ATLANTA — No matter how much electrolyte water he drinks or how many gladiator camps he runs, there will eventually come a time where Tom…
ATLANTA — No matter how much electrolyte water he drinks or how many gladiator camps he runs, there will eventually come a time where Tom Brady is too diminished as an athlete to effectively play quarterback in the NFL.
He is 41, after all, already long past the expiration date of the greats. At some point, everyone hits a decline.
And make no mistake, there were times this season when Brady, frankly, looked like something less than he once was. There were games where he just couldn’t quite make many of the throws that had vaulted him past Dan Marino, John Elway and Peyton Manning as the best to ever play the position. There was reason to doubt whether he still had enough juice to win another Super Bowl. That’s a nice way of saying he looked old.
But Brady, apparently, had us all fooled. Because when it came time to win No. 6, when he sniffed the chance to celebrate one more time, he grabbed it with the full force of his talent and drove the New England Patriots to a 13-3 victory that may go down as his greatest achievement yet.
“It is an honor to get to play with a guy like that,” said receiver Julian Edelman. “He has six Super Bowls now, so it’s pretty insane.”
Insane may not even begin to describe it.
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OPINION: Patriots’ sixth Super Bowl win as ugly as they come
Though nearly two decades of watching the Patriots reconstruct themselves over and over with Brady and coach Bill Belichick as the constants, you learn never to write them off. That’s why a lot of the “Patriots-against-the-world” stuff that was coming out of New England’s locker room as they entered the postseason came off as contrived motivational tactics. Nobody actually thought New England had suddenly become an average football team or couldn’t win a Super Bowl.
But make no mistake, this was not Brady’s best season.
