Tom Brady and laughing in your face.

Let me tell you about my first Tom Brady experience. I am sitting in a van that is churning through a road in Hyannis port, Massachusetts. I am perspiring quite heavily having bared the blistering heat that rained down on me all day. To my left is Mike. Mike is not perspiring.  All day we have dragged, pulled, dug and planted in stony silence. The one time Mike talks to me, he asks if I know any Frenchman. I reply I don’t and ask why. “Pussies, the lot of them, they let us down”. I laugh into his face and the silence resumes.

We are nearing home when I spot a Brady 12 shirt. “So what’s the deal with him?” I ask, “He any good?” Mike laughs into my face.

He then fills the rest of the short journey home with a play by play of Brady’s last season and promises me that the guy is the best ever. I’m sceptical, but the notion of him as a living football God is confirmed by my landlord. Peyton Manning isn’t clutch, he’s arm isn’t all that and he can’t handle the rush. I didn’t ask about Peyton but it was good to know.

The following season I followed the Patriots. I had watched the NFL as an interested bystander up until that point always lamenting the fact I didn’t have a team. The fact I now supported the best one was a happy coincidence. The Pats went 16-0, marched to the Superbowl and met Eli. The rest is history. I was left stunned by the loss. A lot like growing up and learning about Muhammad Ali and learning he lost a fight. It was like seeing some no mark like Damon Hill beating Michael Schumacher or Blackburn bloody Rovers beating United.

Something snapped in Brady that night. The ultimate defeat in the ultimate game of his life. That shroud of invincibility that surrounded him up until that point was whipped away. We learned he could lose. He learned he could lose. Everyone else learned he could lose.

Sunday night was the night he could recover all of that. He had led the Patriots back for revenge. It was the Giants again, it was Eli again and Brady lost again. His first play of the game was a safety and it smacked of a nervous man. The fact he marched the Patriots ninety six yards down the field for a touchdown, tying a SuperBowl record will be forgotten, as will his sixteen consecutive completed passes, another record.

The story book images of this game from Brady’s point of view will be the safety, the interception and the Wes Welker drop. Eliminate any of the three and most likely Brady is wearing a fourth SuperBowl ring.

Such are the inches in defeat. Mike Carlson made the point in the BBC studios on Sunday night that he would like Brady to play more off the cuff, that his precision offence is just that; precise. If that radar wobbles any bit then the game at this level is lost. Brady shook off the pass rush in third quarter and heaved one downfield. You don’t get a more off the cuff play, Rob Gronkowski had hobbled down field, the ball arched away from him and Chase bloody Blackburn came up with it.

Brady will shoulder the blame, that’s his nature. He demands perfection firstly from himself and when that eludes him, he holds his hand up. The reasons for the defeat Sunday night vary from poor clock management to the three plays outlined above but ultimately the Giants made more plays.

Brady will get another shot at immortality. It is quite likely that it will be next year. The Pats have two first round picks in this year’s draft and they will surely be used to shore up a leaky secondary. A deep threat wouldn’t go amiss for Brady either. Their division is hardly taxing, and Brady along with Bill Belichick is a quick learner. They will have a shot for four. Both are cast iron certainties for the hall of fame either way and Brady’s place in the pantheon of quarterback greats is secure.

Oh, and if someone tells you Eli Manning is the better quarterback right now; laugh in their face. He is clutch though, I don't think even my old landlord would dispute that.