He holds the information for many N.F.L. victories as a beginning quarterback (207), most playoff wins (29), most Tremendous Bowl victories by a participant (5) and most Tremendous Bowl Most Worthwhile Participant Awards (4).
That may breed a variety of loyalty. Brady, for instance, is 41 and has been within the N.F.L. for 19 years. You may assume that any fan who needed a duplicate of his No. 12 jersey would have bought one by now.
Apparently not.
Merchandise bearing Brady’s identify was the top-selling N.F.L. attire merchandise this season, with the Boston market driving gross sales. For the reason that Patriots clinched their berth in Sunday’s Tremendous Bowl, Brady merchandise has been promoting sooner — by 40 % — than it did within the week earlier than any of his earlier eight Tremendous Bowl appearances, based on Fanatics, the biggest on-line vendor of licensed sports activities merchandise.
He’s additionally married to one of many highest paid fashions on the planet. There’s little doubt that a part of Brady’s crossover enchantment is the understanding that he’s the uncommon N.F.L. celebrity whose partner could also be extra well-known than he’s.
Brady is chasing his sixth Tremendous Bowl championship and appears to have secured his spot on the Boston sports activities model of Mount Rushmore. There’s nonetheless room there for Williams, Invoice Russell and (genuflect) Bobby Orr. Followers of Chook will make their case.
However the one one who may presumably unseat Brady is Invoice Belichick, who admittedly already has a face of stone. He first landed in New England as a teen throughout a postgraduate 12 months at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., then attended Wesleyan College in Middletown, Conn.
Realistically, nobody is more likely to eclipse Brady. Two years in the past, a Boston cultural museum unveiled a Brady wax determine (subsequent to dozens of nonsports icons of the realm). The illustration of Brady was deemed creepy, and elicited extra ire and wrath than the unworthy courtroom sketch did.
Which implies just one factor: In 5 or 10 years, when civic leaders erect a Tom Brady statue, they higher get the visage proper. And drape him in his No. 12 jersey.