Farewell Tom Brady: The GOAT 🐐Retires

 I never thought there would be a day where I would actually be sitting down, writing this. Tom Brady has played NFL football for the last 22 years, and somehow continues to look better each and every year. Brady has said he wants to play until he's 45, or until he gets to 10 rings. He has said he will play forever. We have all believed he will play forever, and yet, today at 11:29 PT, Adam Schefter dropped the bomb of all bombs that Tom Brady is officially done. Brady was the best player to ever touch the gridiron. The most accomplished to ever play. Not only is he the GOAT of the NFL, he might be the greatest US pro sports player ever. Today we are going to look back at his career a little and talk about some of his biggest accomplishments.

With the 199th pick in the 2000 NFL draft, the New England Patriots select...Tom Brady, QB, Michigan...

Those words were the beginning of what was to become the greatest career in NFL history. Brady, a two-year starter at QB for the Michigan Wolverines was an afterthought in the 2000 NFL draft. He was the 7th QB off the board and when the Patriots made the pick, no one thought anything of it. 7 Super Bowl rings, 3 MVPs, 5 Super Bowl MVPs, 6 All-Pros, 15 Pro Bowls, 710 TDs, and 84,000 passing yards later, it's safe to say that the 199th pick in the 2000 NFL draft was a bit of a steal.

Brady obviously came into New England with no expectations and honestly quite possibly an outside shot of making the actual roster, but Belichick and co. liked what they saw out of him that training camp and made the unusual decision to keep 3 QBs on the roster for the 2000-2001 season so they could keep Brady. Pats' owner Robert Kraft even remembers the first time he met and had a conversation with Brady when Brady told him "I'm the best decision this organization has ever made". 

Path to starting & Tom's first Super Bowl

As a young backup QB, it obviously took some time for him to get his chance. He threw 3 passes in his rookie year in blowouts and it wasn't until year 2 that he got his chance to prove himself to the Patriots and the rest of the world. In week 2 of that 2001 season, starting QB Drew Bledsoe was hit hard and awkwardly in a game against the Jets and was taken out of the game in what turned out to be internal bleeding. Brady came in and the rest is history. Brady would go on to start for the rest of that season as Bledsoe was knocked out for a number of weeks and even when he was able to come back, it was evident that the team might have something in Brady, who played well in that season to secure the starting job. In that post-season, Brady truly began to write his legacy. He performed well in a win over the Raiders that became known as the Tuck Rule game. In the AFC title game, Brady himself got hurt so Bledsoe came back in and rallied the team to victory. Brady had done enough throughout his first season as a starter to prove to the Patriots he deserved to start in that Super Bowl, which he did. In his first career Super Bowl in just his second year in the league, Brady and co. beat the 'Greatest Show on Turf' St. Louis Rams on a game-winning FG by Adam Vinatieri. Brady won Super Bowl MVP and got his first ring as well. This was the first of many to come.

2 more rings & MVPs

As the years went by in New England, Brady continued to be a consistent force for the Patriots. The team won back-to-back Super Bowl titles in 03 and 04. At the at the age of 28, Brady already has three Super Bowl rings to his name and didn't look anywhere close to slowing down. He was clearly just getting started. He was finally getting some of the respect that he truly deserved and it was just the beginning. However, even though Brady reached multiple Super Bowls before winning another one, there was a 10 year gap in between that '04 Super Bowl title and his next one which came in 2014 against the Seahawks (a game which we all know how it ended). In that gap Brady also won his first two league MVP awards along with guiding the Patriots to a 16-0 record in 2007 and almost completing the perfect 19-0 but falling just short to the New York Giants in the Super Bowl. 

Re-heating up

After finally getting his long-awaited fourth Super Bowl ring in 2014 after beating the Seahawks in wild fashion, Brady hit the hot-streak stride that he rode out until the end of his career. The Pats did not return to the Super Bowl the immediate year after, as the Carolina Panthers took the league by storm but lost in the big game to the stifling Broncos' defense, but in 2016-2019, the Pats made three straight Super Bowls and won two of them. In 2016, Brady had arguably his most memorable Super Bowl win of his career. The infamous '28-3' game. The Patriots trailed the Atlanta Falcons by that 25-point margin in the waning minutes of the third quarter in Super Bowl 51. Then Tom Brady led his team on quite possibly THE craziest and most important comeback in NFL history. In the only Super Bowl to go to OT in NFL history, the Patriots rallied back to tie the game at 28 to send it to OT and then Brady led the Patriots on the Super Bowl winning drive to cap off the comeback. New England scored 31 unanswered points in that game to win 34-28 in OT and give Brady his 5th, and most impressive Super Bowl ring. He also took home yet ANOTHER Super Bowl MVP. This is when he really started to enter GOAT territory.

The Patriots could not go back to back again in 2017 as they fell short in the Super Bowl by losing to the Nick Foles led Eagles in a shocker. Brady was the league MVP (again) that season but he and the Patriots just couldn't stop Philly's dynamic offense all night long. That didn't discourage Brady or the boys at all as they were right back in the big game again in 2018 where they handled the Rams in a defensive slugfest of a game. Brady won his 6th ring as his case for GOAT continued to strengthen.

Final year in NE

Now in his 40s, there was speculation about Brady's future with the Patriots every single off-season. After the Super Bowl win against the Rams, there wasn't too much commotion regarding this matter going into the 2019-20 season. The Pats had another successful season as they went 12-4 but didn't secure the top seed in the conference and thus had to play on wildcard weekend as the #2 seed against the upstart Tennessee Titans. While it had been another good season, Brady looked like he may finally have been showing signs of regression. He was over the age of 40 and it looked like his arm strength may have finally been diminished. No one thought this could be the end in New England against these Titans, but that is precisely what happened. In a shocking result, the Titans handled Brady's Pats and sent them home in just the wildcard round. When Brady walked back into that tunnel in Gillette Stadium, that was the last time he would as the QB of the New England Patriots.

TOMpa Bay

Following the shocking WC round exit, many believed that it was it for Brady in New England. Some didn't even know if Brady would return to football period, but he shut those rumors down pretty quickly but also made it known that he was not returning to New England and would play for a new team for the first time in his 20 year career. 

Despite this, the interest from teams was not as high as you might expect for the GOAT. Following that last season in NE, many thought he was primed for a major regression and would be a shell of his former self. Just a couple teams showed serious interest in Brady. Teams like the Niners and Raiders and even the Titans decided to stick with their current starters over Brady. It all came down to the LA Chargers who were in need of a QB for the first time in a decade with the departure of Phillip Rivers and the Buccaneers who let former no. 1 pick Jameis Winston go. Brady made his decision, he was going to head down to South Florida to join the Buccaneers, and he was bringing his old friend Rob Gronkowski with him. The NFL world was shocked.

Expectations ranged far and wide on how Brady's Bucs would do in this first season, a season that was also dealing with a range of problems including COVID and little fans in attendance. I'm not going to a do whole 30 for 30 right now in this article, we all know the magic that happened last season with the Bucs and Brady won his 7th Super Bowl (his first with a team other than New England) in just one season in Tampa Bay. Wild. Might even have been the wildest part of his 22 year career that saw as much craziness has any player ever.

The End

The Bucs had another great season in 2021-22 and were the no. 2 seed going into the NFC playoffs. In my eyes, they were the favorite to come out of the NFC but the injury bug really killed them. WR Chris Godwin missed the playoffs with an ACL tear. RB Leonard Fournette came back for the second round but looked a bit hobbled. The real killer was 3+ starting O-lineman going down in the two playoff games, and it's probably what took them down in the end. Still, in what turned out to be Tom Brady's final NFL game, he *almost* pulled off a comeback for the ages, again. Just like his famous 28-3 SB comeback, the Bucs trailed 27-3 near the end of the fourth quarter but ended up storming back behind the arm of Brady to tie the game 27-27 before a collapse on defense let the Rams into field goal range where Matt Gay sunk the game winner as the clock expired. 

30-27. Round 2 of the playoffs. No ceremonious finish. That was that. Tom Brady silently walked off the field with little speculation about his future. Little did we know at that time, just a week from Sunday, that it would be the final time we'd see the greatest player in NFL history walk off the field. I thought Brady would be back for one more season. While he truly has nothing more to prove, the soon to be 45-year-old could have had a retirement tour for the ages. Many All-Time greats do what we thought he would. But he didn't. Big Ben did earlier this year. Phillip Rivers did. Hell, Drew Brees did. Who would have thought that the best one of them all wouldn't. Brady didn't play by the general rulebook. He has been a sort of anomaly in terms of every metric you could ever expect from a player. Here he is though. What a career. Truly the best to ever touch a football and quite possibly the best professional athlete in pro sports history. The game will truly never be the same, and even as a person who is a Seahawks fan, I'm sad to see him go. I truly gained respect for him when he went to Tampa Bay, and I wanted one more year. Congrats to Tom on a legendary career, and I'm sure he will still be around football, but for now, he will finally get the time with his family that has always eluded him during football season. 

Brady Finishes with:

-7 Super Bowl Rings
-5 Super Bowl MVPs
-3 NFL MVPs
-2 NFL Offensive Player of the Years
-NFL Comeback Player of the Year (2009)
-6 All-Pro Appearances
-15 Pro Bowl Appearances
-Most QB Wins Ever (243)
-Most Passing Completions (7,263)
-Most Career Passing TDs (710)
-Most Career Passing Yards (84,520)
-Most Super Bowl Appearances of any player (10)

What a career.