New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady turns 40 on Thursday. Stats & Info's way of celebrating Brady's career is to consider all the amazing accomplishments and put them in numerical perspective. Here are our best Brady notes, stats and trends.
1) Brady ranks fourth all time in touchdowns (456), completions (5,244) and passing yardage (61,582). He’s second among active quarterbacks in all three of those stats, trailing Drew Brees.
2) One area where Brady is better than Brees is interception percentage (1.8 percent). However, he’s second among active quarterbacks in that too, behind Aaron Rodgers (1.5 percent).
3) That’s not bad considering that Brady was the 199th pick in the 2000 NFL draft and the seventh quarterback off the board. Those who went ahead of him are Chad Pennington (18th), Giovanni Carmazzi (65th), Chris Redman (75th), Tee Martin (163rd), Marc Bulger (183rd) and Spergon Wynn (183rd).
4) Brady’s 456 career passing touchdowns are by far the most by a quarterback taken 199th or later in the NFL draft. No other quarterback drafted that late has thrown 200 career touchdown passes. The closest is Steve DeBerg (196), who was taken 275th by the Cowboys in the 1977 NFL Draft.
5) Brady is 183-52 as a starter in the regular season and 25-9 in the playoffs. His 208 combined wins are the most by an NFL quarterback.
6) Brady has a win in 16 NFL seasons, but he still has a little work to do to reach the NFL record for most seasons with a win as a starting quarterback (19 by Brett Favre).
7) It’s not always pretty for Brady, but he finds ways to win. He is 7-5 when he throws at least 15 passes and completes less than 50 percent of them. The rest of the NFL is 490 games under .500 (262-752-2) in those circumstances since 2001.
8) Brady's lowest completion percentage in a game was 36.8 percent against the Dolphins in Week 5 of the 2004 season. The Patriots won by 14 points. Brady completed seven of 19 passes, and two were for touchdowns.
9) With all those wins, it should come as no surprise that including playoffs, Brady has beaten every NFL team at least once, and he has beaten 30 of the other 31 franchises multiple times. The only team he hasn’t beaten twice? The Cardinals, against whom he is 1-1.
10) On the flip side, there are several teams that Brady has never lost to. Those teams are the Jaguars (7-0), Falcons (5-0), Bears (4-0), Cowboys (4-0), Vikings (4-0) and Buccaneers (3-0).
11) Brady has beaten everybody, but he has tormented the Bills. He is 26-3 in his career against the Bills, good for an .897 win percentage, and one of those losses was a Week 17 game in which Brady played only one half. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, that’s the second-best win percentage since the merger by a quarterback against an opponent he has faced at least 15 times. The only better win percentage in a QB-opponent matchup is Ben Roethlisberger vs. the Browns (20-2, .909 win percentage).
12) The Bills might have it the worst, but Brady has dominated the entire AFC East in his career, with a 70-19 record (.787). Brady is 39-5 against the AFC East at home, and that includes a 20-game win streak from 2007 Week 3 to 2014 Week 15. In fact, since the start of the 2007 season, Brady is 24-1 at home against the AFC East, with the only loss being that aforementioned Week 17 game against the Bills.
13) Brady has 113 regular-season wins in the past 10 seasons (that includes one season in which he missed all but one game). The most wins by a quarterback for a division rival in that span are 37 by Ryan Tannehill of the Dolphins. Mark Sanchez is the winningest Jets quarterback, with 33. Ryan Fitzpatrick is the winningest Bills quarterback, with 20.
14) With Brady, the Patriots have claimed 14 division titles, including each of the past eight. The only two times Brady & Co. haven’t won the AFC East were in 2002, when the Patriots went 9-7 and missed the playoffs, and 2008, when Brady tore his ACL in Week 1.
15) Once in the playoffs, Brady doesn’t lose much, as evidenced by his 25-9 career record in the postseason. His 25 postseason wins are the most in NFL history, and his .735 postseason win percentage is second to only that of Terry Bradshaw (.737, minimum 15 games).
16) In Brady’s first season as a starter (2001), the Patriots became one of four teams to win three playoff games by seven points or fewer. The other three teams are the 1972 Dolphins, 1997 Broncos and 2004 Packers.
17) Brady has led the Patriots to the Conference Championship game 11 times in his career. That means 73 percent of Brady’s full seasons as a starter in the NFL have resulted in a Conference Championship trip.
18) Brady has appeared in seven Super Bowls, the most by a player. He is the only quarterback to win five Super Bowls, and he is only the second person to play in five Super Bowl victories, joining defensive lineman Charles Haley.
19) At 24 years, 184 days, Brady was the second-youngest starting quarterback to win a Super Bowl, defeating the Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI. At 39 years, 186 days, Brady was also the second-oldest starting quarterback to win a Super Bowl, defeating the Falcons in Super Bowl LI.
20) The victory over the Falcons in Super Bowl LI included the largest comeback in Super Bowl history. The Patriots not only overcame a 25-point deficit but also did so with 23:31 left in regulation.
21) Prior to Super Bowl LI, the largest comeback in a Super Bowl was 10 points. That was done by the Redskins, Saints and Patriots. Brady overcame a 10-point deficit against the Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX, and Brady’s Patriots were the first team to overcome a 10-point deficit in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl.
22) Another unlikely victory for New England in the Super Bowl came during the 2001 season, Brady’s first as starter. New England was a 14-point underdog to St. Louis but won the game 20-17.
23) The Patriots have a lot of memorable finishes in the Super Bowl, thanks to Brady. When tied or trailing in the fourth quarter or overtime of the Super Bowl, Brady has completed 69.7 percent of his passes, with five touchdowns and no picks.
24) Those Super Bowl heroics have earned Brady four Super Bowl MVP awards. Joe Montana, with three, was the only other player to win more than two.
25) Brady has thrown 15 touchdown passes in the Super Bowl. There have been 45 quarterbacks drafted in the first round since Brady was drafted in 2000. They’ve combined for 15 Super Bowl touchdown passes.
26) Brady has thrown 309 Super Bowl passes, which are 154 more than any other player in Super Bowl history. When it comes to individual Super Bowls, Brady has the first-, second- and third-most attempts.
27) Although it wasn’t completed, no quarterback has thrown a deeper pass in Super Bowl play than Brady. In Super Bowl XLII against the Giants, Brady unleashed a pass that went 64 yards beyond the line of scrimmage, which doesn’t factor in the distance traveled across the field or how far behind the line he was. Even more amazing than the distance was the fact that the ball was slightly overthrown, leading Randy Moss just a bit too much. Had it been completed, Brady and the Patriots might have capped off a perfect season.
28) Even though they lost the Super Bowl that year, the 2007 Patriots are the only team to finish the regular season with a 16-0 record.
29) In that 2007 season, Brady threw a then-record 50 touchdown passes. That record was topped in 2013, when Peyton Manning threw 55 touchdowns.
30) Manning topped Brady’s touchdown record, but more often than not, Brady got the best of Manning in head-to-head matchups. Brady’s Patriots went 11-6 against Manning’s Colts and Broncos.
31) It has been a long road for Brady, whose NFL debut occurred on Thanksgiving in 2000 against the Lions. Brady played the final possession in the Patriots’ 34-9 loss to the Lions, and it took him three tries to complete his first NFL pass, a 6-yard gain to tight end Rod Rutledge.
32) Rutledge might have been the first, but 100 players have caught a pass from Brady. That includes offensive linemen Logan Mankins, Tom Ashworth and Joe Andruzzi, defensive lineman Dan Klecko and linebackers Bryan Cox and Mike Vrabel. No one has caught more passes from Brady than Wes Welker, though. The duo connected 563 times in Welker’s six-season stint in New England.
33) The most memorable completion to Welker might have come on Sept. 12, 2011, against the Dolphins. Brady hit Welker for a 99-yard touchdown, one of 13 99-yard passing touchdowns in NFL history.
34) When it comes to touchdowns, 65 Patriots have caught one from Brady, but none more than Rob Gronkowski. Brady has thrown 67 touchdowns to Gronk in his career, followed by 39 to Randy Moss and 34 to Welker.
35) Brady ranks fourth in the NFL in pass attempts in the past 10 seasons (5,160) but has the lowest interception percentage (1.43 percent). To find a quarterback with a lower interception percentage in those years, you have to go to the one who ranks 68th on the attempts list: Jeff Garcia (who totaled 703 attempts), who edges Brady by one one-hundredth of a point.
36) Brady doesn’t always do it with his arm, though. He has 17 career rushing touchdowns, tied for 14th-most in Patriots history. That might not sound that impressive, but consider this: That’s one more than Brady's long-time teammate Kevin Faulk had with the Patriots. Faulk played with Brady from 2000 to 2011.
37) The real strong suit of Brady’s rush offense is short-yardage situations. Brady has picked up a first down 104 times out of 124 career rushes when needing just 1 yard, good for an 84 percent conversion rate. The league average in that time is 70 percent.
38) Even at 40, Brady is showing no signs of slowing down. He finished second in the NFL with a Total QBR of 83 in 2016. It was his best single-season QBR since 2007, when he led the league with an 88.2 mark.
39) Brady completed 41 percent of his passes thrown more than 20 yards beyond the line of scrimmage in 2016. That was his highest completion percentage on deep throws since 2007 (44 percent). His six touchdown passes of more than 20 yardswere his most since he had seven in 2012.
40) Brady’s career success isn’t limited to on-the-field accomplishments. He is one of five quarterbacks who have hosted "Saturday Night Live," doing so in 2005. The others are Eli Manning (2012), Peyton Manning (2007), Joe Montana (1987) and Fran Tarkenton (1977).