Playing in New England for the first time since leaving for Tampa Bay, Brady set the N.F.L.’s career record for passing yards.
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Tom Brady’s much-hyped return to New England to face his former team, the Patriots, and his longtime coach, Bill Belichick, was not the homecoming he envisioned.
The warm welcome he received during pregame warmups from fans who had adored him for two decades melted in a steady downpour as he took the field at Gillette Stadium to boos.
Brady’s former teammates also treated him rudely, not allowing him to find his rhythm passing the ball and limiting him to 269 yards passing and no touchdowns.
But in this first and perhaps only showdown between Brady and Belichick in Foxborough, Brady’s play was good enough to prevail in a sloppy, penalty-filled game of field goals, dropped passes, missed tackles and costly penalties. The Buccaneers won, 19-17, to move to 3-1 as they try to defend their Super Bowl title. The Patriots fell to 1-3, despite a standout performance from the rookie who has replaced Brady, Mac Jones.
After the game, Tampa Bay Coach Bruce Arians said Brady had played “very careful.”
“He wasn’t going to make any mistakes that cost us the game,” Arians said.
Brady, 44, was lucky to leave with a win after what he called an “emotional week” preparing to play against dozens of his former Patriots teammates, and in a region where he began his career and raised a family.
“These are guys I’ve shared my life with,” Brady said.
Brady’s homecoming had been one of the most anticipated moments of the season from the day the N.F.L. announced this season’s schedule in the spring.
The game had all the elements the league’s broadcasters crave: A star player, feeling jilted, facing his old team led by the longtime coach who discovered and developed him. Last season, Brady answered the biggest question — whether he could win without Belichick — when he led the Buccaneers to a Super Bowl title.
But as details emerged about Brady’s departure, with his allies claiming that Belichick did not respect the quarterback’s input, Sunday night’s game had taken on the feeling of a grudge match.
Brady and Belichick both played down the supposed feud, and the Buccaneers published a photo of Brady talking warmly to the Patriots owner Robert K. Kraft before the game.
“So much is made of our relationship,” Brady said of Belichick after the game. “Nothing is really accurate that I ever see.”
On Sunday, he was outplayed by Jones, 23, who is almost half Brady’s age and who showed why the Patriots drafted him in the first round this spring.
Brady looked unsteady for much of the game, overthrowing receivers and settling for field goals instead of touchdowns. Still, when he completed a 28-yard pass to receiver Mike Evans in the first quarter, Brady became the N.F.L.’s career passing leader, surpassing the record of 80,358 yards set last year by Drew Brees, the New Orleans Saints quarterback who retired at the end of the season. Brady now has 80,560 passing yards. He also has the most touchdown passes in N.F.L. history, with 591, having thrown 20 more than Brees.
New England noted the passing yards record on the stadium’s video screens and there was a burst of cheers, but it was otherwise business as usual as fans snapped back into form.
They roared when Patriots linebacker Matt Judon sacked Brady for an 8-yard loss in the second quarter.
Brady, though, did what he’s done so many times: He came alive when the stakes were high. Down by 7-3 with less than two minutes left in the first half, Brady quickly completed four passes for 69 yards to put the Buccaneers in a position to score. Then he missed three straight passes and the team settled for a field goal to narrow the deficit to 7-6 at halftime.
Brady and the Buccaneers found their footing late in the third quarter when they used their running game to march 52 yards down the field and score their first touchdown to regain the lead, 13-7. After the Patriots scored their second touchdown, Brady leaned heavily on running back Leonard Fournette, who finished with 91 yards rushing. Brady even ran for 6 yards and a first down, extending a drive that ended with Ryan Succop’s kicking the third of his four field goals to help the Buccaneers regain the lead, 16-14.
Jones overcame poor pass protection and no running game to keep the Patriots in the game. He completed 31 of 40 passes, including 19 completions in a row at one point, for 275 yards, two touchdowns and one interception. The Patriots’ offensive coordinator, Josh McDaniels, also called two trick plays, including one in which receiver Jakobi Meyers threw to receiver Nelson Agholor for a 30-yard gain.
Many of Jones’s passes went to receivers being defended by Richard Sherman, the All-Pro cornerback who was signed last week as a free agent by the Buccaneers. Sherman, who sat out most of 2020 with an injury, was called for pass interference late in the game.
The Patriots had a chance to win the game with less than a minute remaining, but Nick Folk’s 56-yard field goal attempt hit the left upright. Spared the need to mount the kind of last-minute comeback he perfected in New England, Brady took a knee and the clock ran to zero.
“We don’t really do moral victories,” Jones said of the Patriots’ loss. “Those are always forgotten. But you just kind of have to take it for what it’s worth and move on.”
Belichick had even less to say about his former quarterback, though he and Brady met privately after the game. For them, the result of the game mattered far more than any of their off-field interactions. The Buccaneers had beaten the Patriots on their home turf and Brady was leaving Foxborough with the ball he used to set the career passing yards record. And given his age and the way the N.F.L. schedule is constructed, there was a good chance he might have collected his last victory here, too.
“It’s been a great stadium for me for a long time,” Brady said. “I don’t know what the future holds. Obviously could be an opportunity to come back here. We’ll see.”
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