TAMPA, Fla. — Tom Brady is the last quarterback to lead his team to back-to-back Super Bowl titles and it’s been 16 years since he did it with the Patriots in the 2003 and 2004 seasons. Only seven franchises in NFL history have achieved the rare feat of consecutive NFL championships.
So Brady knows the challenge the Bucs will face in attempting to hoist another Lombardi Trophy next February in Los Angeles.
“I think the assumption comes from the belief that it will be exactly like it was last year,” Brady said during mandatory minicamp Wednesday. “I think that’s what you’ve got to not fall into is that, ‘Oh, this is the way it worked last year so this is the way it will be this year.’ And the reality is, everything is different. The teams will approach you a little bit differently. You’re kind of the team everyone is watching now so there’s different degrees of expectation.
“There’s more external noise. There will be more people wanting to come to games. More opportunity to do things outside of football and I think the reality is you’ve got to stay focused on what’s really important. How do you improve? How do you get better week to week? Day to day? ...
“It was really our first opportunity to play together last year and there’s a lot of opportunity for us to grow into something that could be very different. We’ve got to improve the things we did well and we’ve got to build certainly on a lot of things we didn’t do well. It’s a daily commitment to improve and that just comes from working at it. We have a lot of guys that like to do that. Very competitive group of guys.”
Brady also talked about how he is recovering from knee surgery, how much more knowledge he has in his second season in Bruce Arians’ offense and how he continues to build chemistry with his teammates.
On his left knee (he had surgery 15 weeks ago):
“I feel really good. ... I’m really happy with my rehab process. It’s been great communication. (Trainer) Alex (Guerrero) and I have worked really hard at trying to get back to full speed to get what I need to do to improve. It’s been a good process of learning and I feel like I’m there now.
“From this point to the beginning of training camp, I feel like I can really work hard at football improvement as opposed to getting back to a rehab place where you’re more baseline. It was an injury I dealt with really since last April-May and, you know, I knew I would have to do something at the end of the year and happy I did it.”
On how the Bucs are relying on him to prevent the team from growing complacent:
“I think starting at a place that I’m at now allows me a better grasp of things, a better grasp of the players. Certainly our coaches, what they’re looking for. We’re starting at a good place so we’ve just got to build on it. ... There’s a lot of excitement about guys being together and we’ve got great chemistry on this team. We all root for each other. We want to see each other do our best. We hold ourselves to a high standard.
“I don’t think that we ever think we have all the answers or we’ve got everything figured out. We’re here to work. We’re pushed by our coaches to excel at a high level and they’re very supportive of what we’re trying to do as players so that’s all you can ask for.”
On how his throwing sessions with teammates are different in 2021:
“A lot of it is just being on the same page and understanding timing and steps and non-verbal communication because in football, you don’t get the opportunity to communicate verbally very often. You do at home (games) a little bit more. It’s still a little tricky. Even the late part of last year when the fans were allowed back in. Hopefully, there will be full stadiums at every place, you’ll have the full crowd noise and a lot of it is going to be non-verbal communication and we’re going to have to rely on a lot of the things we did in those sessions in practice and we’ve got to build on those things.
“It could be the way a guy leans his shoulder or the way he uses his hips to get open or he’s going to put his arm out or a head nod. But there’s a lot of things you can gain over a long period of time. We’re starting at that place now. Now we’ve got 15 months invested in one another as opposed to three months. ... There’s so many situations that come up that you’re not able to sort through, you’ve got to rely on a lot of past history. I think 15 months is better than three months. I think 27 months is going to better than 15 months.”
