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In the event that the subsequent parade was not a strong enough indication, Tom Brady enjoyed his first season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
But it wasn’t just winning another Super Bowl that made it special for Brady, it was the change in experiences after 20 years in New England that made this season memorable.
In an interview with James Corden on Afternoon, Afternoon Show, Brady talked about not having high external expectations this year and the growth of the team throughout the season as things that left a mark for him.
“It was very different because where I’ve been for 20 years it was obviously great for me, it was spectacular, I wouldn’t change anything, and I think when we’re at that point at Patriots, everyone at the beginning of the season would be like, well, who are you playing in the championship game? ‘ “Brady said. “And it always had to be like, you know, the expectations were so, not unreal, it was like people jumped ahead of all the intense competition that in the end you kind of look like, you know, it’s much more difficult than this. It is much more difficult than that. And I think entering this year was different for me, because you are going to a different place and that was not really the question I was asked. The question is, you know, ‘can you be successful? How will you succeed? How will you learn your teammates? How will they learn you? ‘
The Patriots have lost the playoffs only once in the 18 years that Brady was the team’s main defender. The only exception to this race was the 2002 season, after his first Super Bowl win. The only other foul in the postseason came in the year that Brady lost everyone except one game due to a torn ACL. When you have that kind of success, reaching the playoffs becomes the bare minimum and anything less than a Super Bowl appearance can seem like a failure.
Brady and the Buccaneers did not have that kind of massive expectation going into this year. Sure, they were expected to be good and compete for the chance to make it to the Super Bowl, but it wasn’t the team’s full expectation. The Buccaneers had their growing pains throughout the year, but Brady said he felt they were still improving throughout the Super Bowl.
“And man, in the last four weeks of the season and then in the postseason, we really found our rhythm,” said Brady. “We really had the metal pedal and everyone worked really hard. … I mean, it was a lot of fun to see a team come together that way. And the belief, as we moved on, it was like it grew and grew and grew and grew and I think that when we got to the Super Bowl, we all still felt that we were still getting better. We were still getting better. If the game were a month from now, we would still be improving and I think it was a great feeling to have entered that game, and I think that’s why we all felt so confident that we wouldn’t be crying at that point, we were not trying to survive the this season, we were very excited about where we were and we really wanted to end that game in the right way and prove to everyone that we were deserving of being the champions and very happy for our team that we did it. “