Quarterback Tom Brady, a seven-time Super Bowl champion, 15-time Pro Bowler and three-time NFL MVP (in case you’ve only heard of him), officially retired from professional football Tuesday night. tomorrow, after a weekend of national confusion over whether he was really retiring.
After 22 seasons in the NFL (and a few extra offseason days), his case as the NFL’s GOAT (greatest of all time) solidifies, and we can finally look back on his career as a pro at his totality… and his time in college.
Before he was the GOAT with the New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, he was a kid, literally and also a baby GOAT, in Ann Arbor, with two seasons as the starting quarterback at Michigan.
As a Michigan man, Brady worked his way into the Michigan passing record books despite splitting time with Drew Henson during his final season. More than two decades after Brady left Ann Arbor as a sixth-round NFL draft pick (199th overall), he remains 10th in Michigan in career touchdown passes (35), ninth in career passing yards (5,351) and tied for fourth in 200-yard rushing games (15).
In the NFL, he dominated the Detroit Lions; on the other hand, who doesn’t? – in seven appearances. He posted a 5-2 record (with one of the losses coming in his NFL debut, in which he attempted three passes as backup in garbage time) with a 104 passer rating. His numbers are even better when facing to the Lions at Michigan: 67.3% completion percentage, 1,0328 yards, nine TDs and two interceptions for a 115.6 passer rating.
With that in mind, here’s a quick look at Brady’s best games at Michigan State (with apologies to those with fond memories of thrashing Arkansas and Alabama in the Citrus Bowl and Orange Bowl, respectively).
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Oct 9, 1999: Michigan State 34, UM 31
Brady wasn’t the best player on the field in East Lansing, as Nick Saban’s team dominated the rivalry to improve to No. 5 in the nation the following Monday: That was MSU wide receiver Plaxico Burress, who caught 10 for 255 yards and a touchdown (MSU QB Bill Burke was the beneficiary of Burress’s big day, as he became the first Spartans QB to top 400 passing yards). But Brady, who started and then sat out for two quarters while sophomore Drew Henson struggled, managed to close out late. . He led Michigan to two touchdowns in the final 8:11, completing all 15 of his pass attempts during the two drives.
Brady was 30 of 41 for 285 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions. Had Burress not recovered the onside kick after UM closed in on three points, Brady could have had the second 300-yard game of his career. (His first? Against Ohio State in a 31-16 loss at Columbus, where he threw 56 times, still a UM record, and completed 31 for 375 yards.)
Oct. 23, 1999: Illinois 35, UM 29
Instead, his second 300-yard game came two weeks later in Ann Arbor. The Wolverines lost after being 24½-point favorites sounds familiar, but it wasn’t Brady’s fault, even with two interceptions. He led UM to a 27-7 lead in the third before the Wolverines’ defense allowed 28 straight points. Both interceptions came in the fourth quarter as the Wolverines tried to regain the lead. The first came on a fourth-and-30 pass, which followed a pass well over Brady’s head from the Illinois 28-yard line on second-and-5.
After an Illinois TD turned the game into eight points, Brady led the Wolverines 64 yards to Illinois’ 18. Three plays later, however, UM’s overtime hopes were dashed when Brady threw an interception into the end zone with nine seconds left. . The Illinois defender who made the interception fumbled and Michigan got a safety back, but the two points still left the Wolverines six points from extra period. Brady finished with 307 yards on 23 of 38 passes and threw for two touchdowns in the first half.
November 6, 1999: Michigan 37, Northwest 3
You didn’t think that all this would be losses, did you? After a brutal October, the Wolverines straightened themselves out in November, starting with Brady.
He attempted just 23 passes (and completed 12) before being pulled with 13 minutes remaining in the third quarter and the Wolverines had scored five TDs for a 34-0 lead. Three of those touchdowns belonged to Brady, or at least to his arm, when he hit David Terrell for a 26-yard touchdown late in the first quarter, Marcus Knight (on a diving play in the end zone) for a touchdown from 45 yards early. in the second and, finally, Bennie Joppru on an 11-yarder two minutes into the second period.
Brady finished with 185 receiving yards thanks to not having to lead a frantic fourth-quarter drive for the first time in a month. “I just approach the game the same way whether I’m just on one play, one drive or the whole game,” Brady said afterward. “I just try to do the best I can.”
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November 25, 2010: Patriots 45, Lions 24
A little more than 11 years later, Brady was potentially entering the downside of his NFL career. He had three Super Bowl rings, but none since 2004. A torn ACL and ACL suffered in the first game of 2008 cost him the rest of that season. He made the Pro Bowl and won Comeback Player of the Year in 2009, but New England went 10-6 and lost in the first round of the playoffs. Entering the “homecoming” game against the Lions on Thanksgiving, Brady had managed 300 yards in a game once during the 2010 season.
But the Lions, as they often do on Thanksgiving, served up a feast, even after taking a 14-3 lead midway through the second quarter. From there, it was all Brady. After going 10 of 13 for 110 yards in the first half with no touchdown passes, Brady was 11 of 14 for 231 yards and four touchdowns. “I think once the speed of the game calmed down a little bit and we were able to control it, we did a great job,” Brady said afterward. In all, he had a perfect passer rating of 158.3, only the third quarterback with at least 20 pass attempts against the Lions.
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December 26, 2020: Buccaneers 47, Lions 7
A little more than 10 years after that game, Brady didn’t wait that long for perfection. He threw incomplete on the first play from scrimmage, then completed his next nine attempts for 179 yards and two touchdowns. After his second incomplete pass, Brady had seven more passes in a row for 93 yards and a touchdown. After the Lions held the ball for 92 seconds, it was Brady’s turn again; on this drive, his last of the game, he ONLY went 6-of-9 for 76 yards and another touchdown to make it 34-0 for the Bucs. His final stats: 27 attempts, five incompletes, four touchdowns, 348 yards and another 158.3 perfect passer rating, in one half.
Only three other quarterbacks since 1950 have reached the NFL’s definition of perfection at least twice: Peyton Manning (4), Ben Roethlisberger (4) and Kurt Warner (3). And then there’s Brady, who did it twice against the same franchise. (He also did it against the Miami Dolphins in 2007.) Of course, he was unconcerned after his “atomic” performance (as the headline in the Freep read the next day): “I never want to let (my teammates) down,” Braddy said. “It’s been that way for about 21 years of my career.
Contact Ryan Ford at [email protected] Follow him on Twitter @theford.
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George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism