Roasting Tom Brady
Netflix is currently streaming “The Roast of Tom Brady.” The former star quarterback’s roasters include comedian Kevin Hart, his former teammates Drew Bledsoe and Rob Gronkowski, and actors Will Ferrell and Ben Affleck. During this show, CBS News argues, Brady sustains “more blitzes and pressure than he did during an average NFL game as an impressive lineup of comedians, former teammates and opponents took the stage.” “You have to be able to laugh at yourself, and I love that he is doing in this forum,” Hart said. “I love that he is embracing the things that some people think he runs away from. It is a celebration of [his] greatness, and we are doing it in a fun way.”
Greatness on the gridiron defines Brady’s NFL career. Although a few pundits choose Jerry Rice or Jim Brown as football’s GOAT, the vast majority select Tom Brady. His accomplishments sound apocryphal. He leads the NFL in thirty-five categories, has won thirty more games than anyone else in NFL history, and is tied with quarterback Otto Graham for the most championships. His seven Super Bowl victories and five Super Bowl MVP awards are both two more than any other player earned. Brady is one of five players in the four major North American sports to win seven championships and three regular-season MVP awards. Bill Russell (Boston Celtics) and Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, and Yogi Berra (all New York Yankees) are the others.
Brady holds almost every major NFL record for quarterbacks. He ranks first in starts (333), pass attempts (12,050), completions (7,753), yards (89,214), passing touchdowns (649), and Pro Bowl selections (15). Brady led the league in passing touchdowns five times, more than any other quarterback in NFL history. He was named the NFL’s MVP three times. He led the Patriots to a perfect regular season record and was named the NFL Comeback Player of the Year after missing an entire season because of a torn anterior cruciate ligament. Brady’s teams made the playoffs 20 of the 23 seasons he played. He won 35 of the 48 postseason games he started (a remarkable .729 winning percentage), completing 1,200 passes for 13,400 yards (twice as many as any other signal caller) and 88 touchdowns. He directed fourteen postseason game-winning drives and nine fourth-quarter comebacks. All these numbers are the most in NFL history. Brady engineered the largest comeback in Super Bowl history and passed for the most yards in a Super Bowl game. As one sportswriter asserts, Brady arguably had “three Hall of Fame careers—one in his 20s, one in his 30s and another, somehow, in his 40s—and has achieved more in his 22 years in the league than some NFL franchises” in their entire histories of up to a hundred years.
For further analysis of why Brady is the GOAT of football and an account of his life story, see my The Greatest Sport Stars of All-Time: Fifteen Fantastic Athletes (2024).