Seven Super Bowls. Three AP NFL Most Valuable Player Awards. Fifteen Pro-Bowl appearances. 89,214 passing yards in the regular season. All of these illustrious stats belong to Tom Brady, who recently retired from the NFL at the age of 45 after 23 seasons of playing quarterback in the NFL. Love him or hate him, Brady has cemented himself as not just one of the best NFL players of all time, but one of the greatest athletes of all time. Here are five incredible games from Brady’s career.
5. Feb. 3, 2002. Brady’s first Super Bowl victory came in just his second season and this victory might be his most unlikely in terms of what people predicted. The Patriots went into the game as 14.5 point underdogs to the “Greatest Show on Turf” St. Louis Rams, led by MVP quarterback Kurt Warner. Despite the odds, Brady earned Super Bowl MVP honors with a game-winning drive to seal the 20-17 victory. Although he threw 200 fewer yards than Warner, Brady delivered at the biggest moments, throwing for a crucial touchdown at the end of the second quarter and having no interceptions in the game.
4. Everyone knows Michael Jordan’s “flu game” in the 1997 NBA finals, but Brady has his own flu game that is equally as impressive. The night before the 2004 AFC Championship game, Brady had the flu and did not know how he was going to be able to play. Despite this, he rallied for what would be the “most satisfying” non-Super Bowl game of his career. The Patriots got revenge on the Pittsburgh Steelers after losing to them in the regular season that year and Brady played exceptionally well, throwing for over 200 yards, 2 touchdowns and no interceptions in the 41-27 win.
3. Although it was only a regular season game, Brady’s most impressive statistical performance came on Oct. 18, 2009. In this game, Brady threw for an NFL record five touchdowns in a single quarter. In the second quarter of that game, Brady threw two touchdowns to Randy Moss, two to Wes Welker and one to Kevin Faulk. He would go on to throw six touchdown passes in the game with a total of 380 passing yards, even sitting out the fourth quarter entirely. The Patriots beat the Tennessee Titans 59-0 that game, tied for the largest shutout victory since the NFL merger. It is likely that Brady’s record will stand for a long time.
2. The phrase “28-3” has a special meaning in American football thanks to Super Bowl LI on Feb. 5, 2017. Brady and the Patriots faced off against the Atlanta Falcons as Brady searched for his fifth Super Bowl victory. With under three minutes left in the third quarter, the Patriots were trailing 28 to three to the Falcons, a seemingly insurmountable score. However, Brady did not give up and the Patriots would score three touchdowns and one field goal in the final 18 minutes of the game to send it to overtime. There, Brady led the game-winning drive and earned the Super Bowl MVP, finishing the game with 284 passing yards, two touchdown passes and no interceptions.
1. On Feb. 7, 2021, Brady won his seventh and final Super Bowl at 43 years old, breaking his own record of being the oldest starting quarterback to win a Super Bowl that he set two years prior at 41 years old. Coming into the season, there were many questions about Brady’s ability to lead a team without Coach Bill Belichick and which of the two was responsible for the Patriots’ six Super Bowl victories. However, in the 2020 NFL season, Belichick’s Patriots would have a mediocre record of 7-9 while Brady led the Buccaneers to an 11-5 record and Super Bowl win. Brady and the Bucs blew out Patrick Mahomes’ Kansas City Chiefs 31 to nine. Brady played superbly, earning Super Bowl MVP with 201 passing yards, three touchdown passes and no interceptions. With his seventh Super Bowl, Brady cemented his legacy as he individually has more Super Bowl victories than any NFL franchise, an incredible statistic that caps off his one-of-a-kind career.