Deep inside the Sheraton Wild Horse Pass in Chandler, Ariz.—past the hundreds of revelers, the open bars and the buffet stocked with beef taquitos—a smaller, quieter Patriots party carries on well into Monday morning. This is the Buzzard Room.
Tom Brady poses for a picture. He chats with old teammates, the men he won Super Bowls with a decade ago, guys like Tedy Bruschi and Deion Branch. He takes another picture. Word arrives: The rapper Rick Ross is on his way. Another picture. The QB is wearing designer blue jeans and a sweater and a white hat with SUPER BOWL XLIX CHAMPIONS across the front. Yet another picture, Brady’s celebration reduced to a series of snapshots, smile after smile. It’s 1:43 a.m.
Hours earlier Brady was named MVP of a Super Bowl that will be remembered among the most dramatic ever. New England had trailed by 10 at the start of the fourth quarter and then scrapped ahead by four. But as the clock displayed 26 seconds remaining, the Seahawks sat one yard—one Marshawn Lynch dive, one Russell Wilson rollout—away from a touchdown and an improbable comeback of their own. Instead an undrafted rookie cornerback from West Alabama named Malcolm Butler (Scrap to his teammates) intercepted what would have, should have been a game-winning slant pass from Wilson at the goal line. The play (a call savaged by the Twitterverse and defended to death by Seattle coach Pete Carroll) sealed far more than a Super Bowl. It bolstered the argument that Brady, already on the list of history’s best quarterbacks, is in fact the greatest of all time.
Perhaps Brady considers that. Perhaps he thinks about how one of the darkest years the NFL has ever seen—Ray Rice, Greg Hardy, Adrian Peterson, ongoing concussion litigation—ended with a Super Bowl viewed by more people than any other, a game that overshadowed, if only momentarily, what often seems like a sport in crisis.
Maybe he doesn’t.
Another photo. Outside the drama continues, but not in the Buzzard Room. These folks have been here before. No one mentions deflated footballs or Brady’s record for the most completions in a single Super Bowl (37) or the Pats’ 10-point rally, the NFL’s largest second-half championship-game comeback as New England implausibly held on for a 28–24 victory. “Last picture and we’re out,” a friend says.
Snap, snap, snap, and then Brady makes his way toward the exit, past owner Robert Kraft and everyone else who navigated beyond three security guards into the VIP room. The buzzards that circled this team in late September—who suggested that perhaps Brady was nearing the end after a 27-point drubbing by the Chiefs—are long gone. In the Buzzard Room, only the loyalists remain.
Brady spies Jay Feely, a college teammate from Michigan. He was a groomsman in Feely’s wedding. They embrace and Brady leans in close to kiss Feely on the cheek.
“Your ego is going to be back up here now,” Feely jokes, holding his right hand above his head.
“Awesome, man,” Brady replies. “It’s awesome.”
He makes his way toward the back exit and slugs down what looks like a vodka soda. He hardly speaks; teammates will do that for him. “Tom Brady is the best ever,” says cornerback Darrelle Revis. He repeats himself for emphasis. “The best ever, period. Tom Brady. Michael Jordan. The best. Write that down.”
