Brady: It won’t be a Brees
LEGENDS (WITH A COMBINED AGE OF 85) PUT THEIR ARMS ON LINE FOR SEMI-FINAL SHOT
TOM BRADY and Drew Brees are a statistician’s dream – numbers pour out of them.
Between them they have 41 seasons in the NFL, a combined age of 85, more than 1,000 touchdown passes, and seven Super Bowls wins.
But maybe this is the stat to end all stats: the quarterbacks of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the New Orleans Saints have faced each other in FOUR different decades.
From their first meeting in college football on October 2, 1999, when Brady played for the Michigan Wolverines and Brees with the Purdue Boilermakers, they have been destined to push each other to greatness. But as they prepare to clash again in the NFL Divisional Playoffs – quarter-finals – tonight, just don’t remind Brady that he is the older man.
“He’s a lot younger than me,” Brady laughed. “He’s 18 months younger than me. Eighteen months ago, I felt pretty good.
“I’ve got a little advanced age and experience on him but I’m hanging in there.”
Brady signed for Tampa last summer after 20 seasons at New England, being crowned NFL champion six times, and he has formed a bond with Brees over their extraordinary careers, as Brees revealed.
“Tom and I have friendship and mutual respect,” said the Saints QB. “We were texting on Monday just chuckling at the whole scenario.
“He’s 43. I turned 42 on Friday. So that’s 85 years and a lot of football experience on the field.”
Brady said: “I have known
Drew for a long time. I’ve always kept up with him and got to know him over the years. I think so much of him as a person and as a player.
“I know what it takes to do what he’s doing, and he knows what it takes to do what I’m doing. There is a lot of mutual respect.”
Six Super Bowl wins have earned Brady the NFL G.O.A.T.
MUTUAL RESPECT Brees and Brady title but Brees has matched him for many other numbers, with the pair first and second in most categories for quarterbacks.
Brees has only one Super Bowl win, but he is thankful for where his career has taken him.
He added: “When I signed with San Diego, my goal was just to become a starter.
“And when I became a starter, it was, ‘I’d love to take my team to the playoffs’.
And then, ‘Let’s try to win a championship’. And, ‘Maybe I can play 10 years?’ then, ‘Maybe I could play 15 years?’.
“You keep setting goals but never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that I’d be here 20 years later.
“But when Tom signed with the Bucs and was coming to our division, I envisioned this game happening because I knew our aspirations – and I certainly knew what he was bringing to the Bucs.”