After signing with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a blockbuster free agency move, quarterback Tom Brady and the Bucs will now immediately have the opportunity to do something no other player has ever done before: play in a Super Bowl as the home team.
Of course, Brady spent the last 20 years of his career in New England, playing in a stadium that hasn't ever hosted a Super Bowl game. Now, it comes to Tampa for the fifth time – and the first since Super Bowl XLIII following the 2008 season.
And while Foxboro may be an unfamiliar host, Brady is no stranger to the championship game. He's been to a whopping nine Super Bowls in his career and won six of them, recording a feature-length film's worth of highlight reels. His last victory came just two seasons ago in 2018 over the L.A. Rams.
That game saw him throw a modest 262 yards on 21 completions. The year before? He threw for a whopping 505 yards and three touchdowns against zero interceptions despite the Pats loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LII. Those are the most yards EVER thrown in the big game. In all, Brady has gone 256-of-392 on pass attempts for 2,868 yards and 118 touchdowns in Super Bowls alone. His nine quests for the Lombardi Trophy and six wins are the most of any active player. He has 30 playoff wins in all.
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Perhaps one of his most memorable Super Bowls, and certainly the one Bucs fans probably remember most of his, came after the 2016 season. The Patriots faced off against the Atlanta Falcons and found themselves in a 25-point hole, down 28-3 in Super Bowl LI. If it were any other quarterback, the Patriots themselves may not have even thought they stood a chance. No team had ever come back from such a deficit. But Brady willed it and New England ended up taking the Falcons into overtime – the first time NFL fans ever got bonus football in a Super Bowl. Sure enough, the Pats scored a touchdown and won the game to give Brady his fifth championship.
Two years before that was another victory, this time over the Seattle Seahawks and the infamous, 'He should have ran it' play where instead of handing the ball off to running back Marshawn Lynch at the goal line with time expiring needing a touchdown, the Seahawks instead elected to throw it and New England safety Malcolm Butler picked off Wilson to seal the game for the Pats, instead. It capped off perhaps Brady's best Super Bowl performance, where he completed 37 of 50 pass attempts for 328 yards and four touchdowns.
Before that epic win were back-to-back Super Bowl losses to the New York Giants after the 2011 and 2007 seasons. Those were the lost years that Brady undoubtedly would like to forget. Only, the way those losses stung provide a sense of motivation for the veteran signal caller to this day, according to his Tom vs. Time documentary.
Between 2001 and 2004, New England was in the Super Bowl three times with Brady at the helm. They won all three, first against the 'Greatest Show on Turf' St. Louis Rams in 2001, the Carolina Panthers in 2003 and the Philadelphia Eagles in 2004. Brady threw six touchdowns in total during those games – against just one interception.
Over his Super Bowl tenure, Brady has taken home four Super Bowl MVP trophies along with the Lombardi Trophy. Those came in 2001 (his very first), 2003, 2014 and 2016.
But now let's briefly revisit Super Bowl XLIII in 2009. No, Brady wasn't a part of it. But you want to know who won that game inside Raymond James Stadium? The Pittsburgh Steelers – with an offensive coordinator named Bruce Arians, an offensive quality control coach named Harold Goodwin, a backup quarterback named Byron Leftwich and a linebacker named Larry Foote. They are all now coaches for the Buccaneers and can return to the Super Bowl in the same stadium, this time with Brady in tow.
He already has more rings than fit on his throwing hand – all with the same franchise. That's pretty epic. But Brady and all of those aforementioned guys winning it in their home stadium for the first time in NFL history – in their first season together? Now that would be a Hollywood ending.
