AVANT-MATCH BUCCANEERS c. PATRIOTS
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – For the Patriots, the glory known with Tom Brady springs from each of the six banners of Super Bowl champions, at Gillette Stadium.
Sunday evening, he will be back but for the first time with the other club, during a visit from the Buccaneers.
“I know the locker room and the tunnel of the Pats. I know in which direction the wind is. I know about all that,” said Brady, a member of the New England club for 20 seasons.
He’ll be pitted against not just his former coach Bill Belichick, but a group that never looked up the opposition when they found Brady there.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity,” said Patriots defensive end Deatrich Wise Jr. I can’t wait to experience this. »
Brady still delivers great football at 44; at the end of last season, he won the Super Bowl with his new team.
He leads the NFL with 10 touchdown passes this year. He averaged 362.3 passing yards per game, ranking second in the league behind Derek Carr of the Raiders.
Tampa Bay leads the league with 34.3 points per game, with a stellar offense including wide receivers Chris Godwin, Rob Gronkowski and Mike Evans.
Gronkowski played with the Pats from 2010 to 2018, racking up 521 catches, for 7,861 yards. He leads team history with 79 receptions for touchdowns.
“We won’t have any room for error,” Patriots safety Devin McCourty said. You will have to be very vigilant. »
Brady knows his rivals very well, who nevertheless intend to remain true to themselves.
“Definitely Tom knows more about us than any other player in the league,” Belichick said. He will benefit from it. That said, it wouldn’t be the best thing for us to try to reinvent ourselves.
“The things that define us, we have to refine them. That’s what’s most important. »
A win for the visitors would make Brady the fourth quarterback to score a win against each of the NFL’s 32 teams, after Brett Favre, Drew Brees and Peyton Manning.
Brady needs 68 passing yards to dethrone Brees at the top of regular-season history. Brady has 80,291.
That would add to his records including most touchdown passes (591), most wins as a starting quarterback (232) and most Super Bowl wins (seven), among others.
Bruce Arians, who manages the Bucs, has been a mentor to such big-name quarterbacks as Manning, Ben Roethlisberger, Andrew Luck, Carson Palmer and Jameis Winston.
The man who will turn 69 on Sunday likes the work of young Patriots quarterback Mac Jones at this point.
“He’s smart, he knows how to get rid of the ball and he’s very precise as a passer,” Arians said. The pressure doesn’t bother him. He lived big matches (with Alabama). »
