Tom Brady: GOAT RECAP

Tom Brady: a 7x Super Bowl champion, 5x Super Bowl MVPs, with 4 NFL MVPs, 102,614 passing yards, and 736 touchdowns. Calling Brady the best football player to ever play the game would be an understatement, considering all the achievements he’s accrued over his 23-season career. 

Brady spent 20 seasons with the New England Patriots, making them a juggernaut team with six Super Bowl wins over two decades. He "grew up" and developed in New England and became the fiercest competitor in the NFL while there. Brady had a good relationship with Pats owner Robert Kraft and his head coach, Bill Belichick. There was some obvious tension between the Patriots and Brady when Belichick drafted Jimmy Garoppolo to presumably be Brady's replacement as he was around 37 years old. Brady would continue to win Super Bowl 49 and 51 in response to Belichick while others thought he was too old to play. The icing on the cake was winning Super Bowl LIII for the Patriots, which would be his final Super Bowl in a Pats uniform. 

Brady would go on to play one more season with the Patriots, ultimately losing in the wildcard game to the Titans. Going into the offseason, there were questions if Brady would return, retire, or relocate. In the end, he signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, playing a 3-year stint with the team winning 1 Superbowl.

His first season as a Buccaneer was shaky, ending with a record of 11-5 (second in their division). The Saints had become Brady’s kryptonite, as he lost both match-ups that season to Drew Brees and company. 

The Bucs reinvented themselves in the playoffs. They faced the Commanders in the wildcard and breezed through them with a 31-23 victory. The divisional round seemed challenging as Brady had to face the Saints, but he made a statement out of them with a 30-20 win, sending Brees into retirement.

At this point, Brady's Bucs were unstoppable. Aaron Rodgers and the Packers were the only thing standing in the way of Brady’s 10th Super Bowl appearance. Brady squeezed out a 31-26 victory sending him to yet another Super Bowl at the age of 43. 

The Bucs faced off against the Chiefs in Super Bowl LV. A previous match-up during the season gave the Chiefs a 27-24 win over Brady, but when he’s in the Super Bowl it's an entirely different Brady. Mahomes was embarrassed by the Buc's defense, as Brady won his 7th and final Super Bowl 31-9, holding Mahomes to zero touchdowns. 

His next season was good. He was voted 2nd in MVP behind Aaron Rodgers, but lost to the Rams in the Divisional round. A little after, he announced his retirement. A month later he rescinded that decision and returned for one more. His final season was decidedly ugly, finishiing with an unimpresseive 8-9 regular season record. Luckily, they managed to  the 7th seed. He would later be humiliated in the wildcard 14-31. Brady retired once again. And on the same day he did the previous year: February 1st. 

The question that hasn’t been definitively answered yet is if Brady will retire a New England Patriot--the team he's been with for 20 years, or the Buccaneers, a team he’s been with for only three. If you ask Bob Kraft, he'll tell you he intends to get Brady to retire as a Patriot, but ultimately it's up to the GOAT to sign the 1-day contract to do so. 

Can it be that Tom Brady could one day be a Buccaneer Hall of Famer? It’s a question that lifelong Pats fans dread to think about.