This just in: Tom Brady has had an illustrious football career and — I’m not sure why no one’s talking about this! — has gone to many Super Bowls. You heard it here first.
At this point, the story of Brady’s incredible career and continued dominance at the age of 43 is about as old hat as you can get. To recap: He won a player record Super Bowls under Bill Belichick with the Patriots, and after leaving New England in free agency last summer made the title game in the first year at the helm of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a team that didn’t even make the 2019 playoffs.
You know all this. And yet — and yet! — we’re still talking about it with Super Bowl LV just six days away because the numbers behind that story are mind boggling.
To get you primed, or just gas you up, here are a few of those numbers from Brady’s unheard-of Super Bowl career.
50%
Sunday, Feb. 7 marks Brady’s 10th Super Bowl appearance. Put another way: Since his first start for the Patriots in 2001, a span that includes the season he missed almost entirely due to injury, Brady has appeared in half the Super Bowls. One out of every two title games for his entire career to date.
There is no comparable for this in the NFL, where Hall of Famers have gone entire careers without reaching the game (Philip Rivers may soon join that club). And even among legendary signal callers who did make the big game, Brady stands way ahead: Joe Montana appeared in four in the 16 seasons from his first start in 1979 (25 per cent). Peyton Manning appeared in four in the 18 years from his start (22 per cent). Dan Marino appeared in one in 17 (6 per cent).
It’s a feat not just of talent and impact on team success, but of durability over the long term.
Incredibly, Brady’s counterpart in Sunday’s game, Patrick Mahomes, will have also appeared in half the Super Bowls since his first start in 2017. All he’ll have to do to match Brady’s feat now is keep that up over the next 16 years.
315
Brady’s Super Bowl career started off with a 20-17 win over the “Greatest Show on Turf” St. Louis Rams, and he won MVP largely for limiting mistakes and engineering a 47-yard drive late in the fourth to set up the game-winning field goal. But his numbers hardly jump off the page — 16 completions on 27 attempts for one touchdown and just 145 yards.
That strong-but-silent-type effort has not been the story for the vast majority of his title games. From his second appearance onward, Brady has churned up yardage in bunches. He’s now accumulated 2,838 yards in total for an average of 315 per game.
That means, if Brady were to play a full regular season’s worth of Super Bowls — and who’s betting against him at this point? If he can get in six straight after this season (hey, it could happen!), he’ll be playing in his 16th at age 49 in Super Bowl LXI in 2027 — he’d be on pace for 5,045 yards.
That number would be good for the 12th best passing-yardage total in NFL regular-season history. And he’s done all that under the bright lights and increased pressure, when teams have had two full weeks to prepare to make him look like a fool.
52
Related to that last one: For his regular-season career, Brady has averaged 263 yards per game, which means he’s 52 yards per game better in the Super Bowl than on the average Sunday. That’s like being better at job interviews than talking to your friends.
One mile
This isn’t another yardage thing. (And, also, Brady’s 2,838 passing yards actually equals 1.6 miles.) No, this is a pseudo-statistical estimate of just how far ahead of everyone else Brady is in basically every career statistical passing category.
In almost every list of the top 10 Super Bowl producers in each category, you have a totally normal list featuring marginal gaps from 10 to 2, and then Brady WAY ahead of the pack in No. 1. Case in point:
CAREER PASS ATTEMPTS 5) Kurt Warner, 132 4) Jim Kelly, 145 3) John Elway, 152 2) Peyton Manning, 155 1) TOM BRADY, 392
Brady has 85 more passes than the next two guys on the list combined.
CAREER PASS COMPLETIONS 5) Jim Kelly, 81 T3) Joe Montana, 83 T3) Kurt Warner, 83 2) Peyton Manning, 103 1) TOM BRADY, 256
Pretty much what I said above. Here he’s just 13 completions from matching the combined total of the next three guys on the list, and he almost certainly will have done so by the end of the week.
CAREER PASSING TD T5) Kurt Warner, 6 T5) Steve Young, 6 4) Roger Staubach, 8 3) Terry Bradshaw, 9 2) Joe Montana, 11 1) TOM BRADY, 18
Thanks to Montana absolutely lighting it up in four Super Bowls to the tune of almost three TDs per game, this one is relatively closer than the last two we looked at. But Brady still wins by … yup, a mile.
No. 4
One of the only career lists Brady doesn’t top is interceptions. With six interceptions in nine games, he’s tied for fourth on the list with Fran Tarkenton, who came to that total in just three appearances. The pair sit behind John Elway, who had eight interceptions in five games; Craig Morton, who had seven in two games; and Jim Kelly, who had seven in four games.
VANCOUVER – The Vancouver Canucks announced Tuesday that defenceman Alex Edler will sign a one-day contract in order to officially retire as a member of the NHL team.
The signing will be part of a celebration of Edler’s career held Oct. 11 when the Canucks host the Philadelphia Flyers.
The Canucks selected Edler, from Ostersund, Sweden, in the third round (91st overall) of the 2004 NHL draft.
He played in 925 career games for the Canucks between the 2006-07 and 2020-21 seasons, ranking fourth in franchise history and first among defencemen.
The 38-year-old leads all Vancouver defencemen with 99 goals, 310 assists and 177 power-play points with the team.
Edler also appeared in 82 career post-season contests with Vancouver and was an integral part of the Canucks’ run to the 2011 Stanley Cup final, putting up 11 points (2-9-11) across 25 games.
“I am humbled and honoured to officially end my career and retire as a member of the Vancouver Canucks,” Edler said in a release. “I consider myself lucky to have started my career with such an outstanding organization, in this amazing city, with the best fans in the NHL. Finishing my NHL career where it all began is something very special for myself and my family.”
Edler played two seasons for Los Angeles in 2021-22 and 2022-23. He did not play in the NHL last season.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
The sixth-ranked Canadian women will face World Cup champion Spain in an international friendly next month.
Third-ranked Spain will host Canada on Oct. 25 at Estadio Francisco de la Hera in Almendralejo.
The game will be the first for the Canadian women since the Paris Olympics, where they lost to Germany in a quarterfinal penalty shootout after coach Bev Priestman was sent home and later suspended for a year by FIFA over her part in Canada’s drone-spying scandal.
In announcing the Spain friendly, Canada Soccer said more information on the interim women’s coaching staff for the October window will come later. Assistant coach Andy Spence took charge of the team in Priestman’s absence at the Olympics.
Spain finished fourth in Paris, beaten 1-0 by Germany in the bronze-medal match.
Canada is winless in three previous meetings (0-2-1) with Spain, most recently losing 1-0 at the Arnold Clark Cup in England in February 2022.
The teams played to a scoreless draw in May 2019 in Logroñés, Spain in a warm-up for the 2019 World Cup. Spain won 1-0 in March 2019 at the Algarve Cup in São João da Venda, Portugal.
Spain is a powerhouse in the women’s game these days.
It won the FIFA U-20 World Cup in 2022 and was runner-up in 2018. And it ousted Canada 2-1 in the round of 16 of the current U-20 tournament earlier this month in Colombia before falling 1-0 to Japan after extra time in the quarterfinal.
Spain won the FIFA U-17 World Cup in 2018 and 2022 and has finished on the podium on three other occasions.
FC Barcelona’s Aitana Bonmati (2023) and Alexia Putellas (2021 and ’22) have combined to win the last three Women’s Ballon d’Or awards.
And Barcelona has won three of the last four UEFA Women’s Champions League titles.
“We continue to strive to diversify our opponent pool while maintaining a high level of competition.” Daniel Michelucci, Canada Soccer’s director of national team operations, said in a statement. “We anticipate a thrilling encounter, showcasing two of the world’s top-ranked teams.”
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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024
TORONTO – The Toronto Maple Leafs have announced cookie brand Oreo as the team’s helmet sponsor for the upcoming NHL season.
The new helmet will debut Sunday when Toronto opens its 2024-25 pre-season against the Ottawa Senators at Scotiabank Arena.
The Oreo logo replaces Canadian restaurant chain Pizza Pizza, which was the Leafs’ helmet sponsor last season.
Previously, social media platform TikTok sponsored Toronto starting in the 2021-22 regular season when the league began allowing teams to sell advertising space on helmets.
The Oreo cookie consists of two chocolate biscuits around a white icing filling and is often dipped in milk.
Fittingly, the Leafs wear the Dairy Farmers of Ontario’s “Milk” logo on their jerseys.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
