Getty Tom Brady has big plans for 2021.
Football teams often have a 24-hour rule for celebrating a big win, but Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady has his own ideas.
Bucs quarterback coach Clyde Christensen received Brady’s FaceTime call by 8 a.m. the morning after the Bucs dismantled the Kansas City Chiefs 31-9 in Super Bowl LV on Feb. 7 according to Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times. Brady thanked Christensen for everything but got down to business quickly, Christensen told Stroud.
“He said, ‘Hey, I didn’t see you after the game. I just wanted to tell you thanks and what a great journey and how much I appreciated everything you did,'” Christensen told Stroud.
“The second thing he said: ‘I was just sitting here thinking, and I think we can really be better next year. I think we’re going to be a better team.’ He was already excited about the next year. It’s amazing. That’s how his mind works,” Christensen added per Stroud. “He’s thinking about it the next morning. He’s barely been in a couple hours, and he’s thinking about it the next morning.”
Brady then let the world know only five days later that he’s “back to work” on a quest for an eight Super Bowl ring.
Back to work.
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Mile High Percentage for Brady
Odds of repeating appear in Brady and the Bucs’ favor.
A Brady-led team has a higher likelihood of winning playoff games than NBA superstar LeBron James sinking a free throw. Brady hasn’t missed the playoffs when starting 12 or more games since 2002 by the way.
LeBron James current FT%:
71.2%
Tom Brady career win % in the playoffs:
75.6%
Brady is more likely to win a playoff game than LeBron is to make a free throw this year. Insanity.
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“That’s the thing with him. All of a sudden, the percentages change in your favor,” Christensen told Stroud. “You start with, it’s hard to get back to the playoffs after you’ve won or lost a Super Bowl. Then you compare that to Brady, where about 75 percent of the time he makes the (conference) championship game. He’s a statistics reverser. He trumps the normal statistics.”
“You say, ‘Okay, except, it’s Tom Brady.’ You kind of have to pull him out, because he’s an outlier,” Christensen added per Stroud.
Uphill Climb
It won’t happen automatically for Brady and company however.
As Stroud noted, no team has repeated as Super Bowl champions since some Brady-led New England Patriots squads did it in 2003 and 2004.
Brady, who played in his 10th Super Bowl on Feb. 7, knows too well the uphill climb for a team just to reach the Super Bowl in consecutive years. He had a few Super Bowl droughts along the way, and he couldn’t lead the Patriots to back-to-back Lombardi Trophies in the late 2010s a second time despite making it to three straight Super Bowls. A Nick Foles-led Philadelphia Eagles squad ruined those plans.
“The thing that happens is, teams get distracted,” said Christensen, who has 40 years of coaching experience in the NFL and Division I college football. “Everyone is trying to make a little more money. Everyone has something going. Some have got a little book deal. They’ve got radio shows going. That doesn’t happen to the Bradys or the Mannings of the world. They don’t get distracted. They don’t get off track.”
Christensen previously worked with Hall of Fame inductee quarterback Peyton Manning in Indianapolis from 2002 to 2011. The Colts only reached two Super Bowls with Manning in that span with one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history.
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