Tom Brady’s off-season odyssey to Tampa Bay was considered by some to be the biggest free agent hire in the NFL chronicle, even bigger than Reggie White for Green Bay or Peyton Manning for Denver.
But did he live up to the hype?
“Totally exceeded,” said Arians on Friday – via team transcript – when asked whether Brady had met or exceeded his expectations for this season. “With such limited practice, we went to New Orleans [in Week 1] still learning words. When the quarterback asks for a move, he must have an image in his head. I don’t think it happened until November – just continuing to learn what the words meant and what the concepts meant, and then adjusting the concepts as we went along. A guy can have three or four lanes on a route [but now] we eliminated it for two. Things like that as we continued to evolve. I think now, when he asks for a move, the image is in his head and he is really playing well. He exceeded it. Your leadership is beyond anything I’ve ever seen. Peyton Manning is the only thing next. “
Brady’s signing with the Buccaneers was an event that changed the franchise. It brought with it immediate legitimacy for the team’s aspirations and the immediate attention of the media and fans rarely, if ever, seen before by the Buccaneers.
A mercurial season played out with the Buccaneers at times looking like the best NFC team and at other times coming out on the wrong side of terrible losses. But the overall results so far are difficult to dispute.
With a game remaining in the regular season, the 43-year-old Brady led the Buccaneers to a 10-5 record with 4,234 yards (282.3 per game), a completion percentage of 65.9, 36 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. The 36 TD launches are the largest for Brady since 2015 and the largest in the franchise’s history.
And, perhaps most importantly, Brady took the Bucs back to the playoffs for the first time since 2007.
It is an illustration of Brady’s leadership, which the Aryans also speak with ease.
“Exactly the way he deals with young players and veteran players,” said Arians. “He is another coach on the field talking to Gronk (Rob Gronkowski) about how he is running his routes [and] talking to Scotty [Miller] how he is executing his routes. [Talking to] someone about where [he] wait to see you [and] protections with the offensive attacker. It is an endless thing for him – the perfectionist – to do everything right in practice. In addition, your calm on the sides in games when we are not winning, [saying], ‘We’re going to win.’ This kind of thing. You put them in a bottle and you make a lot of money. “
Since the postseason is now just over a week ahead, the question now is how far can Brady lead the Buccaneers?