Tom Brady took on his familiar ‘Comeback King’ role last night as his Tampa Bay Buccaneers came from behind to narrowly defeat a feisty New York Giants team.
The 43-year old threw two touchdowns, reclaiming the record for the most passing touchdowns in a career after Drew Brees surpassed him at the weekend. Brady now has 561.
New York looked good in the early parts of the game, going into the half leading 14-6. Brady needed two touchdowns to retake his title, and he had none.
Those came in the second half.
The Bucs came out looking stronger and Brady tied Brees’ record with six minutes remaining in the third quarter.
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His record-equaling 560th touchdown came from a three-yard pass to his long-time teammate Rob Gronkowski.
The pass was the 93rd time – including the postseason – Gronk and Brady have combined for a touchdown.
The duo overtook Steve Young and Jerry Rice on the all-time list of quarterback/receiver combos. Only Peyton Manning and Marvin Harrison have more together with 114 touchdowns.
Brady’s record-breaker came early in the fourth quarter with a floated pass to a diving Mike Evans.
New York rallied late in the fourth quarter. With 28 seconds on the clock, a touchdown pass from sophomore quarterback Daniel Jones took the score to 25-23.
A two-point conversion would tie the game and take it to overtime. But it wasn’t to be as rookie safety Antoine Winfield Jr. superbly broke up the pass attempt to running back Dion Lewis.
Speaking after the game, Brady paid tribute to Gronkowski and Evans, saying: “The touchdown to Gronk, he made a great catch because the ball got tipped at the line of scrimmage. He had great concentration on that.
“Then Mike’s was an incredible catch so those guys were making a lot of plays.”
The Buccaneers are now 6-2 and sit at the top of the NFC South, with just one win more than Brady’s touchdown-record rival Drew Brees and his New Orleans Saints.
They meet this weekend on Sunday Night Football and Brady was happy to get the win ahead of this crucial game.
“We obviously didn’t play the way we were capable of tonight,” he said. “But it’s still good to go get a win. 6-2, and obviously we’ve got a big one coming up this week.”
