There are supposed to be two unbeatable opponents in sports: Mother Nature and Father Time.
Early in his career, Tom Brady proved he could best the former. His ability to brave the swirling snow inside Gillette Stadium and tuck a football to his chest when it looked to all the world as if he’d fumbled it famously set up a divisional playoff win over the Raiders.
Twenty years later, as he hauls his 44-year-old self back to New England for a game rife with potential for more drama than even the so-called Tuck Rule Game, Brady is proving he’s gotten the better of Father Time, too.
He is the ageless wonder of the NFL, with incomparable longevity that is somehow talked about too much and yet not enough. It’s impossible to evaluate Brady’s achievements without mentioning his age, because so much of what he has done — and what he contends he can do for as many as six more years — has never been done before.
Bill Belichick didn’t think he could still do it, at least not at the end of the 2019 season, when the only Patriot coach Brady had ever played for let the only quarterback who’d won six Super Bowls take a free agent walk to Tampa. But this week, the coach has been singing a different tune.
“Nothing Tom does surprises me,” Belichick said. “He’s a great player. Works hard and takes care of himself. I mean, he’s talking about playing until 50. If anybody can do it, he probably can.”
But really, how does he do it? From the physical requirements necessary to hang with players half his age to the mental fortitude required to work hard enough to keep pace, there is no easy way to play beyond age 40.
Perhaps even more fascinating than the question of how is the one of why. What motivates, pushes, and allows athletes like Brady, like Ray Bourque at 40 going to Colorado to win a Stanley Cup, like Serena Williams celebrating her recent 40th by remaining among the world’s top tennis players, like Phil Mickelson winning a major at age 50, to keep going?
To help find an answer, I went to another source familiar to New England fans, another professional athlete whose ability to stay at the top of his game seems to know no age bounds.
“I can’t really speak for Tom or any athletes, but I know for a fact, as we all know, Tom is super competitive; I’m very competitive as well,” said Zdeno Chara, the onetime Bruins captain who recently signed with the Islanders. Chara, who won a Stanley Cup in his 14 years in Boston, is also 44.
“If you don’t have that push in you to win, to be a champion, to be reaching the goals that you have — and team goals first and foremost — I don’t think you can go out there and just cruise through the games or sets or races or whatever your sport is. You’ve got to have the mind-set to go out there and win. You’ve got to have that edge, that drive to prove and win.”
Still, there are many players who have the “want-to” past age 40. Most of them either fail physically or no longer want to put in the extra work to offset the physical dropoff. While experience is a great teacher of tips, tricks, and shortcuts, there is no substitute for the work.
That is a lesson Mickelson relied on in winning his sixth major title at the PGA in May. Aged 50 at the time, he is golf’s oldest major winner.
“Worked harder, is the deal,” he said after that historic win. “I just had to work harder physically to be able to practice as long as I wanted to, and I’ve had to work a lot harder to be able to maintain focus throughout a round. That’s been the biggest challenge of late.
“My desire to play is the same. I’ve never been driven by exterior things. I’ve always been intrinsically motivated because I love to compete, I love playing the game.
“I love having opportunities to play against the best at the highest level. That’s what drives me, and I think that that’s what is — the belief that I could still do it inspired me to work harder. I just didn’t see why it couldn’t be done. It just took a little bit more effort.”
Former American top tennis player Andy Roddick framed it well during a recent podcast interview, when he reflected on Williams’s longevity.
“I was sprinting and [Serena was] participating in a marathon of a career,” he said. “I was short-sighted, I was insecure about my ability … [Serena] would play two tournaments in the year and I would say, ‘What are you doing? You’re leaving it on the table. You only get this much time as a pro athlete and you’ve got to focus.’
“It was the common take back then. But if we have to admit it, we’d have to say that we were wrong. She had a process going the entire way.”
Maybe these athletes are the exception, rarely to be duplicated. Or perhaps they are opening new avenues for future athletes to play longer and better than their predecessors.
“Tom is obviously proving all these questions and challenges and everything that comes with his age and longevity, he’s proving to people that it’s still possible, playing at a high level,” Chara said.
“He’s really setting an amazing example, maybe for future generations, that longevity in sports is possible if you take care of your body and you stay disciplined and focused. I really think that it’s amazing what he’s still proving and doing out there.
“Everybody knows he’s a very special human being and a special athlete.”
Tara Sullivan is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at tara.sullivan@globe.com. Follow her @Globe_Tara.