What constitutes a "game-winning drive" statistically?

Question

After the Buccaneers @ Patriots game - in which the Buccaneers won - it was revealed by statisticians that it was Tom Brady's 50th career "game-winning drive".

What constitutes a "game-winning drive" statistically?

Coming from the Bucs-Pats game, it cannot be taking the lead on the final drive of the game, as the final drive of the game contained three successive QB kneels by the Bucs, after the missed FG attempt by the Pats. It also cannot be taking the lead on the last drive that team makes in the game, for the same reason. Unless of course, a drive of QB Kneels does not count.

It could be defined as a drive that takes the lead from the opponent, to which the opponent does not recover the lead, but then surely every win contains a game-winning drive, and Brady would have significantly more than 50.

I guess it could also be that it's the last scoring drive of the game, that also takes the lead - but let's say that drive happens in the first quarter, and the rest of the game is a shutout - would that still be considered a game-winning drive? I would imagine in most people's eyes a game-winning drive would be in the latter stages of the 4th quarter - in typical Brady-esque fashion.

Answer 1

So - one bit you're missing, is that it was Tom Brady's 50th career game-winning drive in the fourth quarter or overtime. That's frequently, but not always, said with that sentence, but it's always a component even when unsaid.

Specifically, a game winning drive is a score in the fourth quarter or overtime by the offense with the team tied or down by less than a score, which leads to the team to win the game without the lead changing after that.

You can see this post on PFR for more details on how they calculate it - it's not an "official" stat exactly so it's up to the individual site to calculate it, but it seems pretty standardized for the most part. You can also see their list of QBs ranked by game-winning drives which includes, of course, Tom Brady near the top.