Tom Brady's heroics in Tampa Bay still viewed through prism of New England

Tom Brady still remembers when he picked up the phone on April 16, 2000.

"They called me and they said: ‘You’ve been picked by New England,’ " he recalled on Thursday of getting his draft day news. "And I was like: ‘That’s amazing! Where is New England?’ "

After growing up in Northern California and playing college football for Michigan, he had no clue. "Then I landed in Providence, which really screwed me up because it’s not even in Massachusetts," he added.

Brady then put the Patriots on the map, quarterbacking them through a dynasty that may never be matched.

Nearly 21 years later, though, the answer to his question is a lot different from what it was when he first asked it.

Where is New England? Not in the Super Bowl. Not even among the 14 teams that competed in this postseason. The Patriots have six Lombardi Trophies, thanks to Brady, but while he is going for his seventh a week from Sunday against Kansas City in Super Bowl LV, the team he spent two decades playing for now is only a memory.

"I had an incredible 20 years, really, an incredible 20 years," he said of his tenure as the Gawd of Spawts in Patriots Nation. "And I wouldn’t change anything over the course of 20 years. It was magical and all the relationships I developed. Those shaped me into who I am as a person and as a player. My kids were born in Boston. I have great affection for the city and everything Boston has meant to me and my family. All of New England, not just Boston."

But do you know what he said about his 10 months with the Bucs? He called this year "magical" as well. The same exact word.

It’s a strange dynamic that Brady now has with the franchise he is most tied to yet no longer plays for. Any victories he achieves with Tampa Bay feel like inherent losses for the Patriots. Any praise he applies to his new team is interpreted as a slight against his old one.

That goes not only for what Brady says but those around him.

Sometimes the comparisons are direct.

"I allow him to be himself," Bucs coach Bruce Arians was quoted as saying ahead of the NFC Championship Game last week. "Like, New England didn’t allow him to coach. I allow him to coach. I just sit back sometimes and watch."

Other times they require some between-the-lines reading, such as on Thursday, when Brady said of Arians: "He’s a great man, he’s a great leader, he’s a great person, he’s a great friend. He’s very loyal. He’s got a great way about communicating effectively with everybody around here. There is nobody who would say anything bad about B.A. . . . I love playing for him."

Sounds a lot different from Brady’s last coach, doesn’t it?

Brady’s season with Tampa Bay has not been perfect. It began with his parents diagnosed with COVID-19 in the fall and his father spending three weeks in the hospital. Tom Brady Sr. said on ESPN this week that his battle with the virus was "a matter of life and death." Brady said his folks are doing much better and will be at the game to cheer him on.

The pandemic also kept Brady from connecting with teammates; he said there are some on defense he does not know very well because they cannot be in the same room together, travel together or even eat together.

Overall, though, it has been a great season. He’s in the Super Bowl. And that he is here and New England is not doesn’t seem to matter as much to him as it does to everyone else.

"The fact that we’re still playing feels really good to me," he said. "We put a lot into it. Hopefully we can go finish the job. That would be the best part about the season is winning the last game. That’s always been the goal, to win the last game of the year."

With Tampa Bay or anywhere else he’s played.