Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Bruce Arians lauded Tom Brady following his "outstanding" performance as the legendary quarterback's five touchdowns sparked a comeback against the Los Angeles Chargers.

Brady was at the forefront for the rallying Buccaneers, who overturned a 17-point deficit to top the Chargers 38-31 in NFL action on Sunday.

The six-time Super Bowl champion threw five TD passes, three of those coming in the second half, as the Buccaneers completed their second largest comeback – behind a 21-point fightback over the Kansas City Chiefs in 2008.

Brady finished 30-of-46 for 369 passing yards and just one interception for the Buccaneers, who posted their third consecutive win.

"I thought he just played outstanding," Arians told reporters post-game.

"I've just got to coach him up better on that one play [that was intercepted] and just get it coached better. But he played fantastic and was lights-out in the second half."

"We knew we played poorly. It was just a show of character. I can honestly say, had this been last year, we would have gotten our ass beat by 20," coach Bruce Arians said, praising the leadership of his captains.

"[With] Tom -- he's never behind in his mind, so we can always make plays to win games."

Brady and the Bucs were forced to dig deep at home to the Chargers, having trailed 24-7 in the second quarter before scoring 21 unanswered points.

The Bucs continued to rally and eventually improved to 3-1 for the season, their best start since the 2011 campaign.

It was Brady's biggest comeback since overcoming a 28-3 deficit against the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl LI.

"We've got to do a good job forcing them to cover everything," said Brady. "The passing got a little compressed and then we made some plays down the field and it opened some things up. You've got to make them defend everything.

"We put ourselves in a pretty good hole and we were just going to have to dig our way out of it. That's just the way football works sometimes. We've just got to tighten things up. I'm glad we came back. The defense made a big play for us just before the end of the half and that got us and that got us ignited a little bit.

"We made some plays in the third quarter, made some good plays in the fourth quarter. We started the game well, finished the game well, that middle part we've just to figure out how to play 60 minutes well."