Five memorable moments in the career of seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady, who confirmed his retirement from the NFL on Wednesday:
Super Bowl 36
Brady’s New England Patriots led the St.Louis Rams 17-3 going into the fourth quarter of the championship game of the 2001 season.
The potent Rams offense responded with two quick scores that tied the game with 1:30 left to play.
With no timeouts left, the Patriots opted not to run out the clock and go to overtime.
Brady, a second-year player who was thrust into the starting role because of an early-season injury to Drew Bledsoe, piloted a Patriots drive from their own 17 yard line, completing five of six passing attempts for 53 yards to put kicker Adam Vinatieri in range to make the game-winning field goal as time expired.
Super Bowl 51
Brady and the Patriots, trailing the Atlanta Falcons 28-3 in the third quarter of the 2016 season championship game, pulled off the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history in rallying from 25 points down to win with a touchdown in overtime.
Brady completed 43 of 62 passes for 466 passing yards — all Super Bowl records. He surpassed Joe Montana for the most Super Bowls won by a quarterback with his fifth. Brady was named Super Bowl MVP for a record fourth time and was the then-oldest player, at 39, to receive the honor.
Super Bowl 55
The 43-year-old Brady became the oldest man to play in a Super Bowl when he led the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to the 2020 season crown in his first season with the team after two decades in New England.
After a tumultuous season played under the shadow of the Covid-19 pandemic, Brady delivered a vintage performance, completing 21 of 29 pases for three touchdowns without an interceptions as the Bucs shattered the Kansas City Chiefs’ dreams of back-to-back NFL championships.
2014 AFC Championship Game
Brady and the Patriots demolished Andrew Luck and the Indianapolis Colts 45-7 in January of 2015 to punch their ticket to the Super Bowl.
Brady threw three touchdown passes and the Patriots’ offense racked up almost double the total yards of the Colts.
Then came the reports that the Patriots had used footballs that had been deflated to make them easier to grip after officials had inspected them.
The saga clouded the Patriots’ 28-24 Super Bowl victory over the Seattle Seahawks.
Brady was eventually suspended for four games, a ban that was overturned and then reinstated as the case went to court, Brady finally serving the suspension over the first four-games of the 2016 campaign.
Super Bowl 42
Brady and the Patriots were seeking to cap a perfect 2007 season with a Super Bowl victory over the New York Giants, the team they beat in the final game of the regular season to become the first team since the 1972 Miami Dolphins to complete a perfect season and the first since the league expanded to a 16-game schedule.
Instead, Eli Manning and the Giants pulled off an epic 17-14 upset. Trailing 14-10 with 2:39 remaining, the Giants launched a game-winning drive from their own 17 yard line snatching victory in the only Super Bowl to date to see three fourth-quarter lead changes.
