With a 6th round pick in the 2000 draft, the New England Patriots selected a lanky, slow, and dorky looking quarterback out of the University of Michigan named Tom Brady. Thirteen years, five Super Bowl trips, three Super Bowl Trophies, and two MVP’s later, Brady has made the Patriots look like absolute geniuses for drafting him. So what did the Pats 28-13 AFC Championship loss do to Brady’s legacy?
In short, a win would have given Brady his sixth Super Bowl appearance, the most for any quarterback in the history of the NFL. Currently, both Brady and John Elway are the only quarterbacks who can say they have played in the Super Bowl five times. In addition, the loss prevented Brady from another chance to win his fourth Super Bowl title. The only quarterbacks to win four Vince Lombardi Trophies are Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana, who like Brady, was a sixth round pick.
With that being said, Tom Brady is still in the conversation for best quarterback in NFL history. Brady’s seventeen playoff victories are the most all time for a quarterback. Also, let’s not forget his eight Pro Bowls and two league MVP’s. Oh, yeah – and his NFL record for most touchdown passes thrown in a single season. The list could go on and on. We haven’t even addressed his career stats or ten AFC East division championships. Not bad for a guy who was picked 199th in the NFL draft, right?
Despite the loss, Tom Brady is Tom Brady. The AFC loss wasn’t Brady’s best performance, but overall if he retired tomorrow and ran off into the night with Gisele, he would do so as arguably the best quarterback to ever play the game.
