The road to becoming the most decorated football player in NFL history is one paved with extreme doubt. You can imagine the frustration Tom Brady must be feeling. All the work, all the accomplishments, all the embodying of “The Patriot Way”, all the pay cuts, all the winning…all for naught.
On Tuesday morning, the six-time Super Bowl champion announced he was leaving the New England Patriots after 20 seasons. In 18 seasons as the starting quarterback, Brady led the Pats to the Super Bowl in half of them. A staggering amount of success especially considering the humble football beginnings from which he came. The trick here is Brady would not be Brady if not for the adversity, which he embraced from day one. Like, literally day one.
Brady signed a two-year contract on Friday with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to finish out what will likely be the final seasons of his career. Of course, detractors are already citing his average play last season as evidence of an inevitable falloff. But Brady is the Michael Jordan of his sport (another way would be to say Jordan is basketball’s Tom Brady–this is quite possibly the correct way). Jordan’s athletic prowess is held up as the standard and revered in all corners of society. My cousin once told me if Michael Jordan decided to be a boxer, he could’ve knocked out Muhammad Ali! Yet Brady never receives the same treatment. At each stop in his career, the discussion has centered around why he won’t be up for his next challenge, rather than assuming he will conquer the task at hand, regardless of the victories under his belt.
TB12 is going to the well once more for the fuel that’s driven his Hall of Fame career. That fuel originated in San Mateo, CA nearly 30 years ago.
Serra High School
Tom Brady’s football life began as a high school freshman on a winless team that didn’t score a touchdown. As the backup quarterback, he didn’t take a snap the entire season. You’d think all the kids on a winless team would play, right? Nope, but Brady would go on to become an all-state performer.
University of Michigan/Drew Henson
Not highly recruited coming out of high school, Brady was 8th (EIGHTH!!!) on the depth chart when he arrived in Ann Arbor. Though he worked his way to compete for the starting position as a red-shirt sophomore, he lost out on coach Lloyd Carr’s “tie goes to the upperclassman” rule. The following year, Tom won 10 of his last 11 starts, including a Citrus Bowl win over the higher ranked Arkansas.
As a senior though, all of a sudden the tie didn’t go to the upperclassman. Brady had to overcome the public pressure Carr faced to play freshman Drew Henson.
He did.
Outplaying Henson along the way, Brady avenged losses to Notre Dame and Ohio State, and won his last five starts, including coming back from two 14-point deficits in an Orange Bowl victory over the higher seeded Alabama in his final college game. His stat line: 34-46, 369 yards, 4 touchdowns, 0 interceptions.
2000 NFL Draft — Pick #199
‘Nuff said
Arriving in New England
He was 4th (FOURTH!!!) on depth chart when he reached Foxborough, MA. No team carries four quarterbacks into a season. NONE. In a way, it’s a testament to both Bill Belichick and Brady that he clung to the roster like the dirty tissue at the bottom of the trash can.
Drew Bledsoe
A year and two games into his NFL career, Brady had never been a starter. But he was now the backup QB, and would enter a game against the New York Jets after Bledsoe was knocked out. From there, Brady had to fend off the (then) three-time Pro Bowler to keep the starting job after he returned from injury. Brady secured the job, but not without the Patriots receiving heavy criticism for the decision.
That year, all Brady did was reel off nine straight W’s and beat the “Greatest Show on Turf” Rams to win the Super Bowl as a red-shirt freshman in the league.
Flash In The Pan
Many thought Brady and the Pats accidentally stumbled into their championship, and felt vindicated following a 2002 season where they went 9-7 and missed the playoffs, despite Brady leading the NFL in TD passes. He responded by winning the next two Lombardi Trophies.
Peyton Manning
There was a time when it was just assumed Manning was the better signal-caller. Tom Brady seemed to take this rivalry seriously before Manning even realized he was in a fight (perhaps because the underdog role was second nature to him).
The apex of the rivalry was likely the 2006 AFC Championship Game. Manning’s Colts won a wildly entertaining game in comeback fashion. New England’s “receivers” did them few favors in this game, but it was also a rare occasion when #12 DID NOT come through when his team needed him most.
Peyton people always pointed to the statistical edge; Brady backers cited winning and Super Bowls. This was the crux of most Manning/Brady debates for the bulk of their time together in the NFL. And though Brady’s stats were always much closer to Manning’s than anyone realized on a per season basis (and Brady’s totals would eventually catch up as his game count piled up post-Peyton retirement), Manning for all his greatness never could quite duplicate the team success or big game performance of TB12. This, despite being constantly surrounded by great coaches and Pro Bowl/All-Pro level skill weapons and defenders. Tom’s record against Peyton all-time: 11-6.
Advantage: Brady
Spygate/System Quarterback
One of the most overblown scandals in sports history, this is when New England officially donned the black hat as America’s sports villain. What rule did they break exactly? Video taping the opposing team’s sideline (legal) from a location in the stadium not approved by the NFL (illegal) in one game.
That’s it.
Pop Warner-level cheating by NFL standards. Nevertheless, because opposing players, coaches and fans couldn’t stomach the idea of the Patriots being better, “Spygate” became the linchpin for all conspiracy theories designed to kneecap Brady and the Patriots’ success.
To stick it to the league, Belichick responded by FINALLY putting some real offensive threats around Brady, who at the time was believed to be a “system quarterback” unable to deliver gaudy stats. Suddenly, Reche Caldwell, Jabar Gaffney and Troy Brown transformed into Randy Moss, Wes Welker and Donté Stallworth.
The result: The only 16-0 regular season in NFL history, a narrow Super Bowl defeat following the flukiest final drive in history, and this.
Sidebar: Notice how nobody called Brady a system QB in 2007.
Torn ACL
Brady’s knee injury early in the first game of 2008 ended his season before it ever started. The Pats went 10-5 without him, but missed the playoffs. Here, the “system QB” talk really began to ramp up. “Belichick went 11-5 with Matt Cassel as the starter! Brady is a mere ornament on the luminous Christmas tree that is the mind of Belichick!” And it makes sense–sure the Pats went from arguably the greatest team ever assembled with a near perfect record to one that failed to win the division and missed the playoffs. But who cares!? Belichick is a genius!
In typical Brady fashion, he led an improbable 4th quarter comeback victory in his first game back in 2009, and won Comeback Player of the Year.
Super Bowl Drought
In one of the goofiest sports narratives you’ll find, as Brady went without a Super Bowl title from 2005-2015, talking heads actually criticized him not for being unable to win “the big one”, but for being unable to win the big one lately. At the time, Brady had three times the championships as contemporaries Peyton Manning, Drew Brees and Aaron Rodgers. But if you’re Tom Brady, that’s not good enough.
Can’t Handle Pressure
Consecutive Super Bowl losses to the Giants four years apart birthed the belief that the old man couldn’t handle pressure in the pocket. Of course, no quarterback can play well on his back. But again, that doesn’t stop the “analysts”. If only Tom had an opportunity to prove himself on the biggest stage against an elite defense…
They Threw Dirt On Him/Deflategate
Week 4 of 2014 saw the Pats get obliterated on Monday Night Football and the sports world lost their collective shit. Overnight, Brady was “washed” and the dynasty was “dead”. The comical overreaction resulted in a smackdown of the Bengals the following week so severe, Donald Trump wants to send them a check for $1,200. Brady then won 10 of his next 11 starts and went on to defeat the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX via the largest fourth quarter comeback in championship history at the time–the same Seattle team with the heralded “Legion of Boom” defense that dismantled Peyton Manning the year before.
Two weeks prior, the NFL hatched their plan to bring down its brightest star on gassed up, nonsensical cheating allegations (which also crumbles the belief that the league cheats for New England) following the first half of the AFC Title Game. The floodgates opened as skeptics were again given the outlet to attribute the bulk of Brady’s success to bending or breaking league rules. Of course, skeptics devolve into trolls when they’re handed a mobile device, and the trolls cling to this notion to this day. Brady actually played better in the second half of the AFC Championship and Super Bowl with “regulation” footballs, and even better after that.
Luck/Can’t Win Without Gronk
Though the Pats barely missed a beat with Rob Gronkowski sitting out 29 regular season games and multiple playoff games over the years, Brady debunked the latter theory in spectacular fashion leading arguably the greatest comeback in sports history without his top target. If there was ever a single game that could dispel the idea that a player’s entire two-decade career was centered primarily around luck, this was the game. But how could the winningest QB in NFL history be a product of mere good fortune anyway?
Sidebar: The Seattle and Atlanta Super Bowls also silenced those who felt Brady relied on a kicker to solidify his last-second championship wins.
Tom Vs. Time
Knowing he had vanquished all mortal competition after 18 seasons, the three-time MVP turned his attention to the immortal. Launching his Tom Vs. Time documentary offered fans a unique glimpse into Brady’s life and work ethic, while signifying he was looking to defy the laws of nature. “YOU’RE TOO OLD!!!!” became a personal rallying cry for Brady’s motivation to again take down doubters. It was omnipresent during the 2018 AFC Championship Game, Brady’s most recent classic performance.
Remember when Tom Brady was supposed to “fall off a cliff“? Fun times.
Can’t Win Without Belichick
This is in conjunction with the age and “system” arguments– the belief that Tom Brady cannot succeed without Bill Belichick, or worse, that Brady is nothing without Belichick has permeated football debates for years. Belichick is the lone constant in Brady’s 20-year run of dominance. Although Belichick is seen as a defensive mastermind, has a record of just 18-19 in New England in games started by all other QBs, and only a 54-63 career record in Brady-less contests, people believe he made TB12 everything he is.
The mutual admiration Belichick and Brady share is extensive; truthfully neither would be what they are without the other. But there appears to be at least a whiff of desire from each man to see what they could do on their own.
This is the final conquest for Tom Brady.
Gronk retired; the Pats did nothing to replace him. Antonio Brown only lasted one game. Josh Gordon got kicked off the team, then suspended again. None of the rookies made an imprint. Brady’s only reliable receiver led the NFL in drops. After enduring years of mild disrespect, and embarrassingly quibbling for a long-term contract, this last season was too much for the greatest player in Patriots history to bear. Yes, his numbers have declined, but it may be nothing that partnering with the best receiver tandem in football can’t cure. And if you were Tom, why wouldn’t you bet on yourself?
Beating the odds since the ninth grade may seem tiresome for a 42-year-old, but Brady thrives off it. Learning a new offense, teammates, coaches, climate, environment and conference at 42 in the midst of a pandemic is the perfect challenge for the man who’s built a legacy on making people who doubt him look stupid.
If he still believes he can play, even without Bill Belichick, who are we to say he can’t? Clearly, you don’t get far betting against Tom Brady.