Steve Serby

Steve Serby

NFL

Tom Brady’s terrible thirst to end title drought

By the end of his fourth year as starting quarterback, he had won three Super Bowls. So Tom Brady was very much like Derek Jeter, who by the end of his fifth season at shortstop had won four World Series.

Jeter has won one since 2000.

Brady hasn’t won since 2005.

The insatiable hunger to win that elusive next one still drives both of them. It is part of their DNA. A big part.

You know it is killing Brady that twice he could just about reach out and touch the Lombardi Trophy, only to have Eli Manning swipe it out of thin air at the 11th hour.

So here he comes again.

And if you are a Jets fan, you are cursing your luck yet again and wondering why the football gods refuse to allow you to let a quarterback like this carry your endless Super Bowl hopes and dreams on his back.

From the time Brady stepped in for Drew Bledsoe to now, your Jets have trotted out six quarterbacks: Vinny Testaverde, on his last legs … Chad Pennington, who had everything except a rocket arm … Kellen Clemens, who was a bust … Brett Favre, who was terrific — until his 38-year-old arm collapsed in December … Mark Sanchez, who was the Sanchise until he wasn’t … Geno Smith … and who knows if he’s the answer?

It is bad enough for you that Bill Belichick was your HC for one damn day before he ran into the open arms of Patriots owner Bob Kraft. Bad enough Brady was a sixth-round pick 20 picks after your team, which had drafted Pennington in the first round, drafted someone named Tony Scott, a defensive back out of North Carolina State. Of course, Brady was only a someone back then, too.

You thought a new day had dawned when Rex Ryan chastised Brady for his antics and went into Foxboro and bewitched, bothered and bewildered him and knocked him out of the 2010 playoffs.

You thought wrong.

Brady is still The Pretty Boy with the model wife, and your only solace in watching his last two Super Bowls was the quarterback of the New York Football Giants denying him.

By all rights, Brady should not even be here. He lost Wes Welker to free agency. He lost Aaron Hernandez to prison. He lost Rob Gronkowski early, and late. He lost Shane Vereen for two months.

No Gronkowski, Hernandez or Welker is no problem for Tom Brady, who has found a new favorite target in Julian Edelman.Getty Images

He’s baaaaaaack anyway, slinging in the rain if he must.

And to get to his sixth Super Bowl, he very well may have to beat the young lion who succeeded Peyton Manning, and then Peyton Manning himself.

Brady’s immediate task Saturday night — with Belichick’s help, of course — is to teach Andrew Luck that winning a championship in your first two seasons is a blessed event reserved only for a lucky few.

Brady, of course, tries not to concern himself with the quarterback on the other side. He has made a career of shooting down young gunslingers who barged into town for High Noon.

“Winning,” Brady said this week, “is the only thing that’s important.”

Brady has never concerned himself, at least publicly, with individual honors, but there is likely to be someone in his camp, Gisele perhaps, whispering in his ear that he is three victories from being recognized in some circles as The Greatest Of All Time, a four-time Super Bowl winner along with Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw.

The flip side is losing to Luck, or losing to Peyton, and then listening to the football world crown Peyton as The Greatest of His Generation, if not The Greatest Of All Time.

But in the meantime, Brady is too ensconced in his playbook, too obsessed with winning this one game against the Colts, his eyes undoubtedly bloodshot from watching tape, to worry about any legacy now. He is Belichick, and Belichick is him. Same guys every day. In the moment every moment.

In their interviews, they will kill the opponent with kindness, Belichick in his zombie-like way, Brady with a smile. But when he has a football in his hands, he is still an assassin. If you don’t get in his face and get him off his spot, good luck. He still beats you with his arm, head and heart. And the same will to win that Bill Parcells loved in Lawrence Taylor.

Brady has a running game with him these days. He has Josh McDaniels back as offensive coordinator. He is throwing to Julian Edelman and Danny Amendola and Kenbrell Tompkins and Vereen, and the job description doesn’t change for him: to make everyone around him better.

If he could, Brady would play this game forever. He is 36 now and he knows the clock is ticking. He is still Tom Terrific. Luck will be playing long after Brady is gone. Maybe by then the Jets will have their Brady. Just don’t bet the ranch on it.

He still has a chance to be remembered as The Greatest of All Time. He wants that fourth ring every bit as much as Peyton wants his second.

And every bit as much as wants his first.