The Tom Brady show
SUPER BOWL: SPOTLIGHT FALLS ON ON RECORD-BREAKING TAMPA QUARTERBACK
If it is true that there are no second acts in American lives, Tom Brady clearly didn’t get the memo. The greatest quarterback in NFL history is poised to add another improbable chapter to his two-decade career tomorrow when he leads the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the Super Bowl against the Kansas City Chiefs.
When Brady sets foot on the field at Raymond James Stadium, he will be setting a slew of new records – most of which already belong to him – that in all likelihood will never be beaten.
At 43-year-old will be the oldest player ever to play in a Super Bowl.
His 10th appearance in the NFL showpiece is also a new record, four more than his nearest rivals.
A win tomorrow would give Brady a seventh championship, another remarkable milestone that is hard to imagine being surpassed any time soon.
“I could never have imagined it would be like this. I don’t think anybody could have,” Brady said this week during a video call.
“The only reason I’ve got to the point that I’ve got to is because of the people I’ve had in my life. My coaches, my team-mates, family, friends, all the people that have supported me.
“It’s been an incredible team effort throughout my life on and off the field. I’ve tried to play my ass off every week – and I’m still trying to do it.”
By now the plot points of Brady’s career have become the stuff of NFL folklore.
He entered the NFL to little fanfare, chosen by the New England Patriots with the 199th pick in the sixth round of the 2000 draft.
Upon arrival in New England, he was ranked way down the Patriots’ quarterback pecking order, a gangly freshman with everything to prove.
Yet Brady slowly but surely began thrusting himself into the reckoning as a starting option, driven by a relentless work ethic and competitive spirit that have become the hallmarks of his career.
Team officials would get calls late at night to inform them that Brady had arrived at the team’s training facility, to practice by himself.
When an injury to Drew Bledsoe in September 2001 saw Brady elevated into the starter’s jersey, he seized his chance.
He kept his place for the Patriots for the remainder of the season and led them to a first-ever Super Bowl win in February 2002.
That win marked the start of a two-decade reign that would see Brady and coach Bill Belichick’s Patriots emerge as the dominant force in the NFL, with eight more trips to the Super Bowl, five of them victorious.
Brady’s collection of Super Bowl wins included the 2017 defeat of the Atlanta Falcons, when he led the Patriots to the biggest comeback in Super Bowl history.
The question for armchair fans is where Brady ranks in the pantheon of American sporting greats.
For many, he occupies the same sort of satus as the likes of Michael Jordan or Babe Ruth.
Brady pays little attention to those kind of debates, insisting he has never been interested in “personal legacy”. –