Tom Brady is one of those once-in-several-lifetimes athletes whose accomplishments are so astounding as to transcend the quotidian realm of sports and attain the Olympian plain of myth.
Tell me, O Muse, of that resourceful hero who traveled south to Tampa Bay after he had become famous in New England. Many Super Bowls did he win, and many were the defenses with whose manners and schemes he was acquainted. Moreover, he passed for more touchdowns than any quarterback in NFL history, won more Super Bowls than any franchise has won in NFL history, and won more Super Bowl MVPs than any other quarterback has won Super Bowls. Tell me, too, about all these things, oh daughter of Jove, from whatsoever source you may know them…
Brady’s career, like the legendary heroes of ancient Greece and Rome, is the stuff that epic poems (or, today, multipart Netflix and Hulu documentaries) are made of. It is not unlikely that one day, long after the living memory of him has vanished, young football fans will speak of him in the way that baseball fans speak of Babe Ruth and in the way that sports fans of coming generations will likely speak of Michael Jordan — as not merely a sports star but a mythical, larger-than-life legend whose feats were so extraordinary that were it not for video footage, we would have a hard time believing that such athletes actually existed.
On paper, Brady’s achievements defy comprehension. Although the Super Bowl has been played every year since 1967 and Tom Brady’s first year as an NFL starter was in 2001, Brady won more Super Bowls himself than any single NFL team has won as a franchise. He accumulated more passing yards, completions, and touchdowns than any quarterback in NFL history. In addition to winning five Super Bowl MVP awards and leading his teams to 10 Super Bowl appearances and 18 division titles (all records), he won three league NFL MVPs, was named to the Pro Bowl 15 times, and led the NFL in touchdown passes more times (five) than any other quarterback in NFL history. At 44 years old, an age by which most other quarterbacks are on the golf course or in the broadcast booth, Brady completed another MVP-level season, leading the league yet again in touchdown passes, passing yards, and completions. In what turned out to have been his final game, Brady led the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on a stirring 24-point comeback against the Los Angeles Rams, losing on a last-second field goal only because the Buccaneers’ defense inexplicably failed to cover Cooper Kupp, the NFL’s leading receiver this year in receptions and receiving touchdowns, in the game’s final minute.
It would take an entire book, and many will likely be written, to recapitulate all of Brady’s achievements on the football field, as well as his work off the field raising awareness about the importance of nutrition and proper sleep. Brady’s preference for avocado ice cream and penchant for being in bed by 8:30 p.m. have become running jokes and punchlines in the sports world, but no one can deny that they worked. His 2017 book The TB12 Method: How to Achieve a Lifetime of Sustained Peak Performance detailing his precise daily sleep, exercise, and nutrition regimen reached the New York Times bestseller list, enabling him to add the honor “bestselling author” to his litany of laurels.
It is remarkable how unremarkable Brady was — at least initially. He was not the kind of can’t-miss prospect coming out of college that quarterbacks John Elway and Peyton Manning were. Although Brady played for the University of Michigan Wolverines, one of the more elite programs in college football, he did not start until his third season and even then had to compete for the starting job with NFL bust Drew Henson. (Who?) And in high school, he did not win his junior varsity team’s starting job until the then-starter suffered an injury, uncannily foreshadowing the way he would later win the starting quarterback job with the New England Patriots in 2001.
Lacking any outstanding physical traits and after a mediocre performance at the NFL Scouting Combine, a convention for NFL-hopeful college players where scouts can measure their height, weight, speed, strength, and other physical attributes, Brady fell to the sixth round of the 2000 NFL draft. He was selected with the 199th overall pick by the Patriots — passed over by every NFL franchise at least five times and chosen after six other quarterbacks. Shortly after the draft, when Brady met Patriots owner Robert Kraft for the first time, Kraft said to him he was aware that he was the Patriots’ sixth-round draft pick. To which Brady responded: “That’s right. And I’m the best decision this organization has ever made.”
Seemingly overconfident and bordering on downright cocky, at the time, Brady’s bold declaration actually proved to be an understatement — drafting Brady was the best decision any NFL organization has ever made. And yet, this same quarterback, now universally regarded as the “GOAT” of quarterbacks and regarded by some, including his longtime Patriots coach Bill Belichick, as the greatest player in NFL history, period, did not become the Patriots’ starting quarterback until then-starter Drew Bledsoe was knocked out of a Sept. 23, 2001, game against the New York Jets, forcing Belichick to put Brady in the game. The rest, as they say, is history. Or mythology.
The mythological Greek hero Odysseus was not a mightier warrior than his Achaean companions Ajax and Achilles, but he was the one who made it back home from Troy because of his superior resourcefulness. Much the same, Brady was not more gifted than his peers, but he was more resourceful. There was not one thing that Brady did better than any other great quarterback. Ben Roethlisberger was stronger, Brett Favre was tougher, Joe Montana was cooler, Drew Brees was more precise, Aaron Rodgers was more talented, Dan Marino had a quicker release, John Elway had a better arm, Steve Young had better legs, and Peyton Manning had better brains. The only thing that Brady did better than any quarterback in NFL history, to paraphrase Vince Lombardi, is ultimately the only thing that matters: win. From the “Snow Game,” or the “Tuck Rule Game,” as Raiders fans call it, that catapulted his career in the 2001 playoffs to the comeback, when the Patriots were down 28-3 during the second half, against the Falcons in the 2017 Super Bowl to last year’s NFC championship game in Green Bay when Brady willed the Buccaneers to victory despite throwing three interceptions, Brady almost always found a way to win.
If Reggie Jackson was “Mr. October,” surely Tom Brady was “Mr. Super Bowl.” No one defined the big game in our era more than Brady, who made the Super Bowl in almost 50% of the seasons he played — making it so strange to think that this Super Bowl was the first one played in which we knew that Brady would never play in one again. But his remarkable story of how an ordinary player became an extraordinary winner will hover over players, teams, and Super Bowls far into the future and will inspire generations of strivers in every field for many years to come.
Daniel Ross Goodman is a Washington Examiner contributing writer and a postdoctoral research scholar at the University of Salzburg.
