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Brady’s big 10 NFL’s ultimate pursuit of excellence

Tom Brady has reached his 10th Super Bowl. Go the legends. Journeymen and underdogs have their moments, but go the all-time greats and their pursuit of excellence.

Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady celebrates with head coach Bruce Arians at Lambeau Field after winning their way through to the Super Bowl
Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady celebrates with head coach Bruce Arians at Lambeau Field after winning their way through to the Super Bowl

You get addicted to the excellence.

The excellence of Roger Federer. The excellence of Rafael Nadal. The excellence of the exasperating Novak Djokovic. The excellence of Serena Williams. The emerging excellence of Ashleigh Barty. The complicated excellence of Tiger Woods. The niggling excellence of Cameron Smith. The gung-ho excellence of Dusty Martin. The excellence of Steve Smith and Pat Cummins. The excellence of Ellyse Perry and Meg Lanning and Alyssa Healy. The excellence of Kelly Slater and Stephanie Gilmore. The excellence of Simone Biles. The historic triumphs and the longevity of legends’ accomplishments. The seemingly endless excellence of Tom Brady.

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I expected to death ride Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in their American League Championship match against Green Bay Packers. Take a tomahawk to the tall poppy of the NFL. What an unbearable show pony. What an insufferable prima donna. Smart alec. The smug so-and-so, wipe the smirk from his all-American face. The washed-up old hack, the overrated overachiever trotted out at 43 years of age in pursuit of a 10th Super Bowl … and I was all for him. The excellence.

Bucs 31, Green Bay Packers 26. Tampa Bay will play in February 8’s Super Bowl against the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs, a team run by quarterback Patrick Mahomes who is staking his own claim to greatness.

Brady was untouchable in the first half. Then he went bad. He’d gone 393 pass attempts on the road without coughing up an intercept – the NFL’s longest streak for that slightly obscure benchmark since 1948 – but then he conceded three in a hurry. A choke was on the cards. And a choke did come … but it was from Packers coach Matt LaFleur. He ordered a field goal that pegged the deficit to five points but gave the ball back to the Bucs with 2min05sec on the clock. LaFleur was gambling on Brady giving up another possession. The final two minutes lasted 16 minutes and the Packers didn’t see the ball again. Brady held the pig skin and his nerve. Got the job done. Ran to the fence and asked a security guard, “Can I say hi to my son?” Hugged the boy and said, “Yes, kiddo!” A 10th Super Bowl. No other NFL quarterback has reached more than five. Brady has won six.

Go the greats. Underdogs and journeymen have some pluck. Now and then they get some luck. They have their fleeting moments in the sun. But go the legends. Go the obsessive Nadal and villainous Djokovic at the Australian Open. Go Williams and Barty for a women’s final big enough to fill the MCG. I’ve never watched Slater surf without wanting him to win. At the Pipe Masters there’s always the bogan mantra of C’arn, Aussies! Makes me cringe. Go Slater, every time. Go him and his pursuit of sheer surfing excellence.

Twenty years at the New England Patriots for Brady. Too many rings for one hand. The move to Tampa. Forty-three might be the new 34 for a professional athlete, but what he’s done is staggering. It’s the Bucs’ first Super Bowl since 2003. They’ll play it at home, at Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium on February 7. No team has hosted a Super Bowl before. And meanwhile, the Patriots are nowhere to be seen. Coach Bill Belichick wasn’t the mastermind after all. It was Brady all along. Belichick has failed without Brady. Brady has done just fine without Belichick.

“Now we’ve got a home game. Who would have ever thought a home Super Bowl for us?” Brady said. “We did it. It’s been a long process for the whole team. Today was just a great team effort. We played sporadically a little bit but the defence came up huge. We’re going to need it again in a couple of weeks. I know it’s a big game coming up but we’ll get to enjoy this for a little bit and get ready to go against whoever we play.”

Brady’s 35m long bomb for Scotty “Scooter” Miller’s touchdown was a spiralling thing of beauty. The ball hung and spun and fell into Miller’s fingertips with one second to go in the first half. That was a miracle of a throw. A glorious throw. An excellent throw. And now Super Bowl LV is bigger and better for having Brady in it. More intriguing. More significant. Another high-stakes game for the highest level of athlete. Mesmerising. Nerve-racking. Fascinating. Thrilling. Endlessly addictive. He knows how to do what every athlete wants to do. Win.

Bucs coach Bruce Arians was asked what difference Brady had made to the franchise. It was up there with asking what difference Rod Laver might have made to the 1962 Australian Davis Cup team. Arians said: “This trophy. This trophy. The belief he gave everybody in this organisation that it could be done. It only took one man.”

Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/us-sports/bradys-big-10-nfls-ultimate-pursuit-of-excellence/news-story/c32b2f5435a8ef3f2c1e6c34eb422cd6