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By this point, Tom Brady's dominance and dominion over the modern NFL needs little introduction. His regular-season endeavors have terrorized fans outside the New England and Tampa Bay areas for countless autumns and have also set the stage for his championship affairs in the ensuing winters.
SK looks back on the finest and most fateful showings of Brady's regular season career...
Looking back on Brady's finest regular season showings
10/14/01: Brady Beats the Bolts
It seems hard to believe now, but uncertainty surrounded Brady and the Patriots going into Week 5 of the 2001 NFL season.
Brady, then just a fledgling sixth-rounder, was coming off a brutal performance in relief of Drew Bledsoe, tossing for only 86 yards in the prior week's loss in Miami.
New England was a non-factor in the early NFL playoff chase, sitting at 1-3 as they entered a home showdown with the San Diego Chargers.
But that Week 5 tilt against Doug Flutie (himself a New England passing legend thanks to his time at Boston College) and the Chargers was a game of many firsts.
He earned his first 300-yard game, his first multi-touchdown performance, his first game-tying and winning drives, and his first comeback victory.
New England trailed 26-16 in the middle stages of the fourth quarter but Brady led three consecutive scoring drives, with Adam Vinatieri's field goals sandwiching a tying touchdown pass with 36 seconds to go in regulation.
That 29-26 overtime triumph kickstarted a 13-2 stretch that ended in Super Bowl XXXVI and served as an official warning that Brady was going to be a problem in the future.
10/14/07: Dodging the Dodger
The Patriots' interconference showdown with the Dallas Cowboys was one of the most hyped regular-season games in NFL history.
New England and Dallas entered with matching 5-0 records and boasted the combined offensive firepower of Brady, Tony Romo, Randy Moss, Wes Welker, Terrell Owens, Jason Witten and more.
While Dallas kept pace in the early stages, even taking a brief second-half lead on a Romo touchdown pass, Brady tracked down the Cowboys with five touchdown passes, part of a 27-3 stretch over the final 20 minutes of game time.
The win in Dallas poetically broke one of Cowboys legend Roger Staubach's most vaunted NFL records: the win gave Brady a 76-24 record as a starter, giving him the most wins for an NFL quarterback in his first 100 starts.
10/18/09: Music City Mauling
After Brady missed all but a single quarter of the 2008 season with both a torn ACL and MCL (thanks to a low hit brought upon by Kansas City's Bernard Pollard), the football world waited with bated breath to see if Brady would return to form.
Appropriately clad in New England's "Pat Patriot" uniforms, a throwback performance from Brady ensured that the horrors had just begun. Brady threw six touchdown passes, five alone coming in the second quarter to set a new NFL record against the Tennessee Titans.
In addition to the individual marks, Brady also helped the Patriots set records for the largest halftime lead in NFL history (45-0) and the largest margin of victory since the AFL/NFL merger (59-0)
9/12/11: Taking his talents to South Beach
Some of Tom Brady's finest moments have come in nationally televised showings, against some of his team's biggest rivals. His showmanship talents were on full display during the 2011 season opener on a Monday night in Miami.
On that night, Brady set his personal best with 517 yards in a 38-24 win over the Dolphins. His four-touchdown performance was capped off by tying one of the league's rare, literally unbreakable records, as he threw the tenth 99-yard touchdown pass in NFL history.
12/20/20: Atlanta Thrasher
By this point, Brady's career had been declared over so many times that it had become an NFL meme of sorts. Those detractors came out in full force when the Buccaneers dropped three of four November games that year.
Already well-known and well-regarded for his Super Bowl comeback victory over the Atlanta Falcons, Brady resurrected painful memories through another triumph that erased an Atlanta lead.
After Brady found Antonio Brown for the 46-yard game-winning touchdown, Tampa Bay didn't lose another game after that, setting the stage for a victory and MVP performance in a Tampa-based rematch against the Chiefs in February.
