Tom Brady led a 10-point comeback Sunday for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who beat the Arizona Cardinals 16-19 in overtime, to maintain the top of the National Conference (NFC) South division in week 16 of the 2022 NFL season
NFL: Tom Brady key to Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ impressive comeback vs. Arizona Cardinals
The Bucs have seven wins and eight losses as first place in their division, in which they will be champions if they win in the two remaining games of the campaign with which they will also tie their pass to the playoffs. Arizona, 4-11, is already eliminated.
Brady had 281 yards and one touchdown pass. With the Cardinals, Trace McSorley totaled 217 yards and was intercepted once.
The Tampa Bay passer, as in the previous week in the loss to the Bengals in which he suffered a pair of interceptions, struggled to find his receivers and was intercepted twice.
Both teams’ offenses struggled to get closer to the red zone, so the first half turned into a field goal duel that sent the game into halftime tied 6-6.
He highlighted the performance of Matt Prater, kicker of the Cardinals, who made good his three-point attempts of 56 and 53 yards.
In the second half, the inconsistency of the offenses maintained its tone, especially that of the Buccaneers in which Brady suffered, in the third quarter, his second interception of the duel, again in charge of Marco Wilson.
The parity was broken by Arizona with a 9-6 field goal at the start of the final period and extended it on its next series with a rushing run by James Conner that put the score 16-6 with 11 minutes to go.
The Bucs responded with a Brady touchdown pass to Rashaad White that brought them within 16-13, and continued the comeback with a loose ball that regained their defense; Their offense capitalized with three points that evened the game 16-16 and sent it to overtime.
In that instance, Brady moved his offense to field goal position and Ryan Succop connected for the 16-19 win.
