Ageless Tom Brady and still-hungry Bucs kick off quest to repeat as Super Bowl champs

Tyler Johnson was asked to repeat the greatest thing the Greatest of All Time has said to him in their 17 months together as Tampa Bay Buccaneers teammates.

There was a short pause as the 23-year-old receiver from Minneapolis gathered his thoughts on what to say about Tom Brady, the 44-year-old veteran of 22 NFL seasons.

"That he trusts me," said the former North High and Gophers star. "Tom Brady said he trusts … me."

And TB12 showed it, too. Leading the Packers by five points and facing third-and-4 at his own 37-yard line with 1:37 left in the NFC Championship Game last season, Brady threw the ball to Johnson, a fifth-round draft pick with 12 career catches. Johnson drew a pass interference penalty for a game-ending first down. At Lambeau Field.

Two weeks later, the Bucs won Super Bowl LV, crushing the Kansas City Chiefs 31-9 in Tampa.

It was Brady's seventh Super Bowl win and his first in Tampa Bay after 20 seasons in New England. Naturally, he wasn't satisfied. He's back, hungry as ever and apparently working his mystical G.O.A.T. powers to brainwash teammates into not feeling full, satisfied or complacent.

"Nothing about last year is going to carry over into this year," Brady said. "It's an entirely new challenge."

That's pretty much what everybody says in Brady's situation. Said by someone else, it's potentially an eye-rolling cliché to snicker at from the other side of the locker room. But said by Tom Brady, well …

"It just sounds different when he says things," said Antoine Winfield Jr., the former Gophers safety who became an immediate starter as a rookie last year. "He's been around for decades in this game. He's just the G.O.A.T., man."

And Brady's loaded for bear as the Bucs will return all 22 Super Bowl starters when they kick off the NFL's 102^nd season by hosting the Dallas Cowboys on Thursday night. It's the first of five nationally televised prime-time games for the defending champs.

"Yes, sir, I am excited about being on the biggest stage five times," Johnson said. "Bring on the Cowboys and we'll take it from there."

Since the NFL's salary cap was created in 1994, no Super Bowl winner has returned all 22 starters the next season. The last team to do it was the 1977 Oakland Raiders, who were coming off a 13-1 season that saw them rout the Vikings 32-14 in Super Bowl XI.

The Raiders didn't repeat, but they did go 11-3 and reach the AFC Championship Game before losing to Denver 20-17. No Super Bowl champion has repeated since Brady and the Patriots in the 2004 and 2005 seasons.

The last three times Brady and the Patriots won the Super Bowl, they followed with three division titles and 12, 13 and 12 wins. They still failed to repeat, though.

"Teams will approach you a little bit differently," Brady said. "You're kind of the team everyone is watching now. Expectations are different."

It seems like eons ago, but once upon a time, Brady and the Bucs were 7-5 heading into their bye week. They had just lost to the Chiefs 27-24. Coach Bruce Arians was being blunt in saying Brady was misreading coverages. Brady's deep ball was deemed to be dead. Former Patriots linebacker-turned-ESPN analyst Rob Ninkovich went on the air saying it was time the Bucs fired Arians.

The Bucs, of course, never lost again. They came out of the bye week with a 26-14 win over the Vikings, their first of eight straight victories.

Arians is back at age 68. Brady is back at an ageless 44, gunning for his third Super Bowl victory since turning 40. For what it's worth, standing between him and Super Bowl LVI on Feb. 13 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., is the NFL's fourth-easiest schedule and an NFC South Division — which the Bucs didn't win a year ago, by the way — now missing the retired Drew Brees.

"Tom just has a good way of letting us know just how big a target is on our backs right now," Johnson said. "So, yes, absolutely. We're super hungry down here. Great group of guys all on the same mission to repeat."

Brady had offseason knee surgery but doesn't appear to have any lingering effects. He looked sharp as usual in the preseason, completing 12 of 16 passes for 163 yards, an average of 10.2 yards per attempt, one touchdown, no interceptions and a 127.9 passer rating.

"You can just see his passion for the game every single practice that we go against him," Winfield said. "You can feel it. It gives you energy."

Johnson was asked how old he'd guess Brady to be if the entire world didn't already know his exact age.

"Ooh, man, I'd guess TB probably 26, 27, 28 years old," Johnson said. "Somewhere in there. It's crazy how good he still looks on the field."

Johnson will get no arguments from the 31 teams trying to prevent Brady from raising that eighth Lombardi Trophy five months from now.