HOUSTON — New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady has the MVP trophy from Super Bowl XLIX, but cornerback Malcolm Butler proudly still drives the truck that Brady gave him. Two years later, Brady is still waiting to ride shotgun.
“I keep telling him to give me a ride, but he never does that,” Brady joked Monday night.
For Butler, who returns to the Super Bowl as the Patriots’ No. 1 cornerback two years after he was fifth on the depth chart in the 2015 game against the Seattle Seahawks, the truck isn’t his primary vehicle, but he makes sure to “put a couple of miles on it here and there so the oil and all won’t rust up.”
“It means a lot. I will always and forever have that truck,” Butler said at Super Bowl LI Opening Night festivities. “I’ll never give it away. I’ll never sell it. I’m going to always keep it. That’s a gift. That’s a special gift. That’s a trophy to me. So I’ll always keep that. I’ll always have that.”
Revisiting his decision to give the truck to Butler, who had picked off Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson at the goal line in the closing seconds to seal a 28-24 win, Brady lit up with a big smile.
“He earned it, and he deserved it. Without Malcolm, we don’t win that game. I love Malcolm. I joke with him all the time, but I just say, ‘Thank God for Malcolm Butler.’ He saved the game for us,” Brady said.
“It was just an incredible play, I think one of the greatest plays in the history of the NFL, for him to be able to recognize that. No one really knew who Malcolm Butler really was at that time. I had, because I had gone against him in practice so much. For him to recognize that and pull the trigger at the biggest moment of his career and make the play, in the Super Bowl against one of the best teams that has ever played in the Super Bowl in the Seahawks, that was incredible. So he deserved it, and I was happy to do it.”
In advance of Super Bowl LI, we take a look at the top 10 stats to know for the New England Patriots and Atlanta Falcons, and a few bonus stats involving both teams:
Patriots
1. The Patriots will be playing in their ninth Super Bowl, which will break a tie with the Broncos, Cowboys and Steelers for the most appearances.
2. If they were to lose, the Patriots (4-4) would tie the Broncos (3-5) for the most Super Bowl losses. If they win, they’d tie the Cowboys (5-3) and 49ers (5-1) for the second-most wins behind the Steelers (6-2).
3. Tom Brady is the all-time leader in Super Bowl completions (164), passing yards (1,605) and passing TDs (13). (More details on Brady’s accomplishments here.)
4. The Patriots have won all four meetings against the Falcons since Brady became the New England starting quarterback in 2001. The Falcons are one of seven teams Brady has not lost to as a starter.
5. At 39 years and 186 days on Feb. 5, Brady will be the second-oldest quarterback to start a Super Bowl, trailing only Peyton Manning last season. Brady could become the oldest Super Bowl MVP, and he could become the first four-time winner of the award.
6. Super Bowl LI will be Bill Belichick’s 36th postseason game, tying him with Tom Landry for the most among head coaches.
7. Belichick was the third-oldest coach to win a Super Bowl two years ago. If he wins again Sunday, he’ll be the second-oldest, behind only Tom Coughlin.
8. The Patriots led the NFL in scoring defense this season (15.6 PPG) for just the second time in franchise history. The other was in 2003, when they also won a Super Bowl played in Houston.
ESPN Stats & Information
9. The Patriots have not scored in the first quarter in any of their previous six Super Bowls during the Brady/Belichick era. The Patriots scored 130 points in the first quarter during the regular season, second only to the Falcons (139).
1. With the Falcons’ appearance, the NFC South has now sent all four teams to the Super Bowl, the only division to do so since division realignment in 2002.
2. The Falcons led the NFL in scoring for the first time in franchise history this season, scoring the eighth-most points in NFL history (540). No team to score that many points won the Super Bowl, however.
3. Atlanta ranked 27th in defensive scoring this season, allowing 25.4 points per game. That’s second-most ever by a team to reach the Super Bowl.
4. The Falcons have won their past six games, averaging 39.0 points per game in those contests. They have one giveaway and 13 takeaways in their past six games.
5. Atlanta scored a touchdown on its opening drive in eight straight games. No team in the last 15 seasons has had a streak longer than five straight games
6. By the time Super Bowl LI is played, Matt Ryan will have gone two full months without an interception. Ryan’s last interception came on Dec. 4 against the Chiefs. He’s thrown 212 passes since his last interception.
7. Ryan has thrown seven passing TDs and zero interceptions this postseason. Six quarterbacks threw more TDs with no picks in a single postseason, and all won the Super Bowl.
ESPN Stats & Information
8. The Patriots are one of two teams Ryan has never beaten (the other is the Steelers). Ryan is 0-2 in his career against the Patriots, with the last meeting occurring in Week 4 of 2013 (lost 30-23)
9. Ryan has thrown at least three passing touchdowns in four consecutive playoff games, the longest streak in NFL history.
1. This will be the sixth Super Bowl since the 1970 merger where the top-scoring offense (Falcons) meets the top-scoring defense (Patriots) from the regular season. The top-scoring defense has won four of the five previous meetings.
2. The Patriots and Falcons turned the ball over 11 times apiece during the regular season, tied for the fewest in the NFL. This will be just the second Super Bowl matching the two stingiest teams in terms of giveaways. The first was Super Bowl XVI when the 49ers defeated the Bengals.
3. With the over/under currently at 59 (Westgate), this would be the highest total in pro football championship history.
Former Buffalo Bills coach Rex Ryan has no interest in becoming a defensive coordinator and plans on spending at least the upcoming season as a television analyst, he told the New York Daily News this week.
“The one thing about [being on TV] is that you don’t lose,” Ryan told the newspaper in his first interview since being fired Dec. 27 by the Bills. “You’ll remember every damn loss. But the wins? You don’t necessarily remember. So, it takes a lot out of you. I’m tired of getting f—ed. Unless it’s a real situation [as a coach], there’s no sense of getting into it again.”
ESPN announced Monday that Ryan will join Sunday NFL Countdown this week to help break down Super Bowl LI. Sports Business Daily reported CBS, Fox and NFL Network have also reached out to Ryan to serve as an analyst following his firing in December. The Daily News reported Ryan has yet to choose which job will suit him best.
Ryan has three years remaining on the five-year, $27.5 million contract that he was given by the Bills in 2015.
“I’m really not that bitter [about being fired] and maybe that $15 million [remaining on the deal] is one of the reasons,” Ryan told the Daily News. “I’m not bitter, man. … Yeah, I’m hurt. I was hurt by it. There’s no question. But bitter ain’t how I feel. I’m like, ‘Shoot, if they never wanted me here, then fine. I ain’t here. I’m not your coach anymore. Fine and dandy.'”
Rex Ryan said he isn’t bitter about being fired by the Bills, but admits that he was hurt by the dismissal. “They told me, ‘Get out,’: Ryan said. “So I did.” Brett Carlsen/Getty Images
“It wasn’t up to me to leave,” Ryan said. “That’s not the case. They told me, ‘Get out.’ So I did.”
Ryan, who went 15-16 in almost two seasons in Buffalo, stripped his pickup truck of its red-and-blue theme and replaced the Bills’ logo with Clemson decals.
“I stripped that damn truck the day I got fired,” Ryan told the newspaper. “F— you guys.
“I set the expectations too high. Like, boy, that’s a shock. In a way, I felt, why not us? I stepped in where the head coach [Doug Marrone] had quit [following the 2014 season], the defensive coordinator [Jim Schwartz] had quit and the quarterback [Kyle Orton] quit on them. So, I thought that it was important at the time to say, ‘You know what? Shoot, I believe in you. And I’m proud to be the coach here.’ Every bit of that was true. I put that truck around town. I was all-in. Even though those other three had quit, I wasn’t a quitter. I was ready. And I wanted to be there. and I wanted to win. And I thought I could win.”
“At the end of the day,” Ryan said, “I’m responsible for the product on the field.
“I don’t wish them bad will. I don’t. But I don’t wish them luck, either. I’ll be honest: I don’t wish them good luck. I don’t wish them bad luck. I just don’t wish them luck. I wish the Jets luck.”
A string of emails that began in 2010 with the Atlanta Falcons’ head trainer and reached all the way to owner Arthur Blank showed a franchise worried about its “excessive” reliance on painkillers to treat players and the potential embarrassment that could cause the team and the NFL.
One topic raised in the email chain concerned a review by an outside agency that found that the team spent $81,000 on medication prescriptions for players in 2009 — nearly three times the league average.
Almost every recipient on the email chain — including Blank, president Rich McKay, general manager Thomas Dimitroff and then-head athletic trainer Marty Lauzon — is still with the team, which plays the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LI on Sunday.
“That’s being litigated now. That’s not something we’re going discuss right now,” Dimitroff said Monday night when asked about the emails. “When the time is right, we’ll readdress that.”
The emails were entered into court record Thursday as part of a proposed class-action lawsuit by more than 1,800 former NFL players who claim they were encouraged by the medical and training staffs of NFL teams to abuse painkillers and continue playing without regard for their long-term health.
The case is being heard in the Northern District of California by U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup. The same allegations were originally filed in a 2014 class-action lawsuit that is currently before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The email chain was presented to the court as an example of thousands of similar documents gathered during discovery that the ex-players’ lawyers want entered into the record. It was coincidental that the Falcons chain was released before the Super Bowl.
Lauzon was not with the team at the time of the critical review. He became the Falcons’ head trainer in January 2010 and currently serves as the team’s director of sports medicine and performance.
He first wrote to Dimitroff in May 2010 to note the conclusions contained in the review by SportPharm, an outside agency brought in by the NFL to look at how teams purchased, dispensed and tracked medications, including powerful painkillers and prescription drugs. Among the problems Lauzon highlighted from SportPharm’s review was the Falcons’ “excessive dispensation” of narcotics and other medications, which risked creating a “culture of dependency.”
“Within the first days on the job, I was informed that we barely missed a DEA [Drug Enforcement Agency] investigation because of improper billing issues,” Lauzon told Dimitroff.
A central contention of the painkiller lawsuit is that teams did not properly keep records about prescriptions and which players were getting drugs.
Dimitroff forwarded the email to the owner just hours later.
“I thought it quite important for you to be aware of a rather sensitive subject and one we need to discuss before we include others on this topic matter,” Dimitroff wrote to Blank.
“Agree — we should talk about this together with Rich [McKay],” Blank replied.
It’s not clear which practices changed as part of the discussion, and there is no evidence the Falcons violated league rules. What’s clear is that Lauzon was warning team executives that practices uncovered during the review could embarrass the team and raise compliance issues with the NFL.
Lauzon’s first email to Dimitroff also copied in Jeff Fish, who was Atlanta’s strength coach at the time and was released by the club in January 2013. The trainer expressed concerns that “players at the end of their careers going through medical issues” would seek media attention and “say they abused or are now addicted” to drugs as a result of the club’s practices.
Dimitroff subsequently forwarded the emails to McKay, who remains team president and also serves as chairman of the NFL Competition Committee, making him one of the more influential executives in the league.
McKay reached out the next day to Dr. Elliot Pellman, a rheumatologist who controversially led the NFL’s committee on brain injury at the time and later became a league medical adviser.
He asked Pellman whether Mary-Ann Fleming, who was then the director of player benefits in the league office, had recommended the Falcons replace their doctors in the wake of the same critical review and if she was aware who actually administered the club’s day-to-day medical regimen.
“I need to know — is this really true and does she realize the on-site trainer is really in control???” McKay wrote, then added, “I need to keep this confidential …”
Lauzon noted that Fleming had seen the SportPharm review and recommended the Falcons “start clean on all levels” — a new team doctor, head trainer and even a new pharmacy account number.
The proposed class-action lawsuit alleges that NFL trainers distributed drugs improperly and that teams failed to properly store and keep accurate records of the drugs, violating federal laws.
