Ageless Tom Brady’s at it again

A Hall of Fame quarterback has a new team in yet another conference title game. Green Bay looms.

Tom Brady has helped deliver Tampa Bay’s first two play-off wins since 2003 Picture: Getty Images

Tom Brady needs to settle down. He’s making the rest of us look bad. Another Super Bowl is on the verge, and once more, here is Brady, age 78, or rather 43, solid arm, fab mane, on a new team, in a new state, amid a new conference, and, after Tampa Bay’s 30-20 victory over New Orleans on Sunday, just one win away from reaching the NFL’s grandest stage, for the 10th time in his historic career.

It’s too much. He’s showing off. At his age, Tom Brady should be at home, rump on the couch, hand sunk into nachos, struggling to stay awake for the second half of an NFL playoff game — not playing in one. Instead, Brady is football’s Benjamin Button, ageing in reverse, denying himself onion rings and chocolate cake and extending a playing career well past the standard expiration. Brady is in his 21st season, and next Sunday’s NFC Championship versus the Green Bay Packers will be the 14th conference title game he’s played in, a ridiculous rate of success. He and the Bucs will face the talented Packers sprite Aaron Rodgers, who is 37 years old, or, as Brady calls it, midcareer.

How long does Brady go? Unclear. He is under contract for another season in Tampa Bay, and he does not appear to be tumbling to the mean. After upping sticks in New England after two dynastic decades, abandoning the joy of sleet and Bill Belichick for sun and groovy Bruce Arians, Brady turned in a stirring snowbird season: 4633 yards passing, and 40 touchdowns, the latter a franchise record. Change is supposed to be a chore at an advanced age, but Brady has revived Tampa Bay, delivering the team its first two playoff victories since its Super Bowl in 2003. Should the Bucs somehow scoot past the Pack — a big if, as the game is at Lambeau, and Green Bay might be the best of the four remaining playoff teams — Tampa would be the first club to ever host a Super Bowl in its home stadium. As Florida codas go, Brady’s had one of the sprightliest.

He just keeps on keeping on. Sunday’s divisional round contest — the Blanda Bowl, Brady versus the 42-year-old Drew Brees, a combined octogenarian between them — wasn’t exactly a showcase of age defiance. Brady looked rough at first. Brees, reported by Fox Sports’s Jay Glazer to be on the edge of retirement, looked rougher, throwing three interceptions on the evening. Honestly, the most impressive QB moment came from a millennial: New Orleans backup Jameis Winston, age 27, who stepped in for a trick-play cameo and a 56-yard touchdown strike for the Saints.

There are indeed moments when Brady looks 43, or at least not a day under 39. Entering Sunday’s 6pm start (Monday 7am AEDT), there was a comical narrative that Brady’s performance in night games had been lately subpar because, on an ordinary evening, he usually puts himself to bed early, somewhere around 9pm. It sounded like a dig at Brady’s fussy, restrictive lifestyle. People were worrying about Tom Brady like parents lamenting a fitful toddler. If he’s not finished with the football game and in his pyjamas at 8:30, he’s going to be a tantrum nightmare tomorrow. No, he cannot have another “Frog and Toad” story! Lights out!

He was fine. I’d suspect he had a coffee, but Brady says he doesn’t drink it. He has made a career on executing when it matters most, however, and here, Brady did it again, assisted by Tampa Bay’s ball-hawking defence. He turned three turnovers into touchdowns, the last of which involved Brady launching his 40-something torso into the end zone for a goal-line score. It was not his most virtuoso performance — the Tampa defence really was the MVP here — but it was enough to beat New Orleans for the first time in three tries this season.

And now? Wisconsin, and quite possibly, snowmobile weather. The Packers made short work of the banged-up Rams on Saturday, as the elusive Rodgers riddled the Los Angeles defence in a 32-17 triumph. Tampa Bay did thump Green Bay 38-10 in mid-October, but that result feels like it happened to a different Packers team than the one revving now. They’re even welcoming a scattering of fans into the stands at Lambeau, and judging from some of the rowdiness at the Rams game, they are OK with wearing masks, and skipping shirts.

Finally, football gets what it has long craved — a playoff showdown between Brady and Rodgers, two all-time quarterbacks, stubborn geniuses with stylistic differences and great, great hair. Over in the AFC, a pronounced youth movement is under way — it’ll be Buffalo’s 24-year-old Josh Allen against Kansas City’s 25-year-old Patrick Mahomes, presuming Mahomes is recovered from the ugly hit and concussion he suffered Sunday versus Cleveland. But the NFC still belongs to goats, still at it, still in it, making their couchbound peers feel guilty and mortal. Rodgers! And … Brady! You could say Tom Brady is back, but really, he’s never left.

Wall Street Journal