Thomas Edward Patrick Brady, Jr. (born August 3, 1977), is an American football quarterback for the New England Patriots of the National Football League (NFL). After playing college football for the University of Michigan, Brady was drafted by the Patriots in the sixth round of the 2000 NFL draft. In Brady's 14 seasons as a starter (he did not start as a rookie, and missed nearly all of 2008 with a torn ACL), the Patriots have earned six trips to the Super Bowl (the most for any quarterback, ever), winning four. Brady has won three Super Bowl MVP (Super Bowl XXXVI, XXXVIII, and XLIX) and two league MVP awards (2007 and 2010), has been selected to eleven Pro Bowls, and has led his team to more division titles (13) than any other quarterback in NFL history. Brady is fifth all-time in career passing yards and third in career touchdown passes. His career postseason record is 22–9; he has won more playoff games than any other quarterback, and appeared in more playoff games than any player at any position. He led the Patriots when they set the NFL record for the longest consecutive win streak, including the playoffs, with 21 straight wins in the 2003 and 2004 seasons. He also set the record for most consecutive playoff wins with 10, and in 2007 led the Patriots to the first undefeated regular season since the season was expanded to 16 games. He has thrown for more passing yards and touchdowns than any quarterback in NFL postseason history, and has the sixth highest career passer rating of all time (96.6) among quarterbacks with at least 1,500 career passing attempts.
Brady is considered among the greatest quarterbacks of all time.[3] He and Joe Montana are the only players in NFL history to win multiple NFL MVP and Super Bowl MVP awards. In 2007 he was named NFL MVP and the Associated Press named him Male Athlete of the Year, the first NFL player so honored since 1990. He also became the first quarterback to throw for 50 touchdowns in a season. In 2010 he was unanimously chosen as NFL MVP, becoming the first player since 1986 to be unanimously chosen as MVP, and was ranked as the top player in the NFL Top 100, a poll of league players. He also set the NFL record for consecutive passes without an interception (358), and broke his own record for the highest season touchdown to interception ratio, among players who have started a full season, at 9:1. Brady and Patriots head coach Bill Belichick have combined to form the most successful quarterback-coach tandem in NFL history, winning 172 regular season games and 22 postseason games together, as well as appearing in six Super Bowls together, all NFL records.
