After winning a record six Super Bowls in 20 years with the New England Patriots, Tom Brady became a free agent for the first time last year.

The Bucs were hosting Super Bowl 55 at the end of the season and had just signed the man widely regarded as the greatest quarterback of all time.

Could he really lead Tampa Bay to the big game in his very first season, making them the first team to play a Super Bowl in their own stadium? It seemed too good to be true.

It wasn’t – not with Brady steering the ship. The Bucs have defied the odds to reach the NFL showpiece and the league’s three-time Most Valuable Player, now 43, continues to defy Father Time.

What kind of a team did Brady join?

Formed in 1976, Tampa Bay were bought in 1995 by the Glazer family, who also gained ownership of Manchester United in 2005. The Bucs won Super Bowl 37 in 2003 but did not win another play-off game until Brady arrived. In fact, they had not reached the post-season at all since 2007.

Bruce Arians became head coach in 2019 and, after Jameis Winston threw 30 interceptions in a single season en route to a 7-9 record that season, it was time for Tampa Bay to look for a new quarterback.

Arians said this week “you can’t hit a home run unless you’re going to swing for one”, and the Bucs duly lured Brady. Their new signing then convinced the Bucs to bring former Patriots team-mate Rob Gronkowski out of retirement, which included a brief stint in WWE.

“It’s crazy what Tom Brady has done,” said BBC pundit Jason Bell. “He inherited pretty much the same team and you see the jump [in performance]. People talk about the ‘Patriot Way’, but some say it’s the ‘Brady Way’ because of the way he challenges those players and how they’re accountable to him.”

Brady the ‘missing piece’ for the Bucs

Brady joined a new team during a pandemic, with training heavily restricted and pre-season games cancelled, and Tampa Bay lost their season opener to the New Orleans Saints.

But the Bucs improved to 6-2 and made Antonio Brown the latest member of the ‘Brady Bunch’. The star wide receiver stayed in Brady’s house during a brief stint with New England in 2019.

BBC pundit Osi Umenyiora said Brady “couldn’t have picked a better situation to go into”. With Brown, Mike Evans and Chris Godwin, he now had three of the NFL’s best receivers to throw to, he was being protected in the pocket and was playing for an offense-minded coach like Arians, who saw Brady as “the missing piece”.

“I knew how good a team we had and what we were missing – that belief we were good enough,” Arians said this week.

“Until you’re with a guy of [Brady’s] stature, you really don’t know his personality on a daily basis. He’s just one of the guys and does a great job working with younger and older players. It’s like having another coach on the field.”

Arians has even let Brady call plays, and Tampa Bay won their last four games of the regular season to finish 11-5 and secure a wildcard spot in the play-offs.

Brady had 40 touchdown passes for the season – the second-highest in the league and his career – and followed that up by helping the Bucs beat three division winners on the road.

Is Brady the GOAT?

Umenyiora was in the New York Giants team that beat New England at Super Bowls 42 and 46, and when Brady left the Patriots, he was among those who felt coach Bill Belichick deserved most of the credit for their success.

But Brady is preparing for a 10th Super Bowl while the Patriots have had their first losing season since 2000. So back in October, Umenyiora apologised to his old adversary on The NFL Show.

“I always knew Brady was a really good player,” Umenyiora said this week. “But I wanted to see him do it somewhere else, in a different system – and he did.

“He’s the greatest player we’ve seen in football.”

Jason Bell rates former Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor as the greatest while ex-San Francisco 49ers receiver Jerry Rice was voted the all-time best in 2019. Brady has surpassed his childhood idol Joe Montana by taking a second franchise to the Super Bowl. Montana, who won four titles with the 49ers, fell one game short of the big game after joining the Kansas City Chiefs.

Now Brady aims to emulate Peyton Manning by becoming only the second starting quarterback to win the Super Bowl with two different teams, while also achieving the remarkable accolade of winning more championships than any single NFL franchise.

How is Brady still at the top of his game?

Brady puts his longevity down to his trainer Alex Guerrero, and in his 2017 book, ‘The TB12 Method’, Brady explained how Guerrero’s concept of ‘pliability’ prevents muscle injury and how his diet reduces inflammation, although some of his claims have been dismissed as “dubious science”.

“The work I do with my body coach Alex is critical to my success,” said Brady this week. “I understood that a really important aspect of performing well was everything I put into my body and how I took care of it.”

Guerrero’s team privileges were revoked at New England but he’s said to have an office in Tampa Bay’s facility.

Dave Hamilton, the Bucs’ director of performance science, told the BBC: “Tom has his own systems and processes. He does a great job with nutrition, getting the appropriate rest – sleep is a big part for him.

“He has a team and we make sure that we integrate and get the relevant information to and from each other, so that we’re all on the same page.”

While Brady’s numbers declined in his last two years in New England, this season’s form shows he still has elite arm strength.

And he’s not done yet. This week he said he’s open to playing beyond 45.

Additional reporting by Jo Currie