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By the Numbers: 5 ridiculous Tom Brady Super Bowl stats – Sportsnet.ca

Published

4 years ago

February 1, 2021

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.

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Fernandez and Dabrowski headline Canadian lineup for Billie Jean King Cup Finals

Published

7 hours ago

September 16, 2024

Anne Joseph

TORONTO – Singles star Leylah Fernandez and doubles specialist Gabriela Dabrowski will anchor Canada’s five-player lineup when the team tries to defend its Billie Jean King Cup title in mid-November.

The 26th-ranked Fernandez, the 2021 U.S. Open finalist from Laval, Que., is the lone Canadian in the top 100 of the WTA Tour’s singles rankings.

Dabrowski, from Ottawa, is ranked fourth on the doubles list. The 2023 U.S. Open women’s doubles champion won mixed doubles bronze with Felix Auger-Aliassime at the recent Paris Olympics.

Marina Stakusic of Mississauga, Ont., returns after a breakout performance last year, capped by her singles win in Canada’s 2-0 victory over Italy in the final. Vancouver’s Rebecca Marino is also back and Bianca Andreescu, the 2019 U.S. Open champion from Mississauga, Ont., returns to the squad for the first time since 2022.

“Winning the Billie Jean King Cup in 2023 was a dream come true for us, and not only that, but I feel like we made a statement to the world about the strength of this nation when it comes to tennis,” Canada captain Heidi El Tabakh said Monday in a release. “Once again, we have a very strong team this year with Bianca joining Leylah, Gaby, Rebecca and Marina, making it an extremely powerful team that is more than capable of going all the way.

“At the end of the day, our goal is to make Canada proud, and we’ll do our best to bring the same level of effort and excitement that we had in last year’s finals.”

Fernandez, who beat Jasmine Paolini to clinch Canada’s first-ever title at the competition, is ranked No. 42 in doubles.

Canada, which received an automatic berth as defending champion, will play the winner of the first-round tie between Great Britain and Germany on Nov. 17 at Malaga’s Martin Carpena Arena.

Australia, Italy and wild-card entry Czechia also received first-round byes. The tournament, which continues through Nov. 20, also includes host Spain, Slovakia, the United States, Poland, Japan and Romania.

Stakusic is up 27 spots to No. 128 in the latest world singles rankings. Marino is at No. 134 and Andreescu, the 2019 U.S. Open champion, is ranked 167th.

Canada will look to become the first team since Czechia in 2016 to successfully defend its Billie Jean King Cup title.

Malaga will also host the Nov. 19-24 Davis Cup Final 8. The Canadian men qualified over the weekend with a 2-1 victory over Great Britain in Manchester.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.

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Penguins re-sign Crosby to two-year extension that runs through 2026-27 season

Published

7 hours ago

September 16, 2024

Anne Joseph

PITTSBURGH – Sidney Crosby plans to remain a Pittsburgh Penguin for at least three more years.

The Penguins announced on Monday that they re-signed the 37-year-old from Cole Harbour, N.S., to a two-year contract extension that has an average annual value of US$8.7 million. The deal runs through the 2026-27 season.

Crosby was eligible to sign an extension on July 1 with him entering the final season of a 12-year, $104.4-million deal that carries an $8.7-million salary cap hit.

At the NHL/NHLPA player media tour in Las Vegas last Monday, he said things were positive and he was optimistic about a deal getting done.

The three-time Stanley Cup champion is coming off a 42-goal, 94-point campaign that saw him finish tied for 12th in the league scoring race.

Crosby has spent all 19 of his NHL seasons in Pittsburgh, amassing 592 goals and 1,004 assists in 1,272 career games.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.

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Slovenia’s Tadej Pogacar wins Grand Prix Cycliste de Montreal

Published

18 hours ago

September 16, 2024

Anne Joseph

MONTREAL – Tadej Pogacar was so dominant on Sunday, Canada’s Michael Woods called it a race for second.

Pogacar, a three-time Tour de France champion from Slovenia, pedalled to a resounding victory at the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montreal.

The UAE Team Emirates leader crossed the finish line 24 seconds ahead of Spain’s Pello Bilbao of Bahrain — Victorious to win the demanding 209.1-kilometre race on a sunny, 28 C day in Montreal. France’s Julian Alaphilippe of Soudal Quick-Step was third.

“He’s the greatest rider of all time, he’s a formidable opponent,” said Woods, who finished 45 seconds behind the leader in eighth. “If you’re not at your very, very best, then you can forget racing with him, and today was kind of representative of that.

“He’s at such a different level that if you follow him, it can be lights out.”

Pogacar slowed down before the last turn to celebrate with the crowd, high-five fans on Avenue du Parc and cruise past the finish line with his arms in the air after more than five hours on the bike.

The 25-year-old joined Belgium’s Greg Van Avermaet as the only multi-time winners in Montreal after claiming the race in 2022. He also redeemed a seventh-place finish at the Quebec City Grand Prix on Friday.

“I was disappointed, because I had such good legs that I didn’t do better than seventh,” Pogacar said. “To bounce back after seventh to victory here, it’s just an incredible feeling.”

It’s Pogacar’s latest win in a dominant year that includes victories at the Tour de France and Giro d’Italia.

Ottawa’s Woods (Israel Premier-Tech) tied a career-best in front of the home crowd in Montreal, but hoped for more after claiming a stage at the Spanish Vuelta two weeks ago.

“I wanted a better result,” the 37-year-old rider said. “My goal was a podium, but at the same time I’m happy with the performance. In bike racing, you can’t always get the result you want and I felt like I raced really well, I animated the race, I felt like I was up there.”

Pogacar completed the 17 climbs up and down Mount Royal near downtown in five hours 28 minutes 15 seconds.

He made his move with 23.3 kilometres to go, leaving the peloton in his dust as he pedalled into the lead — one he never relinquished.

Bilbao, Alaphilippe, Alex Aranburu (Movistar Team) and Bart Lemmen (Visma–Lease) chased in a group behind him, with Bilbao ultimately separating himself from the pack. But he never came close to catching Pogacar, who built a 35-second lead with one lap left to go.

“It was still a really hard race today, but the team was on point,” Pogacar said. “We did really how we planned, and the race situation was good for us. We make it hard in the last final laps, and they set me up for a (takeover) two laps to go, and it was all perfect.”

Ottawa’s Derek Gee, who placed ninth in this year’s Tour de France, finished 48th in Montreal, and called it a “hard day” in the heat.

“I think everyone knows when you see Tadej on the start line that it’s just going to be full gas,” Gee said.

Israel Premier-Tech teammate Hugo Houle of Sainte-Perpétue, Que., was 51st.

Houle said he heard Pogacar inform his teammates on the radio that he was ready to attack with two laps left in the race.

“I said then, well, clearly it’s over for me,” Houle said. “You see, cycling isn’t that complicated.”

Australia’s Michael Matthews won the Quebec City GP for a record third time on Friday, but did not finish in Montreal. The two races are the only North American events on the UCI World Tour.

Michael Leonard of Oakville, Ont., and Gil Gelders and Dries De Bondt of Belgium broke away from the peloton during the second lap. Leonard led the majority of the race before losing pace with 45 kilometres to go.

Only 89 of 169 riders from 24 teams — including the Canadian national team — completed the gruelling race that features 4,573 metres in total altitude.

Next up, the riders will head to the world championships in Zurich, Switzerland from Sept. 21 to 29.

Pogacar will try to join Eddy Merckx (1974) and Stephen Roche (1987) as the only men to win three major titles in a season — known as the Triple Crown.

“Today gave me a lot of confidence, motivation,” Pogacar said. “I think we are ready for world championships.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 15, 2024.

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