Tom Brady may be twice as good as all the rest
Tom Brady of the Patriots throws a pass in the second half against the Chiefs during the AFC Championship Game at Arrowhead Stadium on Jan. 20 in Kansas City, Mo. Credit: Getty Images/Patrick Smith
It is further testament to Tom Brady’s brilliance that he has accomplished enough in his career to qualify for Pro Football Hall of Fame consideration not just once but twice.
Yes, Brady essentially has lapped the field of the greatest NFL quarterbacks. And he’s still piling on to the prolific records he already has produced.
Michael David Smith of Profootballtalk.com used the 2008 season — the only year Brady missed time because of an injury — as a line of demarcation for the two halves of his career.
In the years before he suffered a season-ending ACL tear in the opener, he led the Patriots to four Super Bowl appearances and won three titles and two MVP awards. That would have been more than enough to secure a place in Canton.
But look at what Brady has done in the years since returning from the injury. He is set to start a fifth Super Bowl, has won two championships and two more MVP awards, and is in position to win another title when the Patriots face the Rams next Sunday in Super Bowl LIII.
And there’s a decent chance that his assault on the record book will last a while longer, as he frequently has stated his plans to play well into his 40s.
When it comes to Brady’s playoff grandeur, it isn’t even close for second place.
In 39 career playoff games, he has thrown for 10,917 yards, 73 touchdowns and 33 interceptions. Colts and Broncos great Peyton Manning is second with 7,339 passing yards; 49ers legend Joe Montana is second with 45 touchdown passes.
Yes, all this Super Bowl greatness from Brady and Bill Belichick has led to an understandable case of “Patriots fatigue” around this time of year.
Many NFL fans — at least those outside of the New England area — hoping for fresh faces and unique storylines have had to deal with the Patriots through a good portion of the last 18 seasons.
Yes, the Brady-Belichick Super Bowl partnership has lasted that long — ever since the Patriots upset the Rams at the Superdome after the 2001 season. The quarterback and coach will make their ninth Super Bowl appearances next week.
But the fact is we are witnessing one of the greatest eras of success in the history of professional sports, and easily the greatest and most long-lasting partnership between a coach and his quarterback.
Think of the legendary coaches and quarterbacks in the NFL, and you think of Vince Lombardi and Bart Starr in Green Bay, Bill Walsh and Montana in San Francisco, Chuck Noll and Terry Bradshaw in Pittsburgh, Don Shula and Bob Griese in Miami and Tom Landry and Roger Staubach in Dallas.
All great tandems, and all Hall of Fame coaches and quarterbacks. But the shelf life for all of them pale when compared with Belichick and Brady.
Through a combination of athletic skill, a training regimen that has kept him remarkably healthy and the good fortune of working for the greatest coach in NFL history, Brady has a body of work that has been among the best ever.
Perhaps it is simply the best.
To dominate the most physically demanding sport for the better part of two decades, and to show little to no slippage in performance at an age when only a handful of quarterbacks have played, is nothing short of remarkable.
So is the motivation. What keeps him going after all these years? “Love the competition and trying to improve,” he said.
He loves the grind. Loves the challenge of figuring out defenses. Loves interacting with the hundreds of teammates he’s had over the years.
And he loves proving the doubters wrong — even if some of those doubters may be little more than imaginary characters created by Brady himself. After all, who’s left to doubt that he can do it?
Brady has managed to channel his motivation into dealing with those skeptics — real or imagined — and created a stir when he told CBS sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson, “I know everyone thinks we [stink] and can’t win any games” after the Patriots blew out the Chargers in the divisional round of the playoffs two weeks ago. Not sure who said that, but if it gets his competitive juices flowing, it doesn’t matter who said it. Even if no one said it.
“We’ve overcome a lot this year,” Brady said after the Patriots outlasted the Chiefs, 37-31, in overtime in last week’s AFC Championship Game in frigid Kansas City. “Down but not out, but we found a way to play our best the last four games. We’re going to need one more great game.”
Brady knows it will take one more transformative effort to add to his legacy, because anything short of victory in Super Bowl LIII will represent a complete failure to him in many ways. Even after he got the Patriots to the Super Bowl last season, and even after he put on a magnificent showing in an MVP-worthy performance, a 41-33 loss to the Eagles did nothing but hurt.
Brady now has another chance at a championship, which would be his third since the NFL blew up over the allegation that he had Patriots equipment staffers purposely deflate the footballs he used.
Deflategate is an undeniable blight on Brady’s resume, and there is no denying the fallout on his legacy after all the appeals ran out and he ultimately served his four-game suspension handed down by Roger Goodell.
But the more he continues to win, the more he puts that episode in the past and draws attention to his longevity and brilliance.
“These are memories that will last a lifetime,” he said of his latest achievement. “I’m blessed to find something that I love to do, that I love to work at. That’s probably been the biggest blessing in my life. Every year, we start at a different place, and I love the grind of it.”
They may start at a different place each year, but invariably, they almost always end up at the same place: playing for another Lombardi Trophy.
Bob Glauber retired in 2022 after covering the NFL for nearly 40 years. He was selected in 2021 for the Bill Nunn Career Achievement Award by the Pro Football Writers of America, and is a three-time winner of the New York State Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association. President of the PFWA for the 2018-20 seasons, he is the author of “The Forgotten First” and “Guts and Genius.”
