When you are a three-time Super Bowl champion, a two-time Super Bowl MVP, a two-time league MVP, an eight-time Pro-Bowler and a two-time First Team All-Pro selection, you really don't have a whole lot more to prove.
When you are also a 10-time AFC East champion, a five-time AFC conference champion, a 23-time AFC Offensive Player of the Week and a 12-year veteran having spent every season with the same franchise, you have generally already etched your place in history.
I cannot make a hard claim that he is the greatest of all time, but his recent contract extension certainly immortalizes him in the lure of Boston sports history. Old timers may always be hesitant to open the door to that shrine — and it's incredibly rare that we justifiably swing that door open — but number twelve had the keys in his back pocket all along.
I'm talking about guys like Bobby Orr. Bill Russell. Larry Bird. Ted Williams. Johnny Pesky. Cam Neely. Ray Bourque. Pedro Martinez. The list spreads throughout a century of teams in Boston, but we are hard-pressed to find many qualified suitors that come from the past decade or so.
Tom Brady isn't just included in this list. He headlines it. Whether he wins another title, several more titles or none at all, the facts remain unchanged and his spot remains saved.
Brady's new extension is a significant pay cut. No, I'm not saying the guy is living in poverty because of his new deal. But let's be rational here. The sports industry of the modern day overpays athletes. That's the nature of the business. And when it comes down to it, you're paying that cable bill along with millions of other people to tune in on Sunday afternoons. You're buying the products that are advertised during commercial breaks. You're paying the athletes. So let's calm down when we complain about how much they make.
Call it a hometown discount if you want, but Brady decided to put the team before himself once again. When the Patriots won their three Super Bowls, the team came first as well. Everyone remembers the amazing defense and subpar offense that Brady captained during those glory days. And because some truly special defensive players retired and the franchise suffered a horrendous drafting lapse from 2006-2009, some people have had the audacity to blame Brady for making the Patriots into an offensive juggernaut without a defense. They have called him a pretty boy. They have said he lost his touch.
Erroneous on all accounts. Take a closer look at reality.
The reality of the situation is that Tom Brady has become a better quarterback with every season that has passed in his career, with a few rare spikes upward along the way. 2007 was magical. 2010 was superhuman. And every other season was merely brilliant. The Patriots — possibly due to an increasing dependence on their star QB — fell apart in the aspect of building a winning roster for a few seasons. For the past eight years, fans have constantly wondered why the Pats haven't won another Super Bowl. The answer is very simple.
They haven't had the best team. In every season since 2004 except for the 2007 campaign, the Patriots have not had the best team in the NFL. That's why they haven't won it all. They've had the best quarterback, or at least one of the top three. But the team hasn't been up to par with him.
And now the quarterback is scaling himself down on the salary sheet to make room for the key pieces the roster needs to return to greatness. So many rosters around the NFL have experienced the same type of drop-off after signing a Super Bowl-winning quarterback to a big contract. The Patriots were one of those examples. Fortunately for New England, Brady sees the big picture.
A few million more is so mind-blowingly irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, especially when Tom's wife makes more than he does. He most certainly could have rode out his contract and made huge dollars somewhere else to round out his career and wash up on a losing shore. We've seen it time and time again from athletes at the tail end of their careers.
Let me reiterate my earlier sentiment — Tom Brady's place in that shrine of Boston sports legends is cemented. Etched in stone. This is the case even if he fails to win a title in the next five seasons.
Why? Because he lives for this franchise and this fan base, even if some continue to doubt that. In a world where athletes skip town to chase money, to chase rings or to live life in a tropical area, the California boy has never shown the slightest inkling of wanting to leave town. Not when hall-of-famers left the team, not when rookies flooded the locker room, and not when he fell short for the eighth consecutive season. He'd rather fall short for 13 consecutive seasons right here in Foxboro than to tarnish that legacy by signing a deal with anyone else. Continuity, especially with a quarterback and coach together, is a rare thing in today's game. What Brady has done is nothing short of jaw-dropping.
Why would anyone think it's different with Brady? Winning championships in professional sports is an amazing feat. There are 32 teams in the NFL that claw at each other's throats for 17 weeks each season. We were spoiled by the Patriots' collection of three rings in four years, and some fans have allowed that to skew their perception of reality when it comes to TB12.
Boston has never known another football athlete with a higher standing than Tom Brady. It has known very few athletes across the board with a higher standing than Brady. Many of you already realize this, but I wish to issue a disclaimer for those who have lost faith in our "golden boy."
The shrine of Boston sports legends has added another figure. He's already near the top, and there's nothing that can happen in the next five seasons to bring him down.
