Buccaneers hold off Packers for NFC title as Tom Brady reaches his 10th Super Bowl

After 21 seasons in the NFL, you wouldn’t think there’d be a lot of new experiences for Tom Brady. But he keeps finding them.

He’ll play in his 10th Super Bowl in two weeks, but this one will be unlike any of the others in his illustrious career.

He claimed his first NFC championship in his first season with Tampa Bay, beating Aaron Rodgers and top-seeded Green Bay, 31-26, at Lambeau Field on Sunday. He will reach the pinnacle of the season as the quarterback of a wild-card team for the first time ever. And he and the Bucs will be the first team to play a Super Bowl in its home stadium when they "host" Kansas City.

A season that has been unlike any other in terms of pandemic protocols, empty stadiums and dozens of other quirks in rules and schedules will end just as about half of them have this century, with Brady playing in the biggest game of the year.

It’s why Brady signed with the Bucs last offseason. More to the point, it’s why the Bucs signed Brady. Asked after the game what he has meant to the organization, coach Bruce Arians held up the silver hardware that his quarterback had just handed to him.

"This trophy," he said. "This trophy. The belief he gave everybody in this organization that this could be done. It only took one man."

Of course, Brady gave a pshaw to that idea, even after going 20-for-36 for 280 yards and three touchdowns.

"The guys came through," he said. "Everyone stepped up to the challenge. Football is the ultimate team sport and it takes everybody and everybody plays a role."

Some more than others, obviously.

"He’s at the helm, he’s our leader, and he’s probably the biggest reason we are where we are," wide receiver Scotty Miller said.

Brady hardly was playing like the greatest quarterback of all time for much of the fourth quarter as the Bucs held on to a five-point lead. He threw two interceptions in the span of three passes and had three picked off in the game.

That could have allowed the Packers to take the lead at any point. But the Bucs held the Packers to two three-and-outs and minus-5 yards on those two possessions.

After that second punt, the Bucs kicked a 46-yard field goal to go ahead 31-23 with 4:42 left. The Packers needed a touchdown and a two-point conversion to tie the score, and it seemed as if that might happen when they drove to the 8 with 2:22 left. But after Rodgers threw three incompletions — two of them when it seemed as if he had room to run close to the goal line — the Packers kicked a field goal rather than go for the end zone on fourth-and-goal.

The kick made it 31-26 with 2:05 left and put the onus on the Packers’ defense to get the ball back to Rodgers before the game ended. That did not happen. The Bucs converted two third downs — one on a pass-interference penalty against Kevin King — to seal the win.

"Any time it doesn’t work out, you always regret it, right?" coach Matt LeFleur said of the controversial field-goal call. "Having three shots and coming away with no yards and knowing you not only need the touchdown but the two points . . . Any time something doesn’t work out, do you regret it? Sure."

While Arians said it was a "good move" to kick the field goal, most were shocked that LeFleur took the ball out of the hands of his MVP quarterback. Perhaps no one more than the MVP quarterback himself, whose 33-for-48, 346-yard, three-touchdown passing day — not to mention, some will speculate, perhaps his Packers career — ended with that call. Asked if he agreed with it, Rodgers paused, shook his head and said: "That wasn’t my decision."

It was a call that will sit in the stomachs of Green Bay fans like week-old cheese curds.

"I couldn’t believe it, honestly," Bucs linebacker Shaq Barrett said. "  There’s no guarantee that they’re going to get back down there again. Even if it was fourth down, they might as well try. If he could take it back, he probably wouldn’t do that the next time, but I appreciate it."

Its conservative nature stood in sharp contrast with the aggressive decisions the Bucs made at the end of the first half.

They were leading 14-10 at that time and had just intercepted Rodgers, and on fourth-and-4 from the Green Bay 45, Arians sent the punt team onto the field with 13 seconds left.

Brady came to the sideline, removed his helmet and slipped into his parka. Then Arians reconsidered, called a timeout and sent the offense onto the field.

They converted the first down on a 6-yard pass to Leonard Fournette, called a timeout with eight seconds left and planned to throw a desperation pass into the end zone, only to find Miller in single coverage on the outside against King. Miller got a step on King and Brady hit him for a 39-yard TD that made it 21-10.

"I was like, we didn’t come here to not take chances to win the game," Arians said. "I wanted to come out of there with points. We were going to punt it, but then we loved the play we had and got a great matchup and got the touchdown, which was huge . . . When we lined up, you could tell it was going to be a touchdown. We just had to protect and throw the ball."

And remember that he had Brady doing that throwing, the quarterback who changed uniforms but also changed the way the Bucs operate, from their approach on key fourth downs to the swagger they have shown in beating three division champs on the road in the postseason.

Now a team that had not been to the postseason in more than a decade will get to do something no other team has ever done: try to win a Super Bowl at home.

Said Brady: "Any time you’re the first time doing something, that’s usually a pretty good thing."

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.