Falcons. They could not seem to do anything right in the second half, letting the Patriots score a whopping 31 unanswered points. If they had scored even one field goal in the second half, they probably would not have gone into overtime, and would probably be celebrating the franchise’s first win. “The Patriots did not beat the Falcons,” junior Nathan Mooney said, “The Falcons beat themselves.” In the end, the Falcons were their own worst enemy, and the win was stolen right out of their hands.