Enjoy Tom Brady while you can, there’s been no one better
Tom Brady is turning 40 this year. After 16 seasons and five Super Bowls, there’s arguably been no one better at the position. Take it all in before it’s too late.
We laughed about it. Giggled, really. The ironic, high-energy snickering the kind of which only hormonal teenagers making fun of life are capable.
We couldn’t believe it. Tom Brady was starting! It was 2001. Drew Bledsoe, the Patriots’ franchise quarterback, had suffered a horrific injury late in a dismal Week 2 loss to the Jets and now our boy was getting a chance at running an NFL team. A late round draft pick in 2000, few — including us — thought he would do much besides shepherd a perennially mediocre Patriots team to their perennially mediocre finish.
Of course, this didn’t stop my friend and I, both football-crazed children in households raised on University of Michigan football — Brady’s alma mater — from going into Brady fanboy overdrive. We boasted sardonically of his talents. The Patriots would no doubt go undefeated, we crowed.
Even if we had been serious — and if we’re honest with ourselves, we weren’t — we could have never predicted all that followed: five SuperBowl rings, a plethora of statistical records, and enough endorsement deals to bail out Greece.
Prior to last month’s SuperBowl, Brady was already one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time — sure to be named alongside Montana, Namath, and Bradshaw. Add in his mind-boggling 25-point comeback, giving him more SuperBowl wins than any other quarterback in NFL history, and you have a tailor-made case for him being the greatest of all time.
Of course, like any figure in the spotlight today, Brady can be a polarizing figure. Deflategate — despite its suspect merits — caused Brady’s once sterling image to lose some of its sheen. His marriage to supermodel Gisele Bündchen and adherence to some truly wacky diet fads has displayed rather starkly the distance between him and those who watch him every Sunday. His apparent friendship with President Donald Trump has caused him to lose acolytes in some football klatches as well.
With the media cacophony that constantly surrounds the league’s biggest personality, it can be easy to forget that he still plays football games now and again. Perhaps the best thing about SuperBowl XLI was it served as a reminder that Brady plays quarterback better than anyone who has ever lived. This is not news, but it’s important to remember, amidst all the noise. True fans of the game should not waste their chance to watch a legendary quarterback who is somehow at the pinnacle of his game at an age when even his elite peers have looked like shadows of their former selves (see: Manning, Peyton).
I could rattle off all sorts of numbers to prove Brady’s superiority: the absurd 28:2 touchdown-interception ratio in 12 post-suspension games last year, his 3:1 career ratio, or that Brady’s teams have only ranked outside the top 5 once in the past decade in Defense-adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA). But instead, one just needs to watch him play.
In 2014, my beloved (and eternally wretched) Detroit Lions went 11–5, finishing (technically) just one game worse than the 12–4 New England Patriots. The Lions boasted a fearsome defensive front seven that finished second in the league that year in Total Defense. But in Week 12 I watched with dismay as Brady picked them apart. Detroit’s aggressive style left its defensive backs with little help in coverage, and Brady treated it like an early Christmas gift. He passed short, long, and wide en route to 349 yards and 2 touchdowns on 53 attempts.
Frankly, he did whatever he liked to that defense. Constantly hitting receivers at just the moment they were open, reading coverages and beating blitzes, he made any efforts at resistance futile. What’s more, he made all these incredibly difficult, time-sensitive tasks look absurdly easy. The entire affair felt like definitive proof the Lions weren’t on the same level as the elite teams of the league.
That supposition was right, but my reasoning was off. The 2014 Lions weren’t an elite team, but no one else in the league could have done to that defense what Brady did that day.
Brady will be 40 this fall. There will be many, many pieces written over the next six months about what his plans are after football, his cultural significance to the game and wider American culture, and if this will be his last year. All of it may fuel your own hatred of Brady or his media personality. But when September rolls around, don’t miss your chance to watch a Patriots game. Don’t miss your chance to see a master who has perfected his craft.
Because when Brady is done there may not be another like him.
