Tom Brady Boldly Returns to Path of NFL Immortality with Long-Awaited 2016 Debut

CLEVELAND — The story of Tom Brady's return actually doesn't begin here. It starts, as it always does, on the practice field in Foxborough.

During practice last week, it was genuinely like he'd never left, like the NFL hadn't suspended him for four games, Patriots players said. Several told B/R they were amazed at what they were seeing.

At one point in practice, a few of them looked at each other and smiled, the meaning of which was clear: He's back.

Brady is not just back. He's baaaaaack. Throwing for 406 yards and three touchdowns, Brady led the Patriots to an easy 33-13 win over Cleveland at FirstEnergy Stadium on Sunday.

Brady was suspended because of Deflategate (maybe you've heard of it), but the suspension did nothing to slow his assault on football immortality. With about two minutes left in the first quarter, he was 8-of-10 for 129 yards, a touchdown and had a 152.1 passer rating. After 18 minutes of play, Brady was 13-of-15 for 185 yards and two touchdowns.

By halftime, the Patriots had 321 yards of offense, their most in a first half since they beat Tennessee 59-0 in 2009, according to CBS.

Yes, Brady was playing the Browns, and though they have showed fight and smarts under new head coach Hue Jackson, the past few decades of their franchise history resembles something between a grease fire and nuclear waste having offspring.

So go ahead and asterisk this Brady moment if you want. But anyone with a half a brain—and no axe to grind—knows what Brady did after so much time away was almost staggering. Even for Brady.

Coming into the game, some media members believed New England would slowly work Brady back into the offense. But anyone who knows how Bill Belichick's mind works understood that wasn't going to be the case, particularly after Brady was so crisp in practice. Belichick doesn't do breaking in.

The offense, and Brady, looked like they were playing in Week 10. He was able to get Rob Gronkowski back into the offense, throw three touchdowns to Martellus Bennett and generate more targets for key component Julian Edelman, who has been fairly invisible (and hurt) over the season's first month.

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It would be easy to look for some type of grandiose takeaway from this game, and maybe it's the obvious point: With Brady, the two best teams in the AFC are now Pittsburgh and New England.

Yet this game was about something much simpler. For all of Brady's pretty boy-ness, Uggs boot wearing-ness, model looks and model wife, he remains one of the toughest players in football. According to SportsCenter, Brady is only the second quarterback since 1970 to throw for at least 400 yards and three touchdowns at the age of 39 or older. The other was Warren Moon, and he, too, was made of adamantium. 

Nothing erodes that toughness. Not a fight against the NFL over deflated footballs. Not a suspension. Not rust. Nothing. When the Terminator steps back in time to try and take out Sarah Connor, he's going to return wearing a No. 12 jersey.

There are limits, of course. He isn't a figure of mythological power. I'm just saying he's hard to kill.

The throws Brady made were typical: highly accurate, all over the field and all but impossible to defend. Again, it's the Browns, but Brady likely would have done this against almost any team in football, layoff or not.

With seven minutes left in the fourth quarter, Brady already had more than 400 yards passing. He connected on passing plays of 34, 36, 37 (twice), 43 and 63 yards. He ended the afternoon 28-of-40 with a passer rating of 127.7.

"He didn't look rusty to me," Patriots receiver Chris Hogan said after the game.

"Tom always brings the amp-ness," Gronkowski said, adding a new word to the Gronk lexicon.

Brady was typically boring in his assessment of himself. "The team played really well," he said. "It was fun to be a part of it."

His bland answer to an unforgettable performance is typical, and it's also what makes Brady great. He may be pleased his return went well, but he's not satisfied. He's never satisfied. The great ones rarely are.

The Browns can only imagine what it must be like to have someone like Brady. Instead, they are stuck in an almost two-decades-long revolving door of quarterbacks. And Sunday was no different. The team started the day with Cody Kessler. He hurt his chest and ribs in the first half. Then the recently signed Charlie Whitehurst hurt his knee. He left the game in the fourth quarter. Then Terrelle Pryor replaced him. Pryor might be wise to have a few extra bags of ice at the ready next game.

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For Brady, he's staring at a showdown for conference supremacy with Pittsburgh in two weeks. On this Sunday, however, it was clear skies, with holes in the line big enough to make a scramble of 10 yards and another for seven. For someone who runs like he's wearing lead trousers, Brady looked like Mike Vick at times. Well, maybe that's a stretch, but it sure felt like it when Brady celebrated running for a first down with a celebratory maneuver that looked like either a failed dab or the start of a bow-and-arrow celebration. But then, suddenly remembering such celebrations draw fines, Brady quickly stopped.

Whatever it was, after the kind of day he had, Brady can celebrate any damn way he wants.

Mike Freeman covers the NFL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @mikefreemanNFL.