GOAT goes for #7: Despite being his seventh win, was this Super Bowl run Brady’s hardest ever?
Mohammad Ali, Serena Williams, Babe Ruth, Michael Jordan, Simone Biles, and Lebron James are the only names mentioned in the same breath as Thomas Edward Patrick Brady, Jr. Often referred to as the Greatest Of All Time or the GOAT, Tom Brady defied the odds once again winning his seventh Super Bowl title. That’s one more than Jordan won in his illustrious career and one more than any NFL franchise has won in their history. The 199th pick of the 2000 NFL draft, the kid who was once not the first or the second or the third but seventh QB option at one point at Michigan, the athlete who was told he was a system quarterback and thus his success came because he had the greatest coach the sport has ever seen: has just won his seventh Super Bowl ring without that coach, on a new team, without an offseason because of a global pandemic, all at age 43.
AGE 43. Thomas Edward Patrick Brady, Jr. is almost 50 years old and he just completed what might have been his best season yet, in what has easily been his hardest and everyone’s most unusual season to date. Brady threw for 50 touchdowns and 4.5 thousand yards with over a 60 percent completion percentage and a quarterback rating of over 72, which ranked tenth last season. All of this at age 43, dealing with a new offensive system, a new play-caller, new faces, no off-season, and a raging pandemic, is nothing short of remarkable.
After Brady led the 2019-2020 Patriots to an 11-5 record and a wild card loss to the Titans at Gillette with a shortage of outside weapons and a faulty offensive line, people said he was done. However, once again Brady showed people why he can never truly be doubted. After starting the season 7-5 and losing to Kansas City in week 13, Brady and the Bucs rattled off 8 straight wins en route to hoisting the Lombardi Trophy. This comes over 4 years after ESPN analyst Max Kellerman made his “cliff” prediction regarding Tom Brady and his level of play, saying Brady’s level of play would “fall off a cliff”. Since then Tom Brady has appeared in 4 Super Bowls, won 3 of them, and according to Max Kellerman, Brady has “had a full hall of fame career” since his very own “cliff” prediction.
Brady’s last super bowl run was probably his hardest one yet, and maybe the hardest ever to date. For starters, every game Tampa Bay played from wild card weekend until championship Sunday was on the road, and it wasn’t until Superbowl Sunday that they got to play at home by sheer luck. Now, Brady and the Bucs started their run against the league's second-best defense in the Washington football team with Chase Young leading the charge. Then they had to go on the road against future Hall of Famer Drew Brees, the league’s fourth best defense, and divisional rival New Orleans Saints who beat them in both their regular-season matchups by a combined 46 points. After that, they had to travel to Green Bay to play another future first-ballot Hall of Famer in Aaron Rodgers. Only then was their reward to go home and compete against what could be the best offense this league has ever seen, led by a first-ballot Hall of Famer yet again in Patrick Mahomes. Tom Brady at age 43 in the playoffs alone beat 2 of the league's top 5 defenses and outplayed 3 first-ballot Hall of Famers and out-scored what might be the greatest offense we have ever seen, all en route to his seventh super bowl title. The only other offense with as much potency and firepower as the 2020- 2021 chiefs was the “greatest show on turf” Rams who were beaten in the super bowl by Mr. Thomas Edward Patrick Brady, Jr. himself in his first season taking over for Drew Bledsoe. This aspect means that Tom Brady on two separate occasions that were twenty years apart outdueled two of the best offenses this league has ever seen on the sport’s biggest stage.
“How does he do it?” they ask. No one has defied father time the way he has. Going on his 22nd year in this league and still being at the top of the game is not easy to do. His diet and brand “TB12” have a lot to do with his prolonged success in the NFL, in which the average career is not even 4 years. His mentality as well has a lot to do with it, his ability to stay focused on the task at hand and remain in the moment draws close comparisons to Michael Jordan and the late Kobe Bryant with their abilities throughout the 90s and 2000s to let their mentality drive and motivate them to be the best and then maintain at that level for an extended period. These legends demand excellence and near perfection from themselves and hold their teammates to the highest of standards as well. This is what separates Tom and other legends from really good and even great players. The only question from here is how long will this greatness continue? You have to think if they repeat this year are double digits rings a reasonable and reachable goal? Whatever the future holds, when it’s all said and done you have to think will anyone be able to accomplish what Thomas Edward Patrick Brady, Jr. has accomplished in the NFL?
