This painting of Tom Brady by Matt Haghighi shows the player’s intensity.
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022 | TAMPA BAY MAGAZINE 135
14-2 team record, he was named NFL
season MVP for a second time, this time
unanimously. In 2012, the Patriots again
lost the Super Bowl to the Giants.
In 2015, Brady played his sixth Super
Bowl, at which the Patriots beat the
Seattle Seahawks and Brady earned
his third Super Bowl MVP trophy. The
following season, the team lost the AFC
Championship to the Denver Broncos.
Then in the 2016 season, it once again
won the AFC title and the Super Bowl
over Atlanta, giving Brady his fifth title
as an NFL starting quarterback.
In 2017, Brady won his fourth Super
Bowl MVP award and took the Patriots to
their eighth Super Bowl under him. The
next year, the Patriots lost to Philadelphia
at the Super Bowl. In 2019, they beat the
Los Angeles Rams for Brady’s sixth Super
Bowl title, so that at age 41, he became the
oldest quarterback to win a Super Bowl.
In March 2020, he left the Patriots and
joined the Buccaneers (smart people,
those Glazers). They signed Brady for two
years and Brady won the Super Bowl over
the Kansas City Chiefs in 2021, earning
his fifth Super Bowl MVP for the game
and his seventh championship.
Despite sportswriter Damon Runyon
advising that the way to bet is on the
fastest and strongest, these are not the
attributes that have established Brady’s
reputation in the game. Intelligence and
tenacity are the two qualities that have
made Brady the fans’ pick for the Greatest
of All Time (GOAT) quarterback.
Since moving to Tampa with his wife,
former fashion model Gisele Bündchen,
Brady has been inspirational and a role
model sorely needed in this day and age,
both on and off the field. 9
EDITOR’S NOTE: Margaret Word
Burnside is the co-publisher/editor of
Tampa Bay Magazine. She enjoys the
challenge of researching subjects in an
attempt to reply to questions posed to her
by the magazine’s readers. She finds that
if one person wonders about a particular
subject, there are many others who do as
well. So if you have ever been curious about
something, give Margaret a chance to write
about it.