Tom Brady and the Buccaneers have so much talent on offense, it can be hard to tell if they are playing football or pinball.
The Bucs enter Sunday’s showdown with the Patriots at 2-1 after losing last week to the Rams, but the offense isn’t the problem. The Bucs lead the NFL in scoring (34.3 points per game), and Brady, at 44 years old, leads the league in touchdown passes (10) and is second in passing yards (362 per game).
It’s still only three games into the season, but Brady is on pace for the NFL’s first 6,000-yard season, plus 57 touchdown passes, which would break his career high of 50. Brady’s top four receivers — Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Antonio Brown, and Rob Gronkowski — are each on pace for at least 1,000 yards.
Only five teams in NFL history have had three 1,000-yard receivers in a season, the last being the 2008 Cardinals. No team has ever had four.
“I was down there recently, and it’s like a Pro Bowl team on offense,” said former quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, now with ESPN’s “Sunday NFL Countdown.”
They Bucs aren’t like a Pro Bowl team — they are one. Evans, Godwin, Brown, and Gronkowski have combined for 16 Pro Bowls and 11 All-Pro awards. Brady must laugh when he looks down the line of scrimmage and sees the embarrassment of talent at his disposal.
But don’t tell Tedy Bruschi that this is the best offense Brady has ever played with. Bruschi remembers a certain 2007 Patriots team that started the season 18-0 and took a sledgehammer to the NFL record book.
“On paper, the Bucs have got it; they’ve got a lot of names and a lot of Pro Bowls,” Bruschi said. “But that doesn’t mean you’re going to go and score over 500 points, and they’re already coming off a game where they struggled. So I would say they aren’t anywhere close.”
It’s a fun topic, comparing the 2007 Patriots and the 2021 Bucs, but there probably isn’t much debate. For one thing, the Bucs have already lost a game.
“That Patriots offense had an 18-0 run; this Bucs offense obviously will not,” said Boomer Esiason of CBS’s “The NFL Today.” “I’ll take the young Brady with Randy Moss and 18-0. That was an incredible year.”
Brady definitely has more weapons with the Bucs than he did with the 2007 Patriots, who were more top-heavy with Moss and Wes Welker. Brady could crack 6,000 passing yards and the Bucs could get four 1,000-yard receivers thanks to the NFL expanding the regular season to 17 games.
But their projections for even a 16-game season are eye-popping:
Compare that with the top-heavy numbers of the 2007 Patriots. Moss had 1,493 yards and an NFL-record 23 touchdowns, while Welker broke onto the scene with 1,175 yards and 8 touchdowns. But there was a significant dropoff after those two; Donte’ Stallworth had 697 yards and 3 touchdowns, Jabar Gaffney had 449 yards and 5 touchdowns, and Ben Watson had 389 yards and 6 touchdowns.
Brady especially has been playing some of the best football of his career this season. He is averaging 362 passing yards per game, 20 more than the record set by Peyton Manning in 2013. If Brady keeps up this pace, he would reach 6,159 yards, nearly 700 more than Manning’s record. (Derek Carr is on pace for an even more unfathomable 6,817.)
“I know that Tom Brady’s playing much, much better football than he was playing last year, and he won the Super Bowl last year,” Hasselbeck said. “I don’t know what more you want to ask of a 44-year-old.”
Of course, context matters, too. Brady may be putting up some of the best stats of his career, but current NFL rules have made it easier than ever for quarterbacks to stay healthy and put up huge numbers. It’s also early in the season; Brady has 14 games to go.
“He just was so consistent over the course of that ‘07 season,” Bruschi said. “This is a 44-year-old body that’s got to last 17 games now. So I don’t know how he’s going to be in December.”
So the 2021 Bucs still have a long way to go to measure up to the 2007 Patriots. That Patriots team averaged 2.5 more points per game (36.8 to 34.3), and their 589 total points set an NFL record (that total currently stands as the second-most in league history).
Brady and Moss were both 30 years old that season, at the height of their powers, with Brady winning his first MVP award and Moss breaking Jerry Rice’s touchdown record. Welker took the league by storm as an unknown 26-year-old dynamo in the slot.
“I don’t think Evans is anywhere near in the class of a Randy Moss,” said Bruschi. “The year that Welker had, is Godwin even that guy? Tom wasn’t 44 back then, either. I’d rather have ‘07 Tom than 44-year-old Tom. I don’t care how good he looks. I mean, that 2007 Brady was the best, in my opinion.”
The 2007 Patriots were also nearly flawless; not only did they go 16-0 in the regular season, but they were first in points, first in yards, second on third downs, second in the red zone, had the fewest turnovers, and committed the seventh-fewest penalties.
The 2021 Bucs, meanwhile, have been sloppy. Their five turnovers are tied for fifth-most in the NFL. They have committed the second-most penalties for the third-most yards. They are only average on third down (16th) and in the red zone (11th). And, of course, they have already lost a game.
There’s no question that the Bucs bring heavy artillery into Foxborough Sunday. And they have a chance to go down as one of the greatest offenses in NFL history. But they’re not close to the level of the 2007 Patriots yet.
“I think they’re dangerous, of course,” Bruschi said. “Think of the names — Evans, Gronk, Godwin, AB, Gio Bernard. But they’re not unbeatable.”
Ben Volin can be reached at ben.volin@globe.com.