It’s official. Tom Brady is hanging up his pads.
The 199th pick in the 2000 NFL Draft, Tom Brady has spent two decades etching his legacy as the greatest football player of all time.
A seven-time Super Bowl champion, Brady spent 20 years playing with the New England Patriots where he won six titles.
Amid a falling out among Brady and head coach Bill Belichick, Brady opted for warmer weathers and took his talents to Tampa Bay, where he promptly won back-to-back NFC South titles.
He also upended young talent Patrick Mahomes and won his seventh title with the Buccaneers in Super Bowl LV.
He joined Peyton Manning in winning super bowls with two different teams, but became the first player to win Super Bowl MVPs with two different teams.
Quite simply, we’ve witnessed history for 22 years.
Like him, love him, or hate him, you have to respect what Brady has been able to do.
Nobody has been as good as he has been or impacted the game in such a way to leave the impact on the game he has.
What’s crazy is Brady arguably played the best football of his career in his final two years with Tampa Bay.
In his final season playing, Brady led the NFL with 43 touchdown passes and threw for 5,316 yards.
Along with Charger’s quarterback Justin Herbert, the two became the 13th and 14th quarterbacks in history to have 5,000-yards seasons.
In his career, he’s thrown 624, with Drew Brees and Peyton Manning clocking in at 571 and 539, respectively.
Brady owns the most passing yards by a quarterback, too.
He completed over 64% of his passes in his career for 84,520 yards.
For comparison, that’s 48 miles worth of passing yards Brady has accumulated in 22 years.
Simply put, we’ve watched history unfold on the gridiron for 22 years.
The numbers he put up have been otherworldly.
His super bowl wins have come at both ends of the spectrum, too.
There was the 13-3 snoozefest win over the Rams in 2019, there was the 31-9 blowout win last season over Kansas City, and there was the 34-28 thriller that was arguably the biggest comeback of Brady’s career in Super Bowl LI.
At the half, Atlanta held a commanding 21-3 lead over the Patriots.
So Brady orchestrated the greatest comeback win in history, throwing for 466 yards and the Super Bowl MVP in the process.
In his final game, which came in the NFC Divisional playoffs against the Rams, it seems only fitting that Brady erase a 20-3 deficit and force the Rams to kick a last second field goal to advance to the NFC title.
It’s been a thing a beauty watching the maestro conduct his orchestra on the field for so long.
But ask any athlete.
Father time is unbeaten and it appears that he finally has taken Brady.
Seven Super Bowl wins. Ten Super Bowl appearances. Three-time MVP. Two-time NFL Offensive Player of the Year. NFL Comeback Player of the Year in 2009. And several other awards and records.
Man, what a ride.
Chris Siers is sports editor of the Tribune. Email him at sports@t-g.com.