Patriots' Brady again shows golden touch.

Byline: Mitch Albom

HOUSTON _ And then Tom Brady made a mistake. This was not on his resume. This was not in his pregame feature. Mistakes were not part of the unflappable golden boy image that had been crafted by a league hungry for a new King Quarterback. But there it was. A mistake. A floating duck of a pass, lofted hastily to the end zone with tight end Christian Fauria in mind.

It should never have been thrown. It was released under pressure. The Patriots were only nine yards from the end zone, and you don't make mistakes nine yards from the end zone. You throw it away. You take a sack. But instead, there was the ball, floating up there, as ethereal as a reputation, and it landed like a pop fly in the intercepting arms of Carolina's Reggie Howard and just like that, the nail in the coffin was put back in the toolbox. The close-it-down touchdown had just evaporated.

Instead of a New England countdown to a title, ...