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Eagles Super Bowl victory over the Patriots still on Tom Brady’s mind

Despite winning the Super Bowl last season with the Buccaneers, Brady appears unable to shake off the loss to the Eagles.

New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady leaves the field without greeting Eagles quarterback Nick Foles after losing Super Bowl LII in Minneapolis.
New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady leaves the field without greeting Eagles quarterback Nick Foles after losing Super Bowl LII in Minneapolis.Read moreTIM TAI / Staff Photographer

Nearly four years have passed since the Eagles defeated the Patriots in the Super Bowl, but that loss is apparently still on Tom Brady’s mind.

Brady, now with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, was asked about setting an all-time NFL passing yards record following Sunday’s win over the Patriots, in which he threw for 269 yards on 22-43 passing. Brady entered the game needing just 68 yards to surpass former New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees, who has since retired and is now working for NBC.

“Guys did a great job catching for me the last 22 years, all of ‘em which I hope … felt a little piece of happiness tonight, watching that, because everybody contributed,” Brady told NBC Sunday Night Football reporter Michelle Tafoya. “I sure as hell can’t catch anything, everyone’s seen that drop against the Eagles in the Super Bowl.”

Brady is jokingly referring to the Patriots’ trick play during the second quarter of the Super Bowl, where he flanked out as a receiver but dropped a wide-open pass during a trick play. Pouring salt into Brady’s wound was Eagles quarterback Nick Foles, who hauled in a touchdown pass later in the game during the famed “Philly Special” play.

It’s not the first time Brady has recalled the loss to the Eagles. During the Facebook documentary series Tom vs. Time, Brady revealed the most difficult part of losing that Super Bowl was watching his kids cry, and opened up about the late fumble caused by Brandon Graham that essentially sealed the Eagles victory.

“I thought we were going to go down and score. I thought we were going to win the game,” Brady said. “I thought about that play 500 times in five days.”

Gotham Chopra, director of the Tom vs. Time documentary series, thought Brady and the Patriots were going to win, revealing in a Facebook post following the game that the loss to the Eagles forced the production team to rethink the series’ final episode.

“The truth is we had a plan, but unconsciously, it was tied to the Pats winning the Super Bowl and, when that didn’t happen (congrats, Eagles!), I felt like we needed to pause and recalibrate,” Chopra wrote.

Brady also opened up about the loss ahead of the 2019 rematch against the Eagles during an interview on SportsRadio 93.7 WEEI in Boston.

“You assume I’m over it? Come on now,” Brady said. “That’s a lot of mental scar tissue from that year. That was a tough game…They deserved it that year.”

Brady will face the Eagles for the first time since joining the Buccaneers on Thursday Night Football on Oct. 14, but the situation will obviously be a lot different. The Buccaneers are riding high at 3-1, while the Eagles are 1-3 and hoping to avoid their fourth-straight loss of the season Sunday against the Carolina Panthers.

» READ MORE: Why aren’t Peyton and Eli Manning on ESPN’s ‘Monday Night Football’?

Brady-Belichick draws massive ratings on NBC

Looks like the Brady-Belichick bowl lived up to the hype.

The Buccaneers’ win over the Patriots on Sunday Night Football drew about 27.2 million viewers to NBC, the broadcast’s largest audience since 2015, according to Sports Media Watch’s Jon Lewis. The broadcast averaged a 34 share, meaning 34% of all households with televisions were tuned into the game, a new record for Sunday Night Football.

The exact ratings will be released Tuesday morning.

While impressive, especially considering the decline of cable subscribers over the past few years, the game didn’t come close to breaking into the top five regular-season broadcasts of all time (four of which were Thanksgiving games featuring the Dallas Cowboys):

Network
ABC
Window
MNF
Game
Giants-49ers
Date
12/3/90
Time
9 p.m.
Viewers
41.5 million
Network
NBC
Window
Thanksgiving
Game
Dolphins-Cowboys
Date
11/25/90
Time
4 p.m
Viewers
38.4 million
Network
NBC
Window
Thanksgiving
Game
Chiefs-Cowboys
Date
11/23/95
Time
4 p.m
Viewers
35.7 million
Network
FOX
Window
Thanksgiving
Game
Washington-Cowboys
Date
11/24/16
Time
4:36 p.m.
Viewers
35.1 million
Network
CBS
Window
Thanksgiving
Game
Vikings-Cowboys
Date
11/26/87
Time
4 p.m.
Viewers
34 million

» READ MORE: Eagles/NFL Jalen Hurts’ 4 starts followed a clear pattern, and he needs to break it | Mike Sielski

Quick hits

  1. Maybe the Eagles can draw some luck from Fox’s booth Sunday. Calling the Birds’ game against the Panthers will be former tight end Greg Olsen, who also called the Eagles Week 1 win against the Atlanta Falcons. Joining him will be play-by-play announcer Joe Davis, in for Kevin Burkhardt, who once again is calling the MLB playoffs for Fox.

  2. Peyton and Eli Manning have the next few weeks off from Monday Night Football, but that didn’t stop Eli from taunting fans on Twitter looking for the duo’s alternate broadcast (which will return Oct. 25 for the Week 7 matchup between the New Orleans Saints and Seattle Seahawks).

  1. Bomani Jones is expected to depart from ESPN once his contract expires in March, according to the New York Post’s Andrew Marchand. Bomani’s show High Noon (which he co-hosted with Pablo Torre) was canceled last year, and Bomani was notably absent from a new show called Debatable that premiered Monday on ESPN’s digital channels.

  2. If you’re into sports betting, this highlight of last weekend’s college football matchup between Bethune-Cookman and South Carolina State is a must watch.