Tom Brady wondered why Patriots didn’t call timeout before final interception

Tom Brady was on the sideline while the New England Patriots were attempting a goal-line stand against the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl 49. As the clock ticked down toward the end of regulation, he was unsure of head coach Bill Belichick’s decision to save the team’s final timeout.

“And then they gave it to Marshawn [Lynch] on whatever, first down,” Brady told the Dennis & Callahan Morning Show on WEEI in Boston. “And then it was second down. And then it all happened so quick. The clock was running. I was like, ‘Are we going to call timeout? What are we going to do? We chose not to.

“There was obviously a great reason why we didn’t. Malcolm came up with the play of our season.”

The decision to save the timeout was bold. Belichick was apparently willing to put the game at the mercy of his defense, and put pressure on the Seahawks offense to score with the clock winding down. On second-and-1 from the 1-yard line, the Seahawks made the much-criticized decision to pass the ball, which resulted in a game-ending interception by Malcolm Butler.

Effectively, by holding on to the timeout, the Patriots forced the Seahawks to pass on at least one of their remaining three downs or risk having the game clock, which was snapped on second down with 26 seconds remaining, run out. The decision also meant that, had the Seahawks scored, the Patriots offense would have had virtually no time to get in position for a game-tying field goal.

Butler validated the faith of his coaches. For the safety’s effort, Brady said he wanted to give him the truck that came with the Super Bowl MVP award.

“I would love to give him the truck,” Brady said. “I would love to do that. I’m going to figure out how to make that work.”

Butler’s pick capped a wild sequence of events late in Sunday’s game. Two plays prior to Butler’s interception, Seahawks receiver Jermaine Kearse made an improbable, bobbling reception that put the Seahawks at the Pats’ 5-yard line.

“I couldn’t believe [Kearse] caught it,” Brady said. “I watched the play and then I saw the deflection and I thought it was incomplete so I turned my back pretty quick. And then somehow people were still cheering. I turned around and I saw the refs going to signal a catch. I really couldn’t see what happened. I looked up on the big screen and I saw the catch and I just shook my head. I said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’”

Butler flipped momentum as quickly as Kearse had. Brady hinted that the play (*ahem*) made up for everything that had gone wrong for the Patriots since their last Super Bowl win.

“It was very quick how all that stuff transpired. And that’s football. We’ve been on the other end of that. Things that would happen once every 10 years happened against us. So it’s nice that it actually goes our way.”

Brady probably won’t garner much sympathy from non-New England fans about his plight over a 10-year Super Bowl drought. His challenge overcoming criticism from DeflateGate feels a little more real, however. Brady and head coach Bill Belichick were the central figures of accusations that the Patriots deflated football before the AFC Championship against the Indianapolis Colts. Brady discussed his feelings over the two weeks prior to kickoff against the Seahawks.

“I’m a human being, so you have a lot of emotions just like everybody else,” Brady said. “I am who I am, and I’m very proud of who I am. It’s just how I choose to live my life. Like I said, the most important thing is how the people who know me feel about me. A lot of people that may be critical at times don’t know me -- or may be positive at times. There’ s a lot of people that -- truthfully over the course of my career I’ve never had anyone say anything bad about me. I’ve been very fortunate and blessed to be able to have that.”