Tom Brady bid farewell to the New England Patriots on Tuesday, and it was stunning to actually see the NFL’s greatest quarterback leave its dynasty of the past two decades.

Before you pooh pooh the Boston boo hoos with a goodbye and good riddance, imagine if this was a Pittsburgh sports icon choosing to leave our city to finish his career elsewhere.

Imagine Mario Lemieux in a Montreal Canadiens sweater, Joe Greene wearing the Lone Star of the Dallas Cowboys or Roberto Clemente dressed in Dodgers blue.

It’s that unimaginable.

Brady won six Super Bowls with Bill Belichick and the Patriots, forming a formidable tandem that will be remembered as much for its cheating scandals as it will for its championships. Regardless of how they won, they were a dominant duo.

So, the idea of Brady finishing his career with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers or Los Angeles Chargers seems so strange.

And yet such a welcome change.

This isn’t Franco Harris finishing his career with one season on the Seattle Seahawks, but it isn’t quite Barry Bonds leaving in his prime to play for his hometown San Francisco Giants, either.

Brady will be 43 by the start of this NFL season yet remains one of the league’s most effective quarterbacks in the twilight of his career. It was only two years ago he led the Patriots to a Super Bowl championship, tying the Steelers with six.

Brady completed 60.8% of his passes for 4,057 yards with 24 touchdowns and eight interceptions last season, leading the Patriots to an 8-0 start and 12-4 season.

That it ended with back-to-back losses to the Miami Dolphins in the season finale and to the Tennessee Titans in the playoffs was astounding when you consider the Patriots were nearly unbeatable with Brady at Gillette Stadium. He had a 121-23 regular-season home record and was 19-4 there in the playoffs.

That Brady did so much damage against the Steelers shouldn’t be discounted. If the sight of Brady doesn’t sicken the Steelers, his stat lines against them should. In the 2019 season opener, he dissected the defense by completing 24 of 36 passes for 341 yards and three touchdowns in a 33-3 victory.

It was the type of performance we had come to expect from Brady against the Steelers. He has won nine of 12 starts against them. In fact, Brady has dominated the Steelers like few other opponents. His averages of a 68.8 completion percentage, 8.34 yards per attempt, 312 yards passing per game and a 111.1 rating were his best against any AFC team.

No wonder Steelers inside linebacker Vince Williams tweeted this: “I’m just gonna say it. Tom Brady gotta take his (pass) to the NFC man. Year 8 and I’m sick of it.”

No Steelers player should have been as sick of it as Ben Roethlisberger, who lost to Brady in the 2004 and ’16 AFC championship games. It’s not hard to imagine the Steelers winning two more Lombardi trophies, if not for Brady and the Patriots.

So the Steelers should hope Brady leaves the conference where he reigned over Roethlisberger like Big Brother. It’s worth noting Roethlisberer avoided Brady in his postseason runs to two Super Bowl championships.

Speaking of Big Ben, who would have ever thought there was a better chance he would finish his career with the Steelers than Brady with the Patriots? It was much more plausible Roethlisberger would reunite with Bruce Arians, his former offensive coordinator with the Steelers.

Instead, the Steelers signed Roethlisberger to a two-year extension last April through the 2021 season, then restructured his contract to create salary-cap space in a move that gives the impression he will finish his career with the Steelers.

After Brady’s decision to leave New England, you never know. But the Steelers’ chances of beating the Patriots to a seventh Super Bowl title sure look a lot better with Big Ben back from elbow surgery and Brady out of the way.

It’s premature for the Steelers start thinking about the Super Bowl — they have to make the playoffs first, after missing the past two seasons — but it’s not too soon for them to start contemplating a future without their franchise quarterback.

Brady just gave them a glimpse of what it’s like to watch a future Hall of Famer walk away from the only team he’s ever played for, bringing the unimaginable to reality.

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