It was an overall good night for Tom Brady and probably a bittersweet one for Patriots fans as the defending Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers eked out a 19-17 win in Brady's first game back in Foxborough, Massachusetts, since leaving New England in 2020. It was not a dominant win — the Patriots would have won if Nick Folk had made a final 56-yard field goal with 56 seconds left in the game — but it was a victory nonetheless. And Brady also managed to make a little NFL history during the game.
The mood of Patriots fans was summed up before kickoff by a guy named "Schwartzy."
"Brady was welcomed with cheers during the pregame before taking the field to a stream of boos on the Buccaneers' first drive of the night," USA Today reports. "Some cheers returned on their second offensive series of the night when he completed a 28-yard pass to Mike Evans to surpass [Drew] Brees's mark of 80,358 yards to become the NFL's career passing leader in the regular season." Brady also became only the fourth NFL quarterback — along with Brees, Brett Favre, and Peyton Manning — to lead his team to victory against all 32 NFL teams.
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Brady told NBC afterward that the game had been "pretty surreal," adding that his former teammates, plus rookie Patriots quarterback Mac Jones, "have a really good football team and made us earn it." And that's true, USA Today adds. Brady "was nearly upstaged by a rookie and had his least-efficient game of the season. For just the second time since he joined the Bucs in 2020 as a free agent, Brady didn't throw a touchdown."
Still, he won. And for the first time since 2001 — the year Brady joined Bill Belichick's New England team — the Patriots are 1-3.
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