FOXBORO, Mass. -- During an interview recently, Tom Brady was asked how he had changed as a football player over the past year.

"Oh, God," Brady answered. "Where do I start?"

Brady could have started with the interviewer himself. Six days before the New England Patriots' regular-season opener in 2001, Brady wasn't getting up every Tuesday morning to appear on a Boston sports-talk radio station each week during the season.

Six days before the Patriots' regular-season opener in 2001, beyond the San Mateo, Calif., home of Tom and Galynn Brady, young Tom's opinion didn't matter much.

Six days before the Patriots' regular-season opener in 2001, Brady was lagging behind Drew Bledsoe on the Patriots' depth chart and Greg, Peter, Bobby, Marcia, Jan and Cindy on the pop-culture chart.

Ah, but over the course of the past year, things sure have changed Brady a bunch.

Where do we start?

	Brady's Patriots have won 11 straight games.

Let's start with the Bledsoe crunch. A week after the Patriots' franchise quarterback went down with a severe chest injury, the result of a potentially lethal, but perfectly legal, hit by Jets linebacker Mo Lewis in New York's 10-3 win last Sept. 23, Brady broke into the Patriots' starting lineup by directing the team to its first win of the 2001 season, completing 13-of-23 attempts for 168 yards while playing turnover-free football in a 44-13 rout of the Colts at Foxboro Stadium. Pro football life in New England, to say nothing of Brady's life, would never be the same.

In the year's time since then, Brady has guided the Patriots to the Super Bowl XXXVI title, been named the big game's MVP, gone to the Pro Bowl, visited sights ranging from DisneyWorld to the Playboy Mansion, appeared on the cover of Pro Football Weekly, Sports Illustrated and TV Guide, said hello to People magazine's list of the "50 Most Beautiful People" and waved goodbye to Bledsoe, the quarterback Brady seemed destined to back up for many autumns to come in New England.

With the exception of a relief performance by Bledsoe in New England's 24-17 AFC championship victory over the Steelers -- a stint necessitated when Steelers safety Lee Flowers rolled up on Brady's left ankle in the second quarter -- Brady was handed the reins of the Patriots' offense, and Bledsoe never directed it again.

Not bad for a second-year player who had entered the league as the Patriots' No. 4 quarterback behind Bledsoe, John Friesz and Michael Bishop and gone through his rookie season completing only 1-of-3 passes late in a 34-9 stuffing the team took at the hands of the Lions on Thanksgiving Day.

Come the start of the 2001 season, Friesz and Bishop were no longer employed by New England and Brady, who had impressed the Patriots' coaching staff with his offseason work ethic and preseason play, had surpassed veteran Damon Huard as Bledsoe's backup. Still, there was the unknown that existed in him since he had never taken a meaningful snap in an NFL game.

If any questions lingered as to how far Brady had progressed from those humble beginnings, however, they were answered in no uncertain terms on the dates of April 21 and Aug. 28 of this year.

April 21 was the day the Patriots ended the Bledsoe era, dealing the first overall choice in the 1993 draft and the franchise's all-time passing leader to AFC East foe Buffalo for a first-round pick in 2003.

On Aug. 28, the Patriots extended the three-year contract Brady had signed as a sixth-round selection out of Michigan in the 2000 draft.

Under the terms of Brady's new deal, the quarterback now has a five-year contract valued at more than $30 million, with a two-tiered signing bonus worth $9.5 million ($3.5 million this year, a $6 million option payment next March that would trigger the remainder of the deal). While the base salary of $375,000 he was due all along this year won't change, Brady will jump to annual salaries of $3.125 million in 2003, $5.5 million in 2004 and 2005, and $6 million in the pact's last year, 2006.

While the Internal Revenue Service will no doubt note Brady's life has changed, he insists that in some respects it hasn't. He swears the new deal didn't send him on a spending spree.

"I've got everything I need," he shrugged.

Well, he's certainly got what he wants -- the Patriots' starting quarterback job and a Super Bowl ring.

"I know where I want to be," Brady said. "I'm not a person that's self-satisfied just being out there. I want to go out there and play great."

While "great" has become a word that is, well, greatly overused in athletics today, there can be no denying this: Brady earned the Patriots' starting job with his play while Bledsoe was out last season. Merely citing his numbers -- 264 completions in 413 attempts (63.9 percent) for 2,843 yards and 18 touchdowns with 12 interceptions and an 86.5 passer rating -- does not do justice to what Brady brought to this team in 2001.

	“	I try to be as prepared as I can be. That's one thing I think I try to take a lot of pride in. I wouldn't be able to sleep on Saturday night if I knew I didn't give it my best. ”
		— QB Tom Brady

"You can't say enough about that kid. He has a tremendous amount of confidence. He has led this team," wide receiver David Patten, a six-year veteran, said in the aftermath of the Super Bowl. "Maybe he doesn't have the most impressive statistics, but it doesn't matter. The kid knows how to win. He knows how to motivate other players. My hat is off to the guy."

While Patten doffs his cap, Brady seeks more ringing endorsements in the form of additional Super Bowl rings.

"I don't know any great athlete who says, 'All right, I've done it,' " Brady said. "I don't think Michael Jordan looked at it that way. I don't think Joe Montana looked at it that way. They wanted to prove to people they were the best. Once you're on top, you want to stay there."

Maintaining a rigorous offseason schedule in which the time he spent in the weight room far outweighed the time he spent hanging out with Mickey Mouse and Hugh Hefner, Brady went about the task of preparing for this season.

"I try to be as prepared as I can be. That's one thing I think I try to take a lot of pride in," Brady said. "I wouldn't be able to sleep on Saturday night if I knew I didn't give it my best."

In what is destined to become a part of Super Bowl lore, Brady was able to sleep inside the Louisiana Superdome late on the Feb. 3 Sunday afternoon that preceded the Patriots' scheduled 6:18 p.m. kickoff with the heavily favored Rams at Super Bowl XXXVI.

"I was laying in the locker room before the game, and I fell asleep," Brady admitted after his dream season had ended. "I woke up and said to myself, 'I didn't think I'd feel this good.' I don't know how to explain it. You just convince yourself that it's just a game. It's just another game, even though everything leading up to it tells you how big it is."

That is the essence of Brady: "California Cool" as wide receiver/return specialist Troy Brown has come to call him.

That composure, in turn, is the essence of what head coach Bill Belichick demands from his signal caller.

"In the end," Belichick said, "what a quarterback has to do is manage the game and make the plays required for his team to win."

Now, the question that persists is this: How will Brady respond to the additional challenges that await him as he strives to prove that he was not a one-hit wonder?

With some evidence to support the notion that Brady's play will wane with time -- even as the Patriots were streaking toward the Super Bowl, Brady's numbers dropped last season -- Belichick believes he has the answer to that question. In tune with the mentality of a defensive coordinator, Belichick is well aware that defenses will adjust to and throw different looks at the 25-year-old quarterback in his sophomore year as an NFL starter. At the same time, Belichick is convinced Brady will be able to step up and counteract those looks.

"There's no question he's way ahead of where he was one calendar year ago, in every aspect of the game," Belichick said. "His understanding, his execution, certainly his confidence, all those things are about as big a step as you could take (up)."

Right off the bat, Brady's progress was on display nationally, when he lit up the Steelers' defense in Week 1 and led the Patriots to a 30-14 win on "Monday Night Football." Brady showed no signs of regression and looked more poised than ever, to the tune of 294 yards and three touchdowns. The Patriots were comfortable enough with Brady at the helm that they called 25 consecutive pass plays at one point. Brady didn't miss a beat in Week 2's 44-7 win over the Jets, hitting on 25-of-35 attempts for 269 yards with two touchdowns and one pick.

"Tom again has worked hard in the offseason," Belichick said. "He has a good grasp of the playbook and what we're doing and a command of the offense, and from that standpoint, I think he's ready to start the year in control and in charge."

If Brady displays that command and control all season long, Season Two of the Tom Brady show could end up even better than Season One.

Glen Farley covers the Patriots for the Brockton (Mass.) Enterprise.

Material from Pro Football Weekly.
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