On February 1, 2023, Tom Brady retired from the NFL for the second time in two years. After nobody thought his career could end up turning out well, he ended up playing a long, successful 20-year career.
“He has been elite for a long time, and it just goes to show how he took care of his body and the greatness he put into the league,” junior Tyler Key said.
Brady was overlooked in the 2000 draft by almost every team until he was selected in the sixth round of the draft by the New England Patriots.
When Brady started his tenure off with the Patriots, he started off as the fourth-string QB until his second season, when starting QB Drew Bledsoe got hit hard, causing him to be taken out of the game, and out for the season.
The Patriots lost 10-3 in Brady’s first game, as he struggled to do well. Then, Brady and the Patriots went off against a Peyton Manning-led Indianapolis Colts team 44-13, and Brady never looked back.
In his second season, Brady led the Patriots to the playoffs, where they played against the Oakland Raiders in the AFC Divisional round in Foxboro, Massachusetts.
The turning point of the game and what many think to be the turning point of Brady’s career happened late when Raiders’ star cornerback came in and made Brady fumble the ball. After a review of the play, the referees deemed it not a fumble due to an unknown rule named the Tuck Rule.
The tuck rule dictates that if the player loses possession of the ball during an attempt to bring it back toward his body, or if the player loses possession after he has tucked the ball into his body it is a fumble. Because of the tuck rule and the win, Brady went on to win his first Super Bowl of seven career Super Bowl wins.
“It was insane the way he started with the Patriots when I was first viewing it when I was young.” junior Benjamin Ferguson said.
Not everything has been good for Brady, as he has been involved in many scandals with the Patriots, such as Spygate, Deflategate, a falsified injury report, headset malfunctions in a game, a play clock hack, and the Bengals practice video scandal. He has been handed multiple fines and suspensions due to scandals.
“I do not think it will affect his legacy too much because I think a lot of them were team-related issues, not things that he did,” sports marketing teacher Jordan Beighle said.
One of the biggest accomplishments in Brady’s career was when he helped lead the Patriots to an undefeated regular season –the second one in NFL history– but it was not enough as they lost in the Super Bowl to stop them from being the second-ever team, with the Miami Dolphins completing that task in 1972, to go undefeated for an entire season.
“I can’t do anything with what’s happened in the past. I have to just go forward with the most awareness I can going forward and try to be the best I can be for our team,” Brady said.
Brady’s play has gone down significantly recently as this past season his numbers were the worst in the history of his career with the Bucs, leading the defending champions only to the Wild Card round –in what ended up being his final game– when they were dismantled 31-14 in Tampa Bay.