Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady looked human during a narrow Week 4 win over his former New England Patriots team in Week 4. He completed just 22-of-43 passes without a touchdown or an interception.
Anyone hoping that the 44-year-old Brady would somehow remain human moving forward on the season was sorely disappointed Sunday against the Miami Dolphins.
The seven-time Super Bowl champion absolutely dominated an inferior opponent to the tune of 30-of-41 passing for 411 yards with five touchdowns and zero interceptions. Five touchdowns. Zero interceptions. North of 400 yards. We just felt like that needed to be repeated.
Tom Brady continues to put NFL on notice
Without Rob Gronkowski in the mix against a darn good Dolphins defense, Brady relied more on his wide receivers. That included completing a combined 20-of-27 passes for 308 yards with four touchdowns to Antonio Brown, Mike Evans and Chris Godwin. Brady’s quarterback rating when targeting the trio was 150.9.
Related: Find out where Tom Brady stands in our NFL QB rankings
Showing that he can make it work with anyone, Brady found sweet music with Antonio Brown in this one. That included two touchdowns, one of which went for 62 yards and set up the offensive onslaught we saw in Tampa. The amazing thing here is that Brady and Brown burnt star Dolphins corner Xavien Howard on that touchdown.
Tom Brady stats are just eye-opening
By virtue of his five touchdown performance against Miami on Sunday, Brady has thrown 15 touchdowns against two interceptions in five starts this season. Taking into account the 17-game schedule, these are the numbers Brady is on pace for.
- Completions: 507
- Attempts: 765
- Completion %: .662
- Yards: 6,007
- TD: 51
- Interceptions: 7
- QB rating: 108.4
Let’s put this into perspective for a second, shall we? At this pace, Brady would absolutely destroy Peyton Manning’s single-season record of 5,477 passing yards. He’d also break Drew Brees’ record of 471 completions and Matthew Stafford’s mark of 727 pass attempts.
Sure five games is not a huge sample size. It remains highly unlikely that Brady’s final numbers will look like this.
Even then, we’re talking about a dude who is doing this at the age of 44. When Brady made his NFL debut, Buccaneers rookie first-round pick Joe Tryon-Shoyinka had just celebrated his first birthday. Think about that for a second.
Can Tom Brady keep this up?
Right now, there’s absolutely no reason to believe Tom Terrific can’t continue to do what we’ve seen since he left New England for Tampa Bay following the 2019 campaign.
Remember, the future first ballot Hall of Famer tallied north of 4,600 yards with 40 touchdowns and 12 interceptions in his first season with Tampa. The season culminated in a blowout win over Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LV.
How relevant is that? Mahomes wasn’t even five when Brady made his debut as a member of the Patriots back in 2000. All we’ve seen from Mahomes through his first four-plus NFL seasons is a Super Bowl MVP and regular-season MVP award. No biggie.
Tampa Bay has the elite-level skill-position players to help Tom Brady keep this up. It boasts an up-and-coming offensive coordinator in Byron Leftwich. The team exists in a division with some questionable defenses.
There’s absolutely no reason to believe Brady can’t keep this up for years to come. That proverbial wall we’ve seen from the likes of other all-time greats such as the aforementioned Manning and Brees doesn’t apply to Brady. He’s otherworldly. He’s defying logic and reason.