National Football League

Tom Brady, Tampa Bay Buccaneers enter 2021 NFL season as the hunted

Updated Sep. 9, 2021 2:10 p.m. ET

By Martin Rogers
FOX Sports Columnist

Tom Brady has been in a bubbly mood ever since the night of Feb. 7, and why not?

There was a lot for him to like then and a lot to still like now. There was the postgame speech in which he promised to be back for more tilts at Super Bowl glory, then a riotous Tampa Bay parade in which the Vince Lombardi Trophy got tossed from one boat to another over open water.

There were some fun bits of media trolling over the summer, with Brady boasting about his newly upgraded title ring collection and getting America guessing who "that motherf---er" was. And somewhere, amid it all, he celebrated yet another birthday to reach the kind of age at which some people (like me) are tempted to lie about the number. He’s 44 by the way, and yes, we’re counting.

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It’s good to be a Super Bowl champion and even better to have seven titles, and such things tend to lead to enjoyable summers.

But with the impending launch of a brand-new National Football League season, Brady has been adamant to ram home one point of detail to his Tampa Bay Buccaneers teammates, time and again.

After seven months of fun, Brady wants this Bucs group to listen to him when he says things aren’t the same for a Super Bowl champion trying to win another one as they are for a team trying to snag its first.

If last year was a happy little freeroll, Tampa Bay is now the sole occupier of an exalted status — the team everyone else wants to knock off.

"Tom told us this year is going to be different because everybody is going to be giving us their best shot," Bucs wide receiver Chris Godwin told FOX Sports senior editor Sean Merriman in a recent phone conversation.

"Our success last year doesn’t guarantee us anything this year. That’s pretty obvious. This was the first time winning the Super Bowl for a lot of guys on this team, and now, it will be the first time for a lot of these guys being the hunted."

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As soon as the parties subsided, the Bucs' front office got to work, striving to ensure that the swath of impending free agents on the roster stuck around, including Shaquil Barrett, Lavonte David and Rob Gronkowski, still glowing from those "two tuddies" in the big game.

Heading into Thursday's season-opening clash with the Dallas Cowboys, all 22 of the Tampa Bay players who started the 31-9 Super Bowl rout of the Kansas City Chiefs are back, a mightily rare feat.

"I didn't know if we were going to be able to do it," general manager Jason Licht told NFL.com. "I didn't know it hadn't been done since 1977. I'm glad I didn't know because I would have been even more stressed out about it."

Coach Bruce Arians is seeking consistency and familiarity and needs no reminding about how juicy a window of opportunity he has with Brady not only in the QB position but also situated as the ultimate recruitment tool.

Arians was positively gleeful when announcing last week that his entire roster is vaccinated against COVID-19, insisting it will help minimize disruption as the 17-game campaign gets underway.

Furthermore, Brady will have the same key group of receivers to throw to, and the Bucs will come into the campaign with a good amount of swagger, as they should.

"We can’t be dependent on our chemistry from last year or the things we did last year to just work for us again this year," added Godwin, speaking to FOX Sports as part of the Lowe’s NFL Home Team initiative, which tackles community housing projects in NFL markets.

"The good thing about bringing so many people back is that we don’t have to start from ground zero. But we still have to put in the work day-in and day-out because no one is going to give us anything. Everybody is going to give us their best shot, so we have to be ready for all that."

Thursday offers a big-name matchup, but as settled as the Bucs have been, the Cowboys have endured some disruption. Guard Zack Martin is out after testing positive for COVID-19, and Dak Prescott will take his first snaps since suffering a gruesome ankle injury in Week 5 of last season against the New York Giants.

Brady’s bunch is a strong favorite at -8.5, per FOX Bet. FS1’s Chris Broussard could see little value in the visiting underdog.

"There is no way," Broussard said on FS1's "First Things First." "Zero, zilch, none. That’s how much of an opportunity Dallas has of winning this game. I am only a hair away from guaranteeing it’s a rout. I am willing to guarantee the Cowboys do not win this game. The Cowboys are not ready to start the season against the best team in football."

The Bucs are indeed the hunted. That’s just the way of it. There is more expectation now and no chance to ease their way into the season. But while Brady is aware of the threat, he doesn’t appear to be looking over his shoulder with too much trepidation.

The Bucs, it appears, are squaring up to be just as good or better than they were a season ago. And if Brady tells them they’re up for the challenge, they’re going to listen — because following his lead has worked out pretty well so far.

Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports and the author of the FOX Sports Insider Newsletter. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.