Chris Godwin: Tom Brady gave Buccaneers a winning mentality

There's little that quarterback Tom Brady hadn't seen on NFL fields by the time he joined the Tampa Bay Buccaneers last March. He was a six-time Super Bowl champion and four-time Super Bowl Most Valuable Player who had won and lost on football's biggest stages, once returned from a serious injury, and engaged in an on-the-field rivalry with fellow all-time great Peyton Manning. 

Brady added another ring and Super Bowl MVP Trophy to his resume earlier this month, and Buccaneers wide receiver Chris Godwin recently revealed on "The Pat McAfee Show" what the 43-year-old brought to the franchise last spring. 

"I think the biggest thing that he brought was just the mentality of expecting to win over hoping to win," Godwin explained, per Michael David Smith of Pro Football Talk. "We’ve had a bunch of talented guys for years but could never really put it together. The history of the team kind of creeps into your mind. You go into games like, as a competitor you’re like, ‘Yeah we can win this.’ But really you’re just hoping to win. But this year we approached every single game like, ‘We damn sure can win this game.’ . . . Once the playoffs hit there was no doubt in our mind that we were going to win."

As Smith noted, Brady texted teammates "we will win" every night during Super Bowl week ahead of the big game.

Tampa Bay coach Bruce Arians said on Wednesday that Brady will be sidelined until "somewhere around June" after undergoing a procedure on his left knee. The veteran who turns 44 in August should be good to go for Week 1 of the regular season.