by Dan Skip Allen,
It goes without saying, but I am a huge New England Patriots fan. There was a time when I wasn’t as enthusiastic about the Pats as I am today. And one of the reasons I love the New England Patriots so much is because of Tom Brady. I’m sure I’m not the only one who loves the Patriots because of Tom Brady though. He has reinvigorated me as a New England Patriots fan.
The Patriots were a floundering team for most of my childhood before Robert Kraft bought the team in 1994. Ever since then they have been the winningest team in the league. Drew Bledsoe was the last QB the Patriots picked as their first-round pick from Washington State in the NFL Draft before this past year when they picked Mac Jones from Alabama with the 15th overall pick. Since then the 199th overall pick from Michigan in the 2000 draft has been the QB of the New England Patriots, that is after he replaced Drew Bledsoe due to a leg injury Bledsoe sustained in the 2nd game in 2002.
Tom Brady with the help of the coaching staff led by Bill Belichick, clutch kicking by Adam Vinatieri, and great defense proceeded to win the Super Bowl that year against the, at that time, St Louis Rams 20 to 17. He won the MVP of the game as well. That was the first of many accolades in his long and illustrious career. Tom would go on to win four more Super Bowl MVPs, six more Super Bowl rings, and three league MVPs. He also made the 100 All-Time greatest players in the history of the league list last year. I would consider him the greatest to ever play quarterback and the greatest player ever to play the game of football.
Under the leadership of Brady at QB, the Patriots won an alarming 243 regular-season wins and 35 playoff wins including the 6 Super Bowl wins (2002, 2005, 2006, 2015, 2017, 2019) He also owns all the playoff passing and touchdown records as well. He is miles ahead of his two 2nd place finishers in most of these categories. On top of all these other records, Brady also played in 15 Pro Bowls. He also won another Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2021. He is the G.O.A.T of the NFL no matter how you slice it. More than likely he will be the highest vote-getter and first-round ballot inductee for the NFL Hall of Fame. The only question that remains is who will go into the hall with him.
Brady had helped bring a sense of pride and belonging to a fan base and franchise for twenty years. In a league where sustaining greatness is very difficult, he helped the Pats win 17 AFC Division Titles, 5 straight from 2003-2007, to go along with the nine Super Bowl appearances with the Patriots and one with the Buccaneers totaling 10 altogether. Tom has a 64.2 completion percentage and a 97.4 passer rating which is eighth all-time. I could be here writing all day about all the accomplishments of Tom Brady, but I won’t.
As a sports fan, all you want is your teams to win championships regularly. Let’s put this into context. The Patriots played in and won more championships than all of the other Boston teams combined. Four World Series Championships for the Red Sox and one each NBA Championship and Stanley Cup Championship for the Celtics and Bruins. Totaling six for the Pats and six for the other teams. Brady wasn’t Superman though he did lose three Super Bowls to the Giants twice and the Eagles once. He remains the winningest athlete in the history of Boston sports with Bill Russell winning more championships (11). Nobody will ever be better in my lifetime. I’m very confident in that.
All these records aside Brady was a leader on and off the field as well. Brady now has 42 fourth-quarter comebacks and 53 game-winning drives in his career. Both rank 2nd in NFL history behind Peyton Manning. He was a leader in the locker room. Never gets up to talk before big games or after saying anything discouraging about his teammates. After a loss he was self-deprecating, blaming himself. He was as hard on himself as he was on any of his teammates. Praise from everybody from Robert Kraft on down to Julian Edelman have come into the various social media pages and sports outlets ranging from ESPN to national news outlets such as CNN.
His 22-year career will stand with the greatest of all time. Tom Brady’s dominance for 22 years easily left him as the greatest in NFL history but athletes from all other sports might compete for that throne. Athletes such as Michael Jordan & Lebron James, Rafa Nadal & Roger Federer, Babe Ruth, Muhammid Ali, and Wayne Gretzky. Where he is definitely better than all those stars is the level of longevity combined with elite-level performance for a prolonged period of time. None of the stars I mentioned went their entire careers without a dip in form. Tom Brady won the Super Bowl when he was already 43 years old, the seventh of his professional career. If we stop to think about it, there are only two athletes who can be compared to Tom Brady and they both play the same sport. Only they can challenge the GOAT for this distinction and they will have a hard time taking it from him.
There isn’t much more I can say to show how much of an incredible athlete Tom Brady is. Or how much of a fan I am of him and his accomplishments. I did see him play four times in his career and my life. He and the Pats got 3 wins and 1 loss during that time.
I will miss watching the one o’clock games vs the AFC opponents and the primetime games on Sunday, Monday, and Thursday nights that kept me up late. I will miss the incredible cold-weather games such as the tuck game vs the Raiders in the AFC Divisional playoff game in 2001. I will miss the streak of eight consecutive AFC Championship Games the Patriots played in between (2011-2018). I will miss the rivalry games vs the Steelers, Colts, and Broncos that Brady thrived in in his career. I will miss the overall grit and determination Brady brought to every game each week, month, and year. I will miss you #12, Tom Brady! It has been an honor and a privilege of a lifetime watching you play for 22 great seasons! This quote from Tom sums up his career, competitiveness, and mindset in life on and off the field.
“A lot of times, I find that people who are blessed with the most talent don’t ever develop that attitude, and the ones who aren’t blessed in that way are the most competitive and have the biggest heart.”
-Tom Brady.