Last week, 6 time SuperBowl winning quarterback, Tom Brady, signed an extension with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, keeping them in contention for super bowl winning repeats for essentially the rest of his career.
It might be time to call it. He’s the best professional athlete Florida has ever had. Yes, even after just a single season.
Dan Marino never won a ring in Miami.
Shaquille O’Neal never won a ring in Orlando (we’ll talk about Miami in a second).
Because both Florida Marlins teams were dismantled after winning their respective World Series Championships, we never got to see an athlete do what Brady is doing now.
Not only has number 12 delivered a championship in his very first season, he’s completely changed the swagger of the Tampa market.
Now, notice I did say PRO or professional. I do believe that when you bring collegiate sports into the conversation, you invite names like Emmit Smith, Deion Sanders, and Ray Lewis into the conversation. They’ve got rings too. But they never achieved that on the pro level here.
Let’s talk about LeBron and Dwayne Wade down in Miami.
While they’re the only two that give Brady a serious challenge in this discussion, history still sees them as underachievers in that anemic eastern conference. They were supposed to win more than two rings. And they lost twice on the biggest stage in their sport.
Brady hasn’t done that. Instead, he beat Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers, and Patrick Mahomes on his way to a Super Bowl championship. No one was expecting that. He over delivered months after arriving to the Sunshine State.
And his impact in Tampa will be felt long after he decides it’s finally time to pack it away. No one else can say that.