At Age 38, Tom Brady Playing The Best Football of His Life

Brady13 months ago, Tom Brady was declared dead. He had struggled for the first quarter of 2014 behind a shaky offensive line, the Patriots were 2-2, and the team was coming off the worst loss of the Belichick-Brady era on Monday Night Football in Kansas City. TB12 looked old, he didn’t look like himself, he appeared to be in decline. A reporter even asked Bill Belichick if he would “evaluate the quarterback position” in reference to backup quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo challenging Brady for his starting job.

How silly all that seems now. Since that night, Brady has played the best football of his life.

Tom Terrific is playing at a level few have reached in the history of football. The Patriots quarterback threw a record-setting 50 touchdowns in 2007, was the unanimous MVP in 2010 after throwing 36 touchdowns to just 4 interceptions, but he’s never been better than he is right now. In the 21 games since Brady was “done”, he’s thrown for 6,650 yards, amassing 59 touchdowns and only 12 interceptions. Absurd.

Brady is controlling his offense in a way that we’ve never seen before. He is in complete command, driving the Patriots offense like a well-oiled Lamborghini. Brady’s performance is the product of a quarterback perfecting his craft over the course of 15 years. Nobody reads a defense better than Brady, nobody gets the ball out faster than Brady, nobody protects the ball better than Brady. His timing is unlike anything we’ve ever seen from a quarterback, it is truly impeccable. Players are supposed to decline in their late 30s, but Brady has honed his skills to the point where he isn’t in decline, he’s at his peak. Marino declined in his late 30s, Elway declined in his late 30s, Manning has most certainly declined in his late 30s. The best of the best have all declined in their twilight years in the league, but none of those players were Tom Brady.

There’s no doubt Brady’s on a mission this year after the deflategate saga, but to only point to his stats since the beginning of the year or Super Bowl XLIV is short-sighted. It short-changes what Brady has accomplished since the Monday Night Massacre. His run to a third league MVP award continued Thursday night. Brady was surgical, picking apart the Miami Dolphins defense that many pundits said would challenge him and the Patriots this year. Wrong, again. By the end of the night, Brady added another 4 touchdown passes. Ho hum.

Can he keep this up? In a short answer: no. It would be foolish to predict that any athlete, even the greatest quarterback to ever live, will play at a historically good level for an extended period of time as Brady has done for the past 13 months. But don’t be surprised if Brady’s otherworldly performance continues for most of this year on his quest to claim his fifth Lombardi in Santa Clara this February, and in the process make the league pay once and for all for the deflategate saga. Just a little over a year ago, people said he was done. He’s not done, oh no, far from it.

Enjoy the ride, Patriots fans, we’ll never see anybody play the way Number 12 is playing right now ever again.

Matt McCarthy is the sports anchor for the Cape Cod Morning News on 107.5 WFCC and is a news reporter and anchor for 99.9 The Q and Ocean 104.7.

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