An utterly insane Tom Brady streak has come to an end

BOSTON -- Tom Brady has won a lot of games. More than anyone else, in fact. Tally them all up, and the man's won 283 NFL games in the regular season and postseason combined.

That's a lot of wins.

But on Sunday in Cleveland, despite his Buccaneers having a seven-point lead for the majority of the second half, Tom Brady didn't win. The Browns scored a touchdown in the final minute of regulation before scoring a game-winning touchdown with just 19 seconds left in overtime.

A loss like that is something that has not happened to Brady ... ever.

If you can believe it, Brady's teams -- the Patriots for two decades, the Bucs for the past few years -- had gone 218-0 when leading by at least seven points in the final two minutes of regulation.

Two-hundred-and-eighteen and zero.

That statistic obviously involves Brady's defenses as much as Brady himself, as it relies on his team holding a lead in the late stages of a game. But it also shows that in the instances that Brady's defenses have given up late leads, he's been there to get it back and secure a win -- either in regulation or in overtime. 

On Sunday, Brady had his chances to make it 219-0, but Brady was just 5-for-10 for 37 yards, with the Bucs punting on both of their overtime possessions. Prior to that, the Bucs didn't really try to win the game in regulation after the Browns had tied the game with 32 seconds left in the fourth quarter. On the ensuing possession, Brady made a short completion on first down, and Bucs head coach Todd Bowles elected not to use one of his three timeouts. That decision led to 13 seconds ticking off the clock before the next play, which was a 26-yard strike from Brady to Julio Jones.

Bowles did use his timeout after that, but only 8 seconds remained in the game. Brady couldn't pull off any miracles from midfield with such little time.

Bowles was asked after the loss if he had considered using any of his timeouts prior to the Browns scoring the game-tying touchdown, as the Browns burned roughly a minute of game clock in between their snaps on the game-winning sequence. Had the Bucs called timeout after making a third-down stop, they would have ensured that Brady and the offense would have had more than a minute to respond if the Browns did indeed score. And if the Browns didn't score, then the Bucs would have been able to kneel out the clock.

So, Bowles was asked if he considered using timeouts during Cleveland's final possession of overtime. Bowles did not seem to understand the question.

"You talking about the overtime or the regular part of the game?" Bowles responded. Upon receiving clarification that the question was focused on the end of regulation, Bowles made it seem as though there was nothing he could have done to stop the clock -- despite possessing three timeouts.

"No, that clock was gonna run down. We didn't have enough to stop it right there," Bowles said. "So it was overtime right there, right off the top. Once we couldn't get the other play -- Julio made a great play, then we couldn't get there, it was going to overtime."

The Bucs could have used a timeout or two during the Browns' game-tying drive, and they definitely could have used a timeout after Brady's first down completion. Nevertheless, Bowles took a fatalistic approach to that game requiring overtime.

Brady was asked if he wished some timeouts had been used, but the 45-year-old took a diplomatic approach to the matter.

"Yeah, it was a tough situation. In the end, they just made the plays and we didn't. We had the same opportunities to make plays that they did, and they made 'em, and we didn't. That's ultimately what football comes down to," Brady said. "Someone's gotta make 'em. For every play that you give up on defense, they make on offense, and vice versa. You know, they stop you on defense, you don't make a play on offense. It's just every play is an individual win or loss, and we're just losing too many."

Timeout snafus aside, Brady and the offense had two chances in overtime to make it 219-0, but ultimately failed to score the winning points.

The loss dropped the Bucs to 5-6 on the season, Brady's worst record through 11 games in his career. Clearly, things just aren't the same for the quarterback, and that 218-0 stat becoming 218-1 is merely the latest sign.