Familiar territory for Brady — headed to Super Bowl

Familiar+territory+for+Brady+--+headed+to+Super+Bowl

Dominic DiTommaso

Now’s your chance, haters — go laugh and celebrate.

This is what you’ve been waiting for all season long. Finally, it has been proven: Tom Brady has lost his fastball and the Buccaneers are now the Suckaneers after getting demolished by the Saints 38-3 this past Sunday night.

Listen to what the Brady and Buccaneer bashers have to say. Listen to them speak of the end of the Buccaneers and their quarterback.

Now listen to me. Brady’s Buccaneers will rise from their destruction at the hands of New Orleans all the way to a Super Bowl LV win.

So quickly, now is your chance to puff out your chest and brag, but you won’t be able to do it for long. Tom Brady is about to shut you up.

Here are 12 reasons No. 12 will still lead his Buccaneers to a 12-4 record.

This has happened before to Tom Brady

This week’s game was eerily reminiscent of the Monday Night Massacre in 2014, when Brady and his Patriots lost 41-14 to the Chiefs in Kansas City. After that game, everyone boasted New England was done.

Sound familiar? Well, all the Patriots did following that beat down was go 11-1 and win the Super Bowl over Seattle.

In 2017, the Patriots again lost to the Chiefs, 42-27, and finished the season 13-3 and made it to the the Super Bowl. Just two years ago, Brady got beat by the Titans 34-10 in the regular season and finished the year with a Super Bowl victory.

The Buccaneers have a pretty easy closing schedule

Of their seven remaining games, five of their opponents have losing records. Brady gets to play the 3-6 Falcons twice and the Vikings and Lions, who combine for six wins, the same as the Bucs. He will have to play the 8-1 Chiefs, but …

Brady can beat good teams

He was able to dominate Aaron Rodgers and the Packers 38-10 when Rodgers came into the game with the best QBR any quarterback had ever had up until that point in NFL history. Brady outplayed him, outscoring Green Bay 38-0 over the final three quarters. Brady will beat Mahomes and the Chiefs.

Antonio Brown has just arrived

The last time we saw Brown in a full season, 2018, he led the league in touchdown receptions and had 1,297 yards for the Steelers. Now Tom Brady has him, and it appears the two are soulmates as Brady is even letting him stay at his house. Brown had to get himself back up and running and get himself familiar with the new offense against New Orleans, but No. 81 (the same number Randy Moss wore when he caught an NFL-record 23 touchdown passes from Brady) should be good to go in the coming games.

Brady plays best mad

We’ve seen what’s happened in the past when Brady gets mad, like he got when his team trailed 24-14 to the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX. All he did in the fourth quarter of that game was throw for two touchdowns and 124 yards. He certainly got mad down 28-3 against the Falcons in Super Bowl LI. In the fourth quarter and overtime of that game he threw for 246 yards and got the improbable comeback win.

The offensive line will not disappoint like it did this Sunday

Going into this season, Tampa Bay had the number 13 overall offensive line, according to Pro Football Focus. Three games into the season, that number rocketed up to five, but against the Saints, that line allowed three sacks and nine hits on Brady.

Don’t bank on that happening again. Ali Marpet, Tampa’s left guard who missed this week’s game against the Saints, is coming back.

Arians and company will not run the ball five times again

Never before in the history of the NFL has a team run the ball five times in a game.

But “no risk it, no biscuit” Bruce Arians decided to give it a shot. And this Sunday, he did not get his biscuit.

Ronald Jones II, who is ninth in the league in rushing with 538 yards and ninth in the league in carries at 120, was given the ball three times for 9 yards. Two of the three rushes combined for 2 yards, and the team as a whole rushed for a total of 8 yards after Blaine Gabbert lost a yard on his one and only carry of the night.

Now having dropped to 29th in rush attempts per game, expect Arians to run the ball more, taking some of the heat off of Brady and his arm.

Godwin and Evans are finally starting to get healthy

Not once this season has Tom Brady had both of his Pro-Bowl wide receivers healthy at the same time. In his first loss of the season, Mike Evans was coming off a hamstring injury and was not himself and the Buccaneers lost 34-23 to New Orleans. In his loss to Chicago, Chris Godwin did not play, also due to a hamstring injury. In the beatdown at the hands of the Saints this past Sunday night, neither weapon was at 100%.

Imagine what could happen when Godwin and Evans, quality receivers, get healthy.

Shared forgetfulness

Amnesia appears to have spread across the country, making everyone forget what Brady managed to accomplish last season.

He managed to take the Patriots to a 12-4 record despite having the worst group of receivers in the NFL and a defense that let up 37 points to Baltimore, 28 points to Houston and 27 points to the Dolphins, including a game-winning touchdown that cost New England the two seed in the AFC.

And now the same exact team, just without Tom Brady, is now 3-5 despite having Cam Newton, a former MVP, as its quarterback.

Gronk will slowly turn into Gronk

After taking a year off from football, Rob Gronkowski decided to reunite with his quarterback to try and win a Super Bowl.

Gronkowski has been far from the “Gronk” we used to know and love, but once he gets back into football shape and regains his touch and feel for the game, Gronkowski will slowly morph back into one of Brady’s favorite targets. Down the stretch and in the playoffs, Brady will start looking for Gronkowski when crucial catches are needed to be made.

The NFC does not look very strong right now

Early in the season, many believed that the two best teams in the NFC were Seattle and Green Bay. Over the past few weeks, Seattle has lost games to Arizona and Buffalo. Green Bay has lost two of their last four games, getting blown out by the Buccaneers and then losing to the pedestrian Minnesota Vikings.

So who else could stand in Brady’s way in the conference? Despite going 0-2 against the Saints, Brady would rise to the challenge in the playoffs, and beat New Orleans. No other team poses a viable threat to Tampa Bay, making the path to the Super Bowl wide open.

The Bucs are 6-3, not 3-10

There is no shame in the games Brady has lost this season, and in his days with the Pats, a 6-3 start usually signaled a 13-3 or 12-4 season. They have three of the next four, and four of the final seven, games at home.

So you better laugh now. In the end, Brady will get the last one.