Where Brady goes, championships follow

By Art Spander

It isn’t only Tom Brady. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have an excellent defense — doesn’t every great team? — and fine receivers and running backs. But so much is Tom Brady. Where he goes, championships follow.

John Brodie, who quarterbacked the 49ers when Brady’s father, Tom Sr., came to be a fan, once told me you can’t blame an individual for failure in a team sport. You can, however, credit him for success.

Some people are winners. Some are not. Brady is a winner. Thus, so are the Tampa Bay Bucs, as was Brady’s former team, the New England Patriots, the one which for a varying set of reasons, Brady’s age, a need to rebuild, chose not to re-sign him after 20 seasons.

Which allowed the Bucs to do that, and in turn after a Sunday in Green Bay, when Brady threw three passes for touchdowns and numerous others to get control and keep it, underdog Tampa Bay defeated the Packers, 31- 26, for the NFC Championship.

For the 10th time, Brady will be playing in a Super Bowl, this one LV — 55 in the vulgate. And through fortune more than preparation, the game will be in Tampa, making the Bucs the first team in a half century to play the game at their home stadium.

He, or more correctly his team, the Patriots, has won six times previously.

Not bad for the kid from Serra High in San Mateo (from which Barry Bonds also graduated), who went to Michigan because no West Coast university was particularly interested and then wasn’t selected in the draft until the sixth round. Too slow was the judgment.

But Brady had an arm and a presence. He’s never had to run the 50, only run a football team.

This one season he ran the Bucs effectively, making us wonder what would have happened if he stayed with the Patriots, or gone to the team he cheered as a youth, the 49ers — who relied on Brady’s former backup in New England, Jimmy Garoppolo.

We’ll never know. What the Bucs know is, as they hoped, Brady provided the leadership and performance that made a difference in the locker room as much as on the field.

“I was excited when I saw on television that we signed him,” said Shaquil Barrett, the linebacker who on Sunday made others excited by combining with Jason Pierre-Paul for five sacks, speaking to Fox TV.

“You know what he can do. He treats everyone the same.”

Brady knows the drill. With all the attention over the years, all the accolades, he is almost too cool in interviews, offering a “been there, done that,” response — which you suppose is to be expected from someone who had his own weekly radio show in Boston and is married to a supermodel.

“It’s great to get another road win,” said Brady, “and now we got a home game.”

That will be in two weeks against the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs and their own heroic (but younger) QB. At 25, Patrick Mahomes is 18 years younger than Brady and also is a Super Bowl MVP.

Quarterbacks are a necessity to win titles. Brady has understood this for years. Tom was wasn’t quite 5 when he was taken by his dad in January 1982 to “The Catch” game at Candlestick Park.

That’s the one where Joe Montana passed to Dwight Clark, lifting the 49ers to their first Super Bowl.

A long time, from virtual childhood to actual greatness. Brady perhaps never could have imagined he would return again and again to the Super Bowl, especially this season when so much changed.

Except his brilliance.