FOXBORO -- He stood there at the podium and addressed every question as if it were the most important one he was ever asked.

Want to see the appeal of Tom Brady?

It was all there Wednesday morning inside Gillette Stadium in his weekly press conference, and so what if he's heard the questions innumerable times before? So what if in a perfect world he would have been back with his teammates, just one of the guys, and not standing there by himself in the interview room, singled out, fronting the band, while everyone else sings backup?

It was all there, the boyish charm, the earnestness, the gift he has for saying the right things, outmaneuvering a difficult question as skillfully as he survives in the pocket.

The first question was a generic one about the Dolphins, and Brady stared at the questioner, totally in the moment, as if nothing else mattered.

The second question was about the state of the team, and he did the same thing, with a smile to boot.

An NFL superstar not handling softball questions as if they were flies circling around his dinner plate? An NFL superstar dealing with people as if they're important, even if he's heard variations on their questions so many times before?

What exactly is going on here?

Then again, Brady's always been a little too good to be true.

It's almost as if he stepped out of the pages of adolescent fiction, this generation's version of Chip Hilton, the All-American boy with a soft smile who always says the right thing and then wins the big game. The former sixth-round draft pick who gets on the field because the starting quarterback gets hurt, then leads the team to the Super Bowl. The boy next door who grows up to throw touchdown passes in the biggest stadiums in America, says please and thank you afterwards, and has both the cover-boy style and looks to make it all seem as today as a Britney Spears photo shoot.

But this has not been the easiest of seasons for Tom Brady.

He began the year with a bunch of receivers who seemed to be on training wheels. Speculation swirled around him when he was less than great in the first few games.

Was there something wrong with his shoulder?

Was he unhappy that the Pats had failed to keep Deion Branch?

What's going on with Brady?

That was September's lament, as if we had seen some chinks in the armor and it was unsettling. Tom Brady wasn't supposed to have mediocre games. Tom Brady wasn't supposed to be less than great. Tom Brady wasn't supposed to be affected by his team's deficiencies.

But here it is December, the playoffs already visible off in the distance, and once again it all comes down to Brady. No matter that the Pats don't seem as good as they were a couple of years ago. No matter that they've lost too many quality players the last couple of years, too many significant losses. No matter that there's the sense sometimes that all the intricate schemes and clever strategy, all the game-planning and great coaching, may not be enough this year to get this team through the minefield that's the AFC and back to the Super Bowl.

It all comes down to Brady.

Can he take this team where it might not be talented enough to go?

Can he turn another season into something out of adolescent fiction, the way he's done in the past?

And is this realistic, or is it merely what we think could happen, for we believe in Brady, believe in the past, although each year is its own reality, the past dead and gone, as great as it was?

That's the question now as the Pats turn for the homestretch of their season, having won three straight, even if their have been too many turnovers, too many times when they haven't looked like the Pats we've come to know the last five years.

"The inconsistencies?" someone asked. "Can you survive it?'

"I think that all remains to be seen," Brady said.

He went on to say that this team has been it's own worst enemy at times, then almost in the next breath he said how the passing game is much better than it was early in the season, and how "I'm very proud of the fact we're 9-3. We have a great opportunity ahead of us."

Brady knows that for the Patriots it's all about the playoffs, that that's the reality when you've won three Super Bowls in five years, the price a franchise pays for having raised the bar so high. Knows that how you play now has nothing to do with how you played earlier in the season, that teams either get better, or they get worse; there's no staying the same. Knows that it's now December, the playoffs looming, and it no longer matters if this has been a difficult season for him, that it's all redeemable.

And he no doubt knows that, ultimately, it all comes down to him, knows that this Patriots' team is going to go as far as he's able to take it, fair or not, and that's the price Tom Brady pays for being who he is.

breynold@projo.com / (401) 277-7340