A SEASON IN THE SUN

A fly-on-the-wall look at the making of a winning football season.

Tom Brady wanted one thing from the New England Patriots, apart from lots of money: a contract that would extend through his 45th birthday. When the team refused the extension, notes football writer Anderson, Brady exercised free agency. Wanting on top of everything else to live someplace warm, he landed in Tampa. He paired up with a coach who was just as methodical in his demands: Bruce Arians, a veteran coach with an eye to winning an ever elusive championship before age forced him out of the game but who was also quite progressive, hiring women on the coaching staff and eschewing the coaching-by-intimidation methods of old. Anderson works some of the standard can-he-do-it tropes (“the forty-two-year-old Brady wasn’t in his prime, but…he still could make throws outside the numbers, and he had plenty of zip on his fastball”) and get-me-in-there rejoinders (“At one point Brady said, ‘I think we’ve got something. We’ve got a chance to be very special’ ”). Apart from the by-the-numbers moments, though, Anderson digs deep into motivation: Brady left the Pats, he hazards, not just for monetary reasons and sunshine, but also because he wanted to prove that it wasn’t just Bill Belichick’s coaching that made his old team a winner. Proof came in two forms: with the Patriots’ jagged performance after he departed and with Tampa’s thrashing of the Kansas City Chiefs in the 2020 Super Bowl victory. Of course, Arians had a role in the win, too; who wouldn’t be inspired by a pep talk that ended thusly: “We don’t need any heroes. Just do your job. Be smart, fast, and physical. It’s hard to make it to a Super Bowl, so try your best to take it all in and play your ass off”?

Catnip for Brady, Bucs, and NFL fans, though perhaps not likely to convert others to the cause.