But in some ways, Tom Brady is the same kid he was when he first arrived in New England 13 years ago: still lanky, still self-assured, still driven by the pursuit of greatness, both for his team and himself.

On Friday afternoon, after the Patriots’ final practice of the week and some massage work he gets “as often as possible” to keep his body in peak condition, Brady settled in to the chair in front of his locker to chat about the state of the Patriots, the offense, and fatherhood.

It has been repeated dozens of times since training camp, during which he celebrated his birthday: Brady is 35 now. But unlike some other seasons, he’s feeling physically fantastic eight games in.

“I’m feeling really, really well,” he said. “Over the course of the season, you always get these little nicks, but I’ve been great this year.

“It’s very fortunate to be — this time of the year, really when we need it the most — to be feeling good, and I think the guys that take care of their body, as the season goes, you get better feeling-wise because you’re doing all of the right things that you’ve learned over the course of a lot of years playing.”

Though he is on pace to have the same kind of statistically strong season that he’s had in recent years, a few folks have wondered whether Brady’s play is slipping, that he perhaps is not as sharp as he once was. He is asked if he hears those whispers. He rubs his hand over his light brown hair, taking in the notion.

“Do I hear it? I guess when I get a question like that, I guess,” he said. “I honestly, I don’t think so. I don’t . . . I hope not. I hope I’ve got a lot longer to play.”

As the Patriots won Super Bowls in three of his first four years as the starter, Brady became a folk hero with gutsy play and comeback wins.

But he feels he is a better quarterback now than he was back then.

“Oh yeah. Oh yeah,” he said, adding extra emphasis the second time. “In every way.

“You’re always trying to make improvements and learn from your mistakes, and you make a lot of mistakes over the course of a long period of time.

“I can turn on film from early in my career and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, I was terrible!’

“I know more about the scheme, I know more about the defenses, I know more about my players and techniques.”

Although his offensive coordinators have changed, from Charlie Weis to Josh McDaniels to Bill O’Brien and back to McDaniels, Brady has essentially played in the same system — Bill Belichick’s system — for his entire career.

That is integral to his success. The plays run in practice now are ones that he has run sometimes hundreds of times before. He gestures to the blue binder in his stall. He does bring that playbook home, but at this point he has all of it committed to memory.

The Patriots’ offense had some struggles over the first eight weeks of this season, and Brady keeps repeating that there is work to be done still, that this unit is far from a finished product.

“I’ll try to leave it for other teams to figure out what we don’t do well, but it’s the consistency [that has been missing],” he said. “We play Arizona in the second game and it wasn’t a very good game and we played really well for one quarter and we lose the game; of course we did.

“We play well in Seattle for most of the game, and we lose the game. In Baltimore, we play really well for most of the game, against a good team, on the road, big game, and we lose. So you just, you’ve got to learn from those and in some ways I think we have.”

Weeding out plays that have­n’t worked and using the ones that have a bit more will help, as will having every player available, he said. It’s easy to think Brady is talking about Aaron Hernandez, who should return Sunday against the Bills.

This is the first season in nearly 20 that Brady is without his passing mentor and friend, Tom Martinez, who died in February. He has a new personal coach, former major league pitcher Tom House, but Martinez is never far from Brady’s thoughts.

On his wristband, he has written phrases, things like “head straight” and “drag back foot,” simple things Martinez reminded him of over and over to perfect his mechanics.

He remains self-critical, always looking to improve, always hoping that the next game could be the best one.