FOXBOROUGH — Now it’s official: The Ravens are Tom Brady’s kryptonite.
The Patriots’ Superman, who was trying to become the first quarterback in NFL history to get to a sixth Super Bowl, did what he always does against the Ravens in last night’s 28-13 loss to them in the AFC Championship Game at Gillette Stadium: He struggled.
Despite the fact Brady entered the game with a 5-2 career record against Baltimore, of the 31 NFL teams Brady has faced in his brilliant 13-year career, there is no team he has performed worse against than the Ravens, who have held him to a lower completion percentage (58.6) and passer rating (74.1) than any other team in the league.
The Ravens are the only team in the NFL against which Brady has thrown more interceptions (nine) than touchdowns (eight). Brady has been sacked 16 times in those seven meetings with Baltimore.
Last night was a low point for Brady, who completed 29 of 54 passes for 320 yards with one TD, two INTs and a paltry passer rating of 62.3. Against Baltimore, his totals are nine TDs and 11 INTs.
“Disappointed,’’ Brady said last night. “They’re a good defense and they kept the pressure on. They make it tough on you. We obviously didn’t play well, and if you don’t play well against a good team it’s not even very competitive. We just couldn’t make any critical plays when we needed to. We got behind in the second half and became one-dimensional.’’
Ravens safety James Ihedigbo, who played with the Patriots up until last season, knows better than anyone in the Baltimore locker room what Brady is capable of, because he has been a beneficiary of Brady’s brilliance.
“It’s an awesome feeling to shut him out because you know he’s a Hall of Fame quarterback and you know the type of things he’s capable of doing,’’ Ihedigbo said. “Any time you hold a quarterback of his caliber to no real big plays … for us to shut him out in the second half is a testament to our defense.’’
How did the Ravens befuddle Brady?
“Multiple looks, multiple pressures, multiple coverages,’’ Ihedigbo said. “He’s such a phenomenal quarterback you have to give him different looks every time. There was a stretch when we probably called somewhere around eight different pressures, coverages and looks in one drive.
“You’ve got to continue to switch up the looks on the guy because he’s so smart. You can never keep it the same against Tom because he can read fronts and determine coverages. Our defense did a great job on him. We shut him out in the second half. That happens rarely with this type of offense and that quarterback.’’
Brady committed a rare clock management gaffe at the end of the first half that might have cost the Patriots a touchdown instead of the field goal they got as time expired.
With one timeout remaining, instead of throwing the ball away, Brady scrambled for 3 yards and then tried to line the offense up for a quick play before coach Bill Belichick called timeout from the sideline with four seconds remaining.
The Brady scramble play began with 26 seconds remaining, so the Patriots burned 22 seconds on the play.
Had Brady either thrown the ball away or called the timeout immediately after his scramble, the Patriots would have had time for one shot into the end zone from the Baltimore 7-yard line before settling for a field goal.
That field goal, as it turned out, provided the last points of the game for the Patriots.
“We had one timeout left and we were trying to save it for the field goal,’’ Brady said. “I would have loved to get a touchdown there, but we settled for the field goal. We felt pretty good where we were at halftime. We just didn’t come out in the second half and execute very well.’’