Tom Brady plans to announce his retirement, a person with direct knowledge told USA TODAY Sports on Saturday, so let the reminiscing begin.
During his 22-year NFL career, he produced countless moments and set countless records. The 44-year-old quarterback won seven Super Bowls and finishes his career with the most career touchdown passes (624), passing yards (84,520) and completions (7,263) of any player in history. He made 15 Pro Bowls and is five-time Super Bowl MVP. Further, his 243 regular-season wins and 35 postseason wins are also the most all-time.
In 2019, Brady was voted the No. 2 player in NFL history by a panel of USA TODAY Sports columnists, reporters and editors.
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Let’s look back at some of the most memorable moments of Brady’s career:
The Lombardi toss
As the winner of seven Super Bowl rings, Brady got well acquainted with the Lombardi Trophy. He saved the best encounter with it for for last, tossing the seven-pound, 22-inch tall trophy from one boat to another during the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ boat parade following their 31-9 victory in Super Bowl 55 last year.
Bucs tight end Cam Brate played the hero, catching the airborne trophy, and Brady later said he’d been drinking too much.
“First of all, I was not thinking at that moment. It was not a thought,” Brady told James Corden on “The Late Late Show.” “It was, ‘This seems really fun to do. Not to mention, when you get your hands on one of those trophies, there’s a lot of really sharp edges on the bottom. … I found out later, had that been an incomplete pass, that would have went down like 80 feet. I’m so happy that (tight end) Cam (Brate caught it).”
Inspiring a young fan
Brady inspired people with his on-field heroics, but few moments struck a chord like the one this season when at the end of a game he handed a hat to a 9-year-old boy holding a poster that read “Tom Brady Help Me Beat Brain Cancer.’’
The boy, Noah Reeb, burst into tears. And he later told USA TODAY Sports that Brady had sent him a personalized video after the quarterback learned Reeb had been diagnosed with brain cancer.
“It made me feel amazing,’’ Noah said of the video. “I watched it in the hospital. I watched it when I was sad. Or when I was having panic attacks. I’d watch it whenever I was feeling down.
“It just helped me a lot, and I was so grateful.”
The greatest comeback
Brady finishes his career with 42 fourth-quarter comebacks, but his most famous comeback started in the third quarter of the Super Bowl in 2017 after the New England Patriots had fallen behind the Atlanta Falcons 28-3.
Throwing a Super Bowl record 43 completions, Brady helped rally the Patriots to a 34-28 overtime victory and to one of the greatest comebacks in history.
“You can look at that situation and basically quit and say, you know, ‘(expletive) it. We have no shot of winning,’ ” Brady said on “The Howard Stern Show’ on SiriusXM Radio. “Or you can say, ‘This is going to be an amazing comeback.’
“When we come back from this, this is going to be the defining moment in life, or a defining moment in a professional career. I think when you shift your mind and think that way, it becomes very empowering as opposed to very discouraging. So anytime we’re down in a game, I think, ‘Man, if we come back and win this game, we’re the hero,’ rather than, ‘Oh, (expletive), we’re screwed. We have no shot.’”
Deflategate = delicious
Controversy enriched Brady’s legacy and, let’s face it, this was kinda fun. I mean, the possibility of Brady of cheating by letting the air out of footballs to suit his grip before the Patriots beat the Indianapolis Colts in the 2014 AFC championship game.
Delicious.
An investigation conducted by Ted Wells, hired by the NFL, led to a 243-page report that concluded it was “more probable than not” that former Patriots equipment managers Jim McNally and John Jastremski were part of a scheme to intentionally deflate footballs and that Brady “was at least generally aware” of the plot.
Whether Brady actually cheated is beside the point. The NFL suspended him for four games, officially giving the the greatest quarterback of all time a football rap sheet.
The tuck rule
Jan. 19, 2002. The Patriots vs. the Oakland Raiders. Fourth quarter of an AFC division round playoff game in in blizzard-like conditions at Foxboro Stadium.
Charles Woodson of the Raiders sacked Brady. The ball came loose. Oakland recovered, sealing its victory – or so virtually everyone thought.
Then the officials invoked the dubious “tuck rule,’’ overruling the fumble after a replay review showed Brady’s arm was coming forward .
The Patriots completed a comeback against the Raiders and three weeks later Brady won his first Super Bowl.
Ray Lewis, the former star linebacker for the Baltimore Ravens, told Sirius XM Mad Dog Radio in 2015 “The only reason we know who Tom Brady is because of a tuck rule. There’s no such thing as a tuck rule! If the ball is in your hand, and I knock it out your hand, whether it’s going backwards, forwards, lateral, sideways, however it’s coming out, that’s a freaking fumble.”
“But guess what we created? We created a freaking tuck rule!”
Contributing: Scooby Axson
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Tom Brady’s greatest moments: Highlights from tuck rule to trophy toss
Read more: https://sports.yahoo.com/favorite-tom-brady-moments-tuck-111557807.html?src=rss
