The Patriots trailed by 25 points in the third quarter but recovered to level at 28-28 and force the extra period – the first in Super Bowl history.
Quarterback Tom Brady, 39, led the recovery, finishing with a record 466 yards en route to being named the Super Bowl’s Most Valuable Player for a fourth time.
The turnaround was completed when James White scored on a two-yard run – taking his personal haul for the game to 20 points.
The previous biggest deficit overcome by an eventual Super Bowl champion was 10 points, a record emphatically shattered by the Patriots on a quite incredible night at Houston’s NRG Stadium, which also featured a spectacular half-time show by Lady Gaga.
The singer opened her set with Woody Guthrie’s civil rights anthem This Land Is Your Land, “a gentle but pointed rebuke to the Trump administration”.
Tom Brady admitted afterwards that the outcome could have been very different had any part of the Patriots team not done its job.
A key moment came with the Patriots trailing 28-20 with 2:28 remaining in the final quarter when Julian Edelman made a miraculous catch for a first down, somehow grabbing the ball under pressure from three opponents after it was tipped into the air by Falcons cornerback Robert Alford.
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