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Cade Otton was born April 15, 1999, when Tom Brady was in spring ball ahead of his fifth year at Michigan. He turned six years old two months Brady won his third Super Bowl. By the time he graduated high school, Brady had five rings.
So the first thing I asked Otton—when I got him on the phone Sunday night after he caught the game-winning touchdown pass from Brady against the Rams—was whether he had a sort of moment in the hour before we talked.
“That’s hilarious that you mention that—I think the kinda and I had was at the beginning when I first got here,” the 23-year-old said. “But after spending time with him and working with him, he’s just a great teammate and a great player who really invests in his teammates. And so I felt like that whole last drive, we’d been there before and I think everyone felt confident that we were gonna be able to get it done despite the results of the past few weeks.
“But, yeah, taking a step back and adding some perspective, it’s like, .”
And here’s what I take from it—what we saw from Brady early on Sunday night was the one quality that won’t age out, rough as the rest may have looked at points the past two months. It was proved over and over Sunday with the throws he made, the calm he exuded and the confidence he projected onto a rookie such as Otton, who had every reason to be tense and tight, and wasn’t because of Brady.
In case you missed it, and I’m sure you didn’t, here was the situation: The Buccaneers got the ball back at their own 40-yard line with 44 seconds left and no timeouts. They dropped a couple of potential game-tying touchdowns on the previous drive and settled for a field goal, which cut the deficit to 13–9. The past two Super Bowl champions, Tampa Bay and the Rams (3–5 and 3–4 heading into the game, respectively), needed this one, and the Buccaneers got the stop they needed after kicking the field goal to keep their faint hopes alive.
Or those would be faint—if the quarterback wasn’t still Thomas Edward Patrick Brady Jr.
Otton, for his part, had to grow up fast, as Brady delivered a very direct message to the players in the huddle—“It’s time. We gotta do it now.” And right away, the ball was going to the rookie who’s emerged at tight end with Rob Gronkowski gone and Cam Brate beat up, and whom the quarterback was ready to roll with on a drive in which plays couldn’t be wasted because they had no timeouts.
“I just ran a seam route, and, thankfully, the middle was open,” Otton said of his 28-yard reception, which gave the Buccaneers a first down at the Rams’ 32 with 28 seconds left. “Tom delivered a great ball, and when we’re in two-minute mode, we know we gotta get the ball to the ref as fast as we can and get up and get ready. So everyone was ready to do that, executed and it was really good to get a good drive start. We all just want to get in a rhythm, start of no-huddle drives, and we were able to do that.”
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Next, Brady threw a swing route to Leonard Fournette, who ran out of bounds with a four-yard gain to stop the clock at 24 seconds. Brady then got Scotty Miller matched up on Rams rookie Derion Kendrick and got him the ball on an out-breaking route for 14 yards. Brady used Miller again on the next snap to take advantage of a Rams secondary playing way off the ball for another seven yards. Miller easily got out of bounds on both, and that left 16 seconds.
From there, Mike Evans drew pass interference in the end zone, moving the ball to the 1 to set up Otton for his game winner. And, yup, he wound up paying off Brady’s trust.
“First of all, we needed to sell run—we’re at the one-yard line, so we knew they would at least respect the run up the middle,” Otton said. “And then the receivers outside of me did a great job getting me open, just kinda creating a pile in the box. And I was able to slip out to the flat while running back and O-line sold run, too, and Tom delivered the ball perfectly. We had worked on that play a lot.”
It looked like it in the way that Otton sprung free and walked into the end zone untouched.
It also felt like it to the guys executing the play. Really, the whole drive did.
“Honestly, it felt like practice,” Otton said. “We practiced that situation many times, and we knew our job and it felt like we’d been there before and we just had to go do what we’ve done a bunch of times. Tom’s a big part of that, obviously. I think I heard he’s had 54 game-winning drives, so yeah, obviously he knows how to get it done, and we’ve practiced it and felt like we knew how to get it done. It’s just great to get the result.”
I did correct Otton. It’s now a record 55-game-winning drives for Brady.
But you can excuse him. There are more than a few of those he couldn’t possibly remember.
And that’s what is so amazing about what he gave all of us watching on Sunday. It’s something that quite literally links generations. Brady’s first of the 55 came 21 years ago against the Chargers in San Diego. The other quarterback in that one, Doug Flutie, turned 60 years old a few weeks ago.
A lot, obviously, has changed since then.
The effect Brady has on his teammates, and games, in these situations sure hasn’t. And it’s just another thing, when he retires, to separate him from everyone else.
