Top Plays of 2010: #12 – Branch’s TD in the Snow

Each week during the season I do a “Foxboro Blog Top 12” post, which is basically a mini power rankings for the best twelve teams in the league.  Many people have asked by I do a Top 12 instead of all 32 teams and there’s actually a few reasons.  For starters, ranking 32 teams takes a lot of time, so I wanted to cut things down a bit and focus on the best teams.  Twelve teams make the playoffs each year, so that seemed like a good number.  Plus, this is a Patriots blog and #12 happens to be the number of our franchise quarterback.  Twelve just seemed like a good number to go with all around. 

In continuing with the Top 12 tradition, I’ve decided to fill the void of the off-season by doing a running countdown of my Top 12 plays from the 2010 season.  I used both my memory as well as multiple highlight reels to come up with this list.  Since there’s very little else to talk about with the league firmly entrenched in a lock-out/litigation, I’m going to milk this concept for all it’s worth and churn out twelve posts as we count down these plays.  Today, we’ll start with #12.

So why does this play make the cut?  Well, for starters, it’s a long bomb in the snow, which is both extremely cool and extremely difficult to pull off.  However, if you take note of the clock, you’ll remember that this Brady-to-Branch connection took place in the final seconds of the first half.  Already leading 27-0, Brady and the Pats showed no signs of taking their foot off the gas and continued to motor until the clock struck 0:00.