Tom Brady piloted Super Bowl champions New England to the winning touchdown with 56 seconds left on Sunday as the Patriots clinched the AFC East with a gut-wrenching 27-24 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers.

The Georgia Dome, the stadium in Atlanta that hosted 1996 Olympic events and which was the venue for two Super Bowls, has been reduced to rubble in an implosion.

The New England Patriots didn’t need a comeback in their Super Bowl rematch with the Atlanta Falcons.

Tom Brady conjured a last-gasp Houdini act to save the New England Patriots in a thrilling win over the Houston Texans on Sunday as the Atlanta Falcons preserved their unbeaten record.

Rookie kicker Younghoe Koo missed a last-gasp field goal for the second successive game as the Los Angeles Chargers lost their home opener 19-17 to the Miami Dolphins on Sunday.

Myles Garrett was the first overall pick by the Cleveland Browns in the NFL Draft, while three quarterbacks were chosen in the opening 12 selections of a first round.

The Carolina Panthers bounced back to winning ways with a 30-20 NFL victory over the Arizona Cardinals at the Bank of America Stadium.

Aaron Rodgers has two NFL MVP awards and one Super Bowl ring, and he’s in his ninth season as the starter for Green Bay. Sam Bradford was never on a winning team over his first six years in the league. He had 15 days to learn Minnesota’s offence, then lost his Hall of Fame calibre running back to injury in the third quarter.

Quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo did not miss a beat as he stepped in for the suspended Tom Brady in his first NFL start and led the New England Patriots to a 23-21 win over the Arizona Cardinals.

The start of a new American Football season rekindled some old — and troubling — issues for the NFL.

Tom Brady threw for two fourth-quarter touchdowns and notched a career rushing first, leading New England to a 30-23 win over the New York Jets that kept the Patriots unbeaten this NFL season.

Miami Dolphins head coach Joe Philbin has been sacked in the aftermath of their Wembley loss to AFC East rivals the New York Jets on Sunday afternoon.

If you saw the Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch plough through the Arizona Cardinals defence for a late touchdown on Sunday night, then you had the opportunity to enjoy one of the highlights of this NFL season.

Andrew Luck enjoyed a landmark day as the Indianapolis Colts beat the Washington Redskins 49-27 on Sunday.

US federal agents conducted surprise inspections of National Football League team doctors and trainers on Sunday as part of an ongoing probe into painkiller drug abuse, the US media reported on Sunday.

Sepp Blatter assured us, in June, that one day, probably late in his reign, we’d be playing intergalactic World Cups.

Peyton Manning broke Brett Favre’s all-time record for touchdown passes, leading Denver to a 42-17 rout of San Francisco to cap a scintillating Sunday in the NFL.

Menelik Watson admits he can scarcely believe that his journey has taken him from Longsight in Manchester to one of the NFL’s most storied franchises.

What makes Michael Sam so important to the gay rights movement is that he will be bringing their cause into a forbidden zone.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers are set to perform with Bruno Mars during the Super Bowl Half-time Show.

A stunning comeback sent the Indianapolis Colts through to the next round of the NFL play-offs at the expense of the Kansas City Chiefs as the post-season got off to a thrilling start.

The NFL play-off picture was completed on Sunday with a dramatic final series of regular season games delivering big results for the Green Bay Packers, the Philadelphia Eagles and the San Diego Chargers.

The NFL couldn’t have scripted it much better heading into the last week of the regular season.

The Green Bay Packers needed their biggest comeback in history on Sunday to somehow keep their play-off hopes alive ahead of the long-awaited return of Aaron Rodgers from injury.

A win over divisional rivals Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday evening saw the Denver Broncos emerge from the toughest part of their NFL campaign relatively unscathed and in poll position in the AFC and will now retain home advantage throughout January’s play-offs.

In the small hours of Monday morning, just south of a bitterly cold Boston, Tom Brady and the New England Patriots finally overcame the Denver Broncos in an instant NFL classic that provided almost everything.

After a rip-roaring start to the season, the Kansas City Chiefs finally fell to their first defeat in the NFL this year, losing an absorbing clash by ten points at the home of Peyton Manning’s Denver Broncos on Sunday.

The Denver Broncos will be sweating this week on the fitness of quarterback Peyton Manning, who led them to their eighth win of the season on Sunday but saw his injury-prone ankle targeted in the process.

Even weary fans of the Dallas Cowboys could not have imagined how they would succumb to their nightmare defeat by the Detroit Lions when apparently in control of their NFC clash in Motown on Sunday.

Just short of 100 points were scored in an incredible Texas shoot-out between the Denver Broncos and the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday which left Peyton Manning’s Broncos in control of one of the three unbeaten records in the NFL thanks to a 51-48 win.

The Patriots, Saints and Dolphins joined the Kansas Chiefs with their third straight victories of the new season while the New York Giants and Washington Redskins were left wondering where their first wins will come from after embarrassing defeats.

Now that the US President is safely returned to office, attention has quickly turned to that other ultra-magnified bastion of American culture: the Super Bowl.

When Peyton Manning talks about his football mortality, acknowledging his physical shortcomings and scoffing at the notion that he plays as he did in his prime, it all makes perfect sense.

New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning threw a career-best 510 yards to lead the reigning Super Bowl champions to their first win of the NFL season on Sunday.

ESPN would never dare ask any of the top college football teams in the US to switch their game forward from Saturday, no matter how lucrative the television contract.

Peyton Manning made a sparkling return after a year’s injury absence from the NFL, leading Denver to a 31-19 victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers in his Broncos debut.

What was the bravest coaching call, any sport?

Last year Kieran Connery only had Thomas O’Gorman for company on those midweek dashes down the M9 from Dublin to training in Carriganore outside Waterford city.

Even indigenous fans of American football are able to laugh at the irony.

So now cheap shots carry a tidy price-tag.