Does Tom Brady still have the magic?
There are some who are questioning whether New England's celebrated, Superman-like quarterback still does after his mere mortal-looking performance in Sunday's AFC Championship Game.
Brady is 17-7 in the playoffs since his magical 2001 NFL postseason that earned New England's first Super Bowl ring and has passed for 5,949 yards in the postseason, the most in NFL history-a record that he broke on Sunday.
However, that same night, "Tom Terrific" was not quit on the mark.
Although he threw for 320 passing yards, he also completed a little more than half of his passes, 29-for-54 in completions on passes, and threw two interceptions, including one late in the game that basically sealed the fate of the Patriots, who fell to the Ravens 28-13 to see their bitter rival head to the Super Bowl on their own home field.
To add further to the NFL great's misery, the NFL is considering fining Brady for a "dirty" kick-slide maneuver he used in the fourth quarter on Baltimore safety Ed Reed.
All things considered, now the whispers and rumblings in the media have started as to whether the NFL's most famous quarterback today and the man who helped build New England into a football powerhouse when he burst on the scene in the 2001 season is nearing the twilight of his career.
"Could Tom Brady be in for the same fate as Drew Bledsoe? After taking over for Bledsoe midway through the 2001 season Brady never surrendered the Patriots' starting job. Mike Florio isn't proposing a question of retirement, but rather, if Brady wants to continue playing longer than the Patriots believe he's their best option. At what point must fans envision life without Brady under center?" writes Yahoo! Sports.
The way that Brady emerged on the NFL scene was like something out of a fairytale. Drafted in the sixth round with the 199th pick in the 2000 NFL Draft, Brady was the backup quarterback for star quarterback Drew Bledsoe when Brady's fate forever changed on Sept. 23, 2001, in a game against the New York Jets, after Bledsoe was hit hard and taken out of the game with internal bleeding.
Brady lost that game, but became the starting quarterback for the Patriots and never looked back, leading the Pats to a Super Bowl that season and two more in the 2003 and 2004 seasons, becoming one of the most recognizable faces in the NFL-and in all of sports.
Since then, Brady has garnered two NFL MVP awards, eight Pro Bowl selections, two Super Bowl MVP trophies and ranks fifth all-time among quarterbacks in wins and winning percentage. He also led the Patriots to five Super Bowls-though the last two were marred by stinging losses to the New York Giants in the 2007 and 2011 seasons.
However, eight seasons have passed since Brady last hoisted the Vince Lombardi trophy, and key mistakes by Brady in recent years-the missed pass between him and Wes Welker in the 2011 Super Bowl and an interception that ended New England's playoff hopes in the 2010 playoffs against the Jets-have left some doubt as to whether Brady still has the magic needed to be a champion again.
"The window's closing on Brady, Belichick," Steve Beuerlein, CBS Sports Network analyst, said. "The Brady part of it, we all talked about it earlier, he's getting up there. But the bottom line is he's still got the fire, still got that passion, still better than 75 percent of the guys out there in terms of the physical part of it as well. The question is how long does he want to do it? How long is he going to have that fire?"