Stop me if you’ve heard this before: after looking washed up in the first half and throwing a few interceptions, Tom Brady turned it on and led his team to an incredible comeback after being down by a double-digit margin. On Sunday, the Buccaneers beat the San Diego Chargers 38-31 behind five touchdown passes and 369 yards from Brady, who threw a terrible pick-six on the Bucs first drive.
“How can you not believe in him?” said Tampa Bay wide receiver Scotty Miller, who is the solid, white receiver that seems to be a requirement if Brady is your QB. “He’s the greatest to ever do it. We just needed to go in there and follow his lead. We know he’s gonna get the job done, so we’ve just gotta do what we do and help him out a little bit.” This is Brady’s biggest comeback since the 28-3 SuperBowl comeback against the Falcons, who have shown this season that blowing huge leads in gut-wrenching fashion is what they do, we just didn’t know that at the time.
So far this year Brady has been uneven. Going into this game he only had a 2-1 touchdown to interception ratio which is more common with a rookie quarterback than a twenty-year vet. When it seemed like the best explanation was that he is 43 and, of course, he is looking worse, this performance made it seem like Brady was legitimately having trouble adjusting to his new receivers and now he has found a rhythm with them. The Bucs are now 3-1 and with a relatively easy schedule coming up, if Brady can maintain this play then we will be seeing Tampa Bay football in January.
