BY NICK ST. DENIS
Tom Brady wins games. It's what keeps him on the payroll.
When the then-undefeated New Orleans Saints scored a touchdown to go up by four points with just over a minute to go Sunday, much of the New England Patriots faithful tallied a mark in the loss column and fled the stadium. They forgot who they were dealing with.
Brady went on to lead the Patriots on an eight-play, 70-yard drive capped off by a game-winning 17-yard touchdown strike to Kenbrell Thompkins.
New England won, 30-27.
"I think no matter how you’ve played to that point, you have a situation: you have one timeout, two timeouts, three timeouts, no time outs, you’re backed up," Brady, who threw what seemingly was the game-sealing interception just a minute before the game-winning drive, said after the game, via Patriots.com.
"Regardless of what happens over the course of the game, you have a chance. That’s what football is all about."
The veteran signal-caller and future Hall-of-Famer now has 28 fourth-quarter comebacks and 39 game-winning drives to his name, according to pro-football-reference.com.
And while most of Brady's teammates were in awe of his late-game heroics, the leader of the Patriots' staff wasn't.
"That's what he does," Patriots coach Bill Belichick said after the game, via Patriots.com. "That's what he gets paid for. That's why he's so good. He does a good job of throwing the ball accurately and making good decisions and he made several of them on that drive."
The AFC East-leading Patriots hit the road next weekend to face the rival New York Jets.
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