The wildly unfathomable heights of Tom Brady's never-ending football career

By now, Tom Brady must be telling NFL free-agents, "Hey, play with me for three years, and I guarantee you'll walk away with a Super Bowl ring." It wouldn't be hyperbole: 21 years in the league, 7 championships – an average of one title every three seasons.

It's getting-struck-by-lightning improbable that this would happen to any player. Hell, in the rough-and-tumble world that is the NFL, it's a miracle to survive 21 seasons. But for someone of Brady's pedigree (or lack thereof), it's bat-shit mind boggling.

Say, back in high school, your graduating class had 100 kids. Now take the kid who ranked 78th. He or she is is probably not destined for anything notable when it comes to academics. And while it's entirely possible this person could have a non-bookish talent or vocation that he or she puts to good use to make a ton of money (music, carpentry, the ability to talk a dog off a meat wagon, or whatever), we can be pretty damn sure that later on down the road, he or she ain't winning the Nobel Prize in physics.

Yet, this is exactly what Brady has done in football terms. He was the 199th player drafted out of 254 in the 2000 NFL Draft. Now it's not all that uncommon for a player drafted so low, or even not drafted at all, to carve out a decent career for himself. But it's completely improbable that this player would still be playing 21 years later. And it's absurdly implausible that said player would go down as having the most successful playing career of all time.

Also, adding to the unlikeliness of it all, Brady being the last kid picked in gym class was par for the course for him. At least in football (he was actually quite good at baseball).

As he detailed on Howard Stern last March:

"Nobody from my high school days would’ve envisioned great success [for me] in college. And then, when I went to college, I don’t think any of my college teammates would ever envision my pro success. And I think early in my career, I don’t think any of my pro teammates could’ve imagined that I’m still going to be playing."

Yet, he's now won more Super Bowls during the back end of his career (4 between 2014–2021) than he did during the front end (3 between 2000–2005). Ironically, during the prime years of his career (2006–2013), he didn't win any, which just goes to show you how much of a team game football is. When he was at the apex of his individual prowess, the New England Patriots couldn't collectively get over the hump to win the big one.

If we split Brady's career into that of two separate people, Tom Brady I (2000–2011) & Tom Brady II: Judgment Day (2012–present), either one would be a shoe-in Hall of Famer.

Where he goes from here...who's to say? In a 2017 interview, Brady emphatically (brazenly?) stated he would never suffer a muscle injury again as a result of the way he conditions his body through training, nutrition, and recovery.

Wherever he goes, he's sure to bring winning with him. Who else leaves a perennial champion, and they immediately sink to 7–9, while the 7–9 team he goes to wins a championship?