We all know Tom Brady is the GOAT. At Ethical Sports Takes, I think we have written enough articles explaining why that argument is essentially over at this point.
But when you have a career like Brady’s, another question becomes much more interesting:
What was Tom Brady’s greatest achievement?
There are almost too many options. You could choose the fact that he played quarterback at an elite level until he was basically a middle-aged man, something previously unheard of at the position. You could choose 28-3, when Brady helped engineer the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history. You could choose seven championships, more than any individual NFL franchise had when he retired.
For me, though, one achievement stands above everything else.
Winning the Super Bowl in his first season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Leaving New England
Don’t get me wrong: what Brady did against Atlanta in Super Bowl LI was ridiculous. No quarterback in NFL history could have done what Brady did that night, and if you disagree, go argue with a wall.
But Tampa was different.
After 20 seasons, six championships and one of the greatest dynasties in sports history, Brady’s time in New England came to an end. I’ve always believed Brady never really wanted to leave the Patriots. New England was simply ready to move on while Brady believed he still had football left in him.
So at 43 years old, Brady did something he had never done before.
He started over.
He went to a Buccaneers franchise that had finished 7-9 the previous season and hadn’t reached the playoffs since 2007. He had new coaches, new teammates, a completely different system and, because of COVID-19, a heavily disrupted offseason in which building chemistry with a new team was more difficult than usual.
And somehow, by February, they were champions.
It Wasn’t Smooth at First
People can look back at that Buccaneers roster now and pretend everything immediately clicked. It didn’t.
Tampa opened Brady’s tenure by losing to New Orleans. Later in the season, the Saints absolutely destroyed them 38-3. Then came Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs.
Tyreek Hill absolutely torched Tampa’s defense, catching 13 passes for 269 yards and three touchdowns. Kansas City won 27-24, handing Tampa its second consecutive loss and dropping the Buccaneers to 7-5 entering their Week 13 bye.
Something had to change.
And this is where I think Brady’s two decades in New England became so important.
During that bye week, Brady began incorporating what he had learned from 20 years of winning with the Patriots into Tampa Bay. This was a man who knew exactly what championship football was supposed to look like. Get the ball out, take what the defense gives you, involve the running game, eliminate unnecessary mistakes and let Brady distribute the football to the ridiculous collection of weapons around him.
And let’s remember those weapons. Mike Evans. Chris Godwin. Antonio Brown. And, of course, Brady’s old friend Rob Gronkowski.
Whatever Tampa had been during the first 12 games, they came out of that bye as a different football team.
They never lost again.
Eight Straight Wins
The Buccaneers came out of the bye and won their final four regular-season games, finishing 11-5.
Then the real challenge started.
Brady threw for 381 yards and two touchdowns against Washington in the Wild Card round. Then came New Orleans, the team that had already beaten Tampa twice that season and had been one of Brady’s biggest problems since arriving in the NFC.
Tampa won 30-20.
Next came Aaron Rodgers and the Packers at Lambeau Field in the NFC Championship Game.
Brady completed 20 of 36 passes for 280 yards and three touchdowns. He also threw three interceptions, but those don’t tell the entire story of the game. Brady’s three touchdown passes helped Tampa build a 28-10 lead, including a 39-yard touchdown to Scotty Miller with just one second remaining before halftime.
At 43 years old, in his first season in the NFC, Brady had gone into Lambeau Field and beaten Aaron Rodgers to reach another Super Bowl.
Tampa won 31-26.
That set up the perfect ending.
Super Bowl LV. Patrick Mahomes and the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs. The same team that had beaten Tampa immediately before its bye.
And the game was being played in Tampa.
For the first time in NFL history, a team was playing a Super Bowl in its home stadium.
Brady didn’t just get there.
He won the damn thing.
The Buccaneers destroyed Kansas City 31-9. Brady completed 21 of 29 passes for 201 yards, threw three touchdowns without an interception and posted a 125.8 passer rating.
Across the postseason, the 43-year-old Brady threw 10 touchdown passes while leading Tampa to four consecutive playoff victories. He finished the run by lifting his seventh Lombardi Trophy and winning his fifth Super Bowl MVP.
Brady’s Greatest Achievement
Think about everything that had to happen for this story to exist.
Brady left the only NFL organization he had ever known after 20 years. He joined a franchise that hadn’t made the playoffs in more than a decade. He did it at 43 years old during the first major NFL season affected by COVID-19, with a disrupted offseason and limited time to develop chemistry with an entirely new group of teammates.
His new team started 7-5.
Then they never lost again.
They beat Washington on the road. They beat Brady’s new divisional nemesis in New Orleans. They went into Lambeau and beat Aaron Rodgers. Then they demolished Mahomes and the defending champions in a Super Bowl played in their own stadium.
Brady has accomplishments that sound almost fictional. Seven rings. 28-3. Decades of dominance. Longevity we may never see from another quarterback.
But taking everything he had learned over two decades in New England, walking into an entirely different organization at 43 years old and immediately leading it to a championship?
That, to me, is Tom Brady’s greatest achievement.
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