I didn’t believe last year’s Buccaneers team was a 43-year-old Tom Brady away from winning the Super Bowl. And he wasn’t THAT great: ninth in passer rating, ninth in QBR, fourth in DVOA, etc. And you can argue the Bucs caught some breaks, too: San Francisco imploded, along with Drew Brees’s rib cage, and somehow Brady went into Lambeau and threw three picks and came out a winner.
But there’s no denying that he was exceptional when they needed him to be, and he deserves every bit of credit he’s about to get.