Yet as his team limped to an 8-9 record, barely making the wild-card round of the playoffs, there were games in which he missed target after target, looked lost, and in which a hungrier opponent from the jump poleaxed his team, and him. There he lay at 45, struggling beneath a pile of defensive linemen.

Watching, it was hard not to wonder: Why keep playing?

Why, Tom, after seven Super Bowls and three league M.V.P. awards and a narrative for the ages: the skinny, slow, middle-round draft pick climbs his way to a place on football’s Mount Rushmore, sits atop it, stays and stays. Why keep going?

Brady and the Buccaneers’ season ended badly: a 31-14 loss to the Dallas Cowboys.

And yet … it was only two years ago when he won a Super Bowl, beating Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs. The safe bet was that Brady would keep going, maybe even try to play until he was 50, perhaps for the San Francisco 49ers, his beloved boyhood team.

The fact that being on an N.F.L. team at a half-century years old seemed possible — that’s surely another sign of his greatness.

What memories he provided. There are far too many to recount here fully, but several stand out. Brady, in 2002, his second season and first as a starter, leading the Patriots over the St. Louis Rams in the Super Bowl on the wing of a last-minute drive.

Brady — or should we have called him Tom Houdini? — in the Super Bowl of 2017, forging an escape for the ages, overcoming a third-quarter score of 28-3 on the way to beating the Atlanta Falcons, 34-28.

Kurt Streeter

Source link

You May Also Like

Thailand Classic: Latest leaderboard

Leaderboard updates from the DP World Tour’s Thailand Classic, held at Amata…

Could the A’s really play in Las Vegas’ minor league park? Recent history says yes

LAS VEGAS — A major professional team playing in a minor league…

F1 may have won in Las Vegas – but changes are needed for next year

Keep up to speed with all our coverage from the Las Vegas Grand…

Rivals.com – Fact or Fiction: Clemson OL recruiting, Virginia Tech WRs, West Virginia

Rivals national recruiting analyst Adam Friedman, Paul Strewlow of TigerIllustrated.com, Tim Sullivan…