The Broncos defense needed one stop on a 2-point conversion attempt.
They got it.
— NFL (@NFL)
Tom Brady had a chance. He had a chance to tie the game with 12 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter of last Sunday’s AFC championship. He just had to find an open receiver and convert a two-point attempt.
He couldn’t.
After engineering an eight-play, 50-yard drive that ended with a short touchdown pass to Rob Gronkowski in the waning seconds, Brady failed to find the end zone again for what would have been the game-tying score. And he’s since taken criticism for failing to find Gronk once again in the end zone.
After moving right to avoid pressure, Brady threw the ball up the middle, intended for Julian Edelman. But Aqib Talib tipped it into the hands of Bradley Roby for the interception.
Gronk is the No. 2 guy in the progression, former quarterback and current ESPN analyst Tim Hasselbeck said Monday on . It goes flat (James White), corner (Gronkowski), spot (Edelman). For whatever reason, Brady just skips (Gronk). He skips him. It s an easy throw to Gronkowski and the game is tied. It s inexcusable at that point.
Now, listen, I don t think he choked. I just think that if it were Peyton Manning who had the type of game that Brady had, you guys would be talking about him choking. 
But there’s more to the story, Talib said.
A guest on Wednesday, Talib explained that fellow cornerback Chris Harris freelanced on the play. He was supposed to blitz, but pulled out on his own.
“Yeah, I can believe he didn’t throw it to Gronk, because they wanted to throw it to that running back, and Chris came out of his blitz,” Talib said. “Chris was supposed to blitz on that play. Chris came out of that blitz himself. I think he did that himself. Chris came out of that blitz. He took away that real quick throw to the running back so Brady’s next read — I don’t know, his next read, in my opinion, it should have been to Gronk. If that’s not open, I’m just throwing it up to Gronk. That would have been my answer right there.
“His answer was to go back to the middle. I mean, hey, he’s a great quarterback, man, how can you question what he does? That’s just the decision that he made on Sunday.”
