It’s perfectly understandable that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers wanted to part ways with turnover-prone quarterback Jameis Winston, but at first glance, Tom Brady might appear to be an odd replacement.

Tom Brady and Randy Moss connected for 23 touchdown passes in 2007. Some statistics show that Brady still has the ability to throw deep, even if Moss is no longer around to catch it. AP Photo/Julie Jacobson

After all, the Bucs are led by Coach Bruce Arians – he of the “no risk it, no biscuit” offensive mindset – while Brady has seemingly become the dink-and-dunk master. How many times have we watched the former New England Patriots quarterback methodically move his team downfield with a seemingly endless series of shallow crosses and flips to running backs?

Then there’s the fact that Brady will be 43 this season, which is little short of ancient for almost any kind of athlete. However, his new team is expressing confidence that the six-time Super Bowl champ is the right man for their job and can still wing the ball as needed.

“The tape, to us, showed that he had plenty of arm. In fact, we thought that he had an ideal arm for Bruce in his system,” Buccaneers General Manager Jason Licht said, according to ESPN. “He can still throw it deep. … We did not see a decline in his arm talent whatsoever.”

Those comments echoed some made by Arians last week, when he told reporters, (via ESPN), “I think the perception (of Brady) is just wrong. I thought his deep ball was outstanding last year. Through their play-action game, they hit a lot of deep balls.”

Of course, to some degree, the Buccaneers have to push back on a narrative that Brady is less likely to look like his old self and more likely to look, well, old. For all of Winston’s drawbacks, he led the NFL last season in passing yards and touchdowns at age 25, but Tampa Bay let him walk and gave a 20-year veteran a two-year contract worth a guaranteed $50 million, with a reported $9 million more in incentives.

Though Brady did not throw deep often in 2019, his advanced stats suggest he performed fairly well when he did. ESPN recently credited Brady with tying Winston for the highest completion rate last season on deep throws into tight windows.

Winston was, by many measures, the most aggressive quarterback in the league, attempting passes of 20 or more yards downfield 99 times, while Brady lagged well behind with 62 such attempts. But according to NFL analyst Johnny Kinsley’s Deep Ball Project, Winston ranked just 21st in deep-ball accuracy while Brady ranked 16th.

Saying Brady “put up perhaps his best season as a deep passer in quite some time” in 2019, Kinsley wrote that the ex-Patriot “had enough quality throws in the mix to land in the middle of the pack, and at his age that’s quite an accomplishment.”

That jibed with an analysis by ESPN, which noted that while the league average in 2019 on passes of 20 or more air yards was 38 percent, Brady completed 43 percent of such throws, his third-highest rate on record and the seventh-highest in the NFL last season. Brady was also credited with throwing seven touchdown passes last season of 20 or more air yards, the most for him since 2006.

Sports Info Solutions had Brady with the eighth-best touchdown percentage on deep throws, behind Jimmy Garoppolo, Patrick Mahomes, Daniel Jones, Kirk Cousins, Drew Brees, Lamar Jackson and Dak Prescott. Pro Football Focus wrote that in 2018 and 2019 Brady “targeted receivers 10 or more yards deep more often than the Patriots’ route runs would suggest.”

That suggests a quarterback who still has some of the downfield mentality he displayed to devastating effect back when Randy Moss was in New England. In addition, as many have noted, Brady hasn’t exactly had a stellar cast of pass-catchers over the past couple of seasons, particularly in terms of receivers who can take the top off defenses.

In Tampa, Brady will have an embarrassment of riches in Pro Bowl wide receivers Mike Evans and Chris Godwin, as well as a pair of tight ends who offer reliability (Cameron Brate) and explosiveness (O.J. Howard).

Arians insisted last week that his schemes actually call for short passes, particularly when the deep routes are covered, but that some of his recent quarterbacks refused to “take the damn checkdown.” In what can only be described as an understatement, he said of Brady, “We don’t have to teach Tom that.”

However, Arians suggested Brady would not just be a “checkdown Charlie” in his offense but would use his impeccable decision-making – a trait rarely associated with Winston – to be opportunistic about going vertical.

“I think the freedom of looking downfield on certain routes and in certain situations, when the matchup’s perfect – take it, don’t be afraid to take it,” the coach said.

Some of the numbers provide optimism that Brady can take it, and make it, on deep throws, even at his advanced age. He has said in the past that he wants to still be an NFL quarterback when he’s 45, and the Bucs appear to see that as a realistic scenario.

“We feel like he could still play for over two years, and hopefully that’s the case,” Licht said Monday.