At 43, do we need to grade Tom Brady's performance on a curve? They tell us this is a learning process, and I suppose that makes sense. You've got a quarterback learning a new offense, an offensive coordinator getting to know a new quarterback and a whole bunch of receivers, tight ends and running backs getting used to being yelled at by an icon. As for the rest of us? We're learning what to expect from Tom Brady. Should we be looking for vintage Brady, or was that cork pulled too long ago? Really, what's reasonable to expect from a 43-year-old quarterback? Mind you, a 43-year-old who won an MVP award at 40 and was named to the Pro Bowl at 41. "I expect a lot out of his ass," said running back Leonard Fournette. "He's a six-time Super Bowl (champion), so I expect a lot out of him, just know that." That seems like a reasonable argument. And by that standard, we still have not seen the best of Brady. He was shaky in Week 1 at New Orleans and solid in a 31-17 win against Carolina in the home opener on Sunday. Brady threw some nice medium-range passes against the Panthers, and his final stats were probably unfairly skewed by a handful of drops. "I thought he played outstanding," said head coach Bruce Arians, who was fairly critical of his quarterback after New Orleans. "His leadership on the sidelines was great. Put us in the right play with a number of different audibles. Played really, really well." If that was outstanding, then we may need to dial back our expectations. Because that seemed like a good game. An effective game. A winning game. But an outstanding game by greatest-of-all-time standards? Not really. Brady threw his third interception in two weeks, which is practically halfway to his total from the entire 2019 season. His passer rating is 79.3, which is his lowest two-week total to start a season since 2013. So, again, is it realistic to think Brady can put up ungodly numbers at his age with a new team? Is it too much to hope that he can be one of the top 5 quarterbacks in the league more than 20 years after he was drafted? Yeah, probably. We have to remember that this greatest-of-all-time stuff is for a body of work and is not a current snapshot. Brady showed us Sunday that he can still throw a near-perfect pass 25 yards down the field, as he did on a Mike Evans touchdown. And he even showed some mobility on a scramble that should have led to a 15-yard touchdown pass if LeSean McCoy hadn't dropped the ball in the end zone. But Brady still looks like a world-class chef thrown into an unfamiliar kitchen. The flow, the confidence, the instincts are just not there yet. And maybe age has something to do with that, or maybe he just needs more time to adjust. "I don't think there's any doubt, it's going to take time," Arians said. "With having no preseason and all of those practices we missed, we're just growing day by day with Tom and the receivers and the entire offense. I think we're going to get better and better. We are nowhere near in September what I think we'll be in November." So what does Brady think? That's hard to say, because he answers almost every question with an impressive collection of non sequiturs and cliches. He might think he's just a few weeks away from being the quarterback he was in 2017, or he might feel like he's drowning. More than likely, he is somewhere in between. And that might be enough for the Bucs. If they were expecting him to match Jameis Winston's 5,109 yards from last season, then they need to cut back on Happy Hour. Instead, they were expecting a quarterback who knows more about winning than any other. A quarterback who avoids interceptions, wins a few games in the fourth quarter and changes the culture in a locker room unaccustomed to success. In that sense, our expectations of Brady are tied in to how he raises expectations for everyone around him. Teammates have been talking for weeks about the withering looks and sharp words they've gotten from Brady. After Arians mentioned Brady's leadership on the sidelines on Sunday, he was asked how that sounded. "Without censorship," Arians said, "you can't talk about it." Ultimately, I suppose that's how we're going to judge Brady in 2020. It's not about the numbers. We saw big numbers last year. And it's not about the Pro Bowl. Heck, Jeff Garcia made a Pro Bowl in Tampa Bay. So did Trent Dilfer. For Brady, it should be all about wins and losses. So far, he's 1-1. John Romano, Tampa Bay Times, published 21 September 2020