Tom Brady

He grew up in San Mateo watching Joe Montana at Candlestick Park, and the first professional team to draft him was a baseball team — the Montreal Expos took him in the 18th round in 1995, the summer he left Junipero Serra High School. He went to Michigan instead and sat. His first college pass was intercepted and run back 42 yards for a touchdown. He spent four years fighting for the job, two of them against Drew Henson, and in 1999 the coach platooned them by quarter and decided at halftime who would finish the game. He went 20 and 5 as a starter. At the combine he ran the 40 in 5.28 seconds, which is slow for a tight end.

New England took him 199th, in the sixth round, in 2000, and he opened that season fourth on the depth chart. Drew Bledsoe was hurt early in 2001 and never got the job back. The first title came in February 2002 on a last-minute drive that John Madden had said on the air the Patriots should not attempt. Six more followed: three in four seasons under Bill Belichick to start, two more in the late 2010s, and a seventh in Tampa Bay in his first season there, at 43, with a franchise that had not won a playoff game since 2002. Seven is more than any other player and more than any single franchise. He also holds five Super Bowl MVPs, three league MVPs and 15 Pro Bowl selections.

There is an asterisk lodged in the record and nobody has removed it. In May 2015 the NFL published a 243-page report on underinflated footballs from the previous January's conference championship, and Roger Goodell upheld a four-game suspension. A federal judge vacated it that September, an appeals court reinstated it in April 2016, and Brady sat out four games. In 2022 the sportswriter Mike Florio reported that league executives had reached their conclusion before the physics, that the general counsel ordered a season of pressure data deleted, and that the officials running the case had not heard of the ideal gas law. The league has not reopened it. The ordinary costs arrived on schedule: he retired on February 1, 2022, unretired 40 days later, and his marriage to Gisele Bündchen ended that October.

He retired for good on February 1, 2023, and took a Fox contract reported at 375 million dollars over ten years, the largest ever given a sports broadcaster. In October 2024 the league's owners unanimously approved his purchase of a piece of the Las Vegas Raiders, putting him on both sides of the microphone — for a season he was barred from production meetings and team facilities. He was a paid promoter of FTX before it collapsed and is a defendant in the class action that followed. In March 2026, at 48, he said he had asked about playing again and the league said no. The quarterback argument is settled. What he becomes next is not.

Tom Brady's life against the full span of the corpus — the fading end marks a life still in progress.

• Super Bowl XXXVI other
  A last-minute drive against the Rams that the broadcast booth advised against 2002
• The 16-0 regular season other
  Fifty touchdown passes, first MVP, and a loss in the Super Bowl 2007
• Super Bowl LI other
  Down 28 to 3 to Atlanta and won it in overtime, 34 to 28 2017
• Religion of Sports company
  Documentary company founded with Michael Strahan and Gotham Chopra 2017
• The TB12 Method book
  The training and diet regime, and the business built on it 2017
• Super Bowl LV other
  His seventh, at 43, in his first season in Tampa Bay 2021

• 1995 aged ~18 The Montreal Expos draft him in the 18th round out of high school He went to Michigan to play football instead.
• September 28, 1996 aged 19 His first college pass is intercepted and returned for a touchdown
• 1999 aged ~22 Michigan platoons him with Drew Henson by quarter for seven games The coach decided at halftime which of them would finish.
• 2000 aged ~23 Drafted 199th overall and starts the season fourth on the depth chart
• February 3, 2002 aged 24 Wins Super Bowl XXXVI over the Rams as a heavy underdog
• May 6, 2015 aged 37 The NFL publishes its 243-page report on underinflated footballs The four-game suspension was vacated in September, reinstated in April 2016, and served.
• February 5, 2017 aged 39 Comes back from 28 to 3 against Atlanta in Super Bowl LI It was the first overtime in Super Bowl history and the largest comeback in one.
• February 1, 2023 aged 45 Retires for good, a year after retiring for 40 days
• October 15, 2024 aged 47 NFL owners unanimously approve his stake in the Las Vegas Raiders He was already the lead analyst on Fox, which produced a season of restrictions.

• Vince Lombardi 1913–1970
  Coach whose Green Bay teams, championship record, and leadership mythology became embedded in American sports culture. the trophy he lifted seven times
• Michael Jordan b. 1963
  Widely regarded as the greatest basketball player of all time, who became a global marketing phenomenon. the parallel argument in another sport
• Jerry Rice b. 1962
  Wide receiver whose records, consistency, and postseason success made him a standard of NFL excellence. the receiver whose records framed the era
• Serena Williams b. 1981
  Tennis champion with 23 Grand Slam singles titles, widely considered one of the greatest athletes ever. the other case for longevity at the top
• Donald Trump b. 1946
  Businessman, media personality, and 45th and 47th president whose populist movement transformed American politics. friend who asked him to speak in 2016