Tom Brady returns to the Super Bowl. For the tenth time. At the age of 43.
But this time it comes as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback.
Brady and the Bucs knocked out No. 1 seeded Green Bay Packers 31-26 in Sunday’s NFC championship game at Lambeau Field. You will now face the winner of Sunday’s AFC championship game at Raymond James Stadium in Super Bowl LV – either the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs or the Buffalo Bills.
The Bucs will be the first team in NFL history to play a Super Bowl in their own stadium, while Brady will be the oldest player in any position to play in a Super Bowl.
The Bucs hadn’t been in the postseason in 13 years or had won a postseason game in nearly two decades – when Brady’s reign with the New England Patriots had just begun. But Tampa Bay became the free agency’s dark horse that no one saw coming when Brady decided to leave the Patriots for the off-season.
2 relatives
For many, leaving his long-time coach Bill Belichick and joining the Bucs was probably the greatest risk in Brady’s career. To make matters worse, Brady didn’t have an off-season to work with coach Bruce Arians and offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich, and no preseason to work out the problems in a new system due to COVID-19. Critics pointed to his deep ball struggles. They feared that his relationship with Arians was already breaking up.
Against the Packers, Brady completed 20 of 36 passes for 280 yards and three touchdowns, with Leonard Fournette making his way to a fourth point on the ground.
The defense, playing for the first time since Week 5 with a 347-pound nose tackle against Vita Vea, sacked Packer’s quarterback Aaron Rodgers five times – three times from Shaq Barrett and twice from Jason Pierre-Paul – and forced two turnovers. Nickelback Sean Murphy-Bunting picked Rodgers up in the second quarter, and security Jordan Whitehead forced a fumble salvaged by linebacker Devin White.
But then Whitehead left the game with a shoulder injury and left the Bucs without both starting security when the Packers started the rally in the second half. Brady threw three interceptions in the second half – twice against cornerback Jaire Alexander and once against Adrian Amos – while Rodgers threw touchdowns to defeat Robert Tonyan and wide receiver Davante Adams.
The Packers had a chance to tie the score eight points off the ball at the Tampa Bay 8-yard line in fourth place, but they decided to score a field goal just over two minutes ahead. You never got the ball back.
Brady can now try to do something his youth idol Joe Montana couldn’t: go all the way with a new team in his freshman year. Montana drew closer and led the Kansas City Chiefs to the AFC Championship Game in 1993, but lost to the Bills 30-13.
So it’s back to Tampa for Brady and the Bucs. It is fitting that when workers redesigned Raymond James Stadium over the past few weeks, replacing Buccaneers’ signage with Super Bowl LV and Lombardi Trophy signs, they conveniently kept intact a panel of the exterior facade on the southwest corner of the entrance : the picture of Tom Brady and Mike Evans.
Might as well leave it. And maybe fire the cannons.
