10 interesting things you should know about NFL legend Tom Brady

The NFL world was in a complete meltdown after Superstar Quarterback Tom Brady had announced his retirement after a historic NFL career with the New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

But just how well do you think you know do you know the man widely regarded as the greatest quarterback of all-time in the history of American football?

For many still puzzled about who exactly this NFL superstar is, here are 10 things you should know about the seven-time Super Bowl Champion:

1 NFL All-Star Team

Tom Brady was named to 15 Pro Bowls, three first- and three second-team All-Pro selections and also in the league’s 100th-anniversary all-time team and the all-decade teams for both the 2000s and 2010s in the NFL.

2 Record Totals

Brady retires with record totals of 84,520 yards and an incredible, 624 touchdowns in the regular season and 12,449 yards and 83 touchdowns in the play-offs.

3 Individual Accolades

Tom Brady has won an amazing, Seven Super Bowl titles the most for a player, three league MVP awards and five Super Bowl MVPs - the record most for any player.

He has also won twice the NFL Offensive Player of the year

4 Super Bowl Glory

In Tom Brady's time with the New England Patriots, he led the team to six Super Bowl wins – an NFL record shared with the Pittsburgh Steelers.

He was named MVP in four of them to pass the record of his boyhood idol Joe Montana.

5 Tampa Bay Success

After his 20 year stay with the Patriots, Brady headed south to Florida where he led the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to only their second Super Bowl and first in 18 years.

It made him only the second player to win Super Bowls as a starting QB with two different teams, joining his long-time rival Peyton Manning and meant he alone has won more titles than any NFL franchise, let alone any other player.

6 Diet

Tom Brady and his family adhere to a controversial, strict diet, the "TB12 Method", which has attracted much media attention.

Brady's health regimen includes transcendental meditation, yoga, an 80/20 diet (meaning 80% alkaline and 20% acidic), early bedtime, resistance training and neuroplasticity training.

He further advocates a daily water intake in ounces of half of one's body weight in pounds and admits to consuming "a couple of hundred ounces" daily. 

He avoids most fruits, mushrooms, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, coffee, Gatorade, white sugar, flour, gluten, dairy, soda, cereal, white rice, potatoes, and bread

7 Outside NFL

Tom Brady has been featured as a guest star on several popular television programs, hosting Saturday Night Live in 2005 and voicing himself in the 2005 popular FOX series, The Simpsons episode "Homer and Ned's Hail Mary Pass" and the 2006 Family Guy episode "Patriot Games"; both football-themed episodes were broadcast within a week of that year's Super Bowl.

8 Entrepreneurship

On January 20, 2016, Tom Brady announced the launch of his peak performance website TB12Sports.com.

The site features information on Brady's training regimen and includes a store to purchase TB12 equipment and merchandise.

Later in the year, on August 23, 2016, the TB12 brand then expanded to offering snack line services. Also In 2021, Brady and Richard Rosenblatt co-founded a sports-based NFT platform called Autograph.

Autograph reached a deal with DraftKings for exclusive distribution on Autograph's sports products, creating the DraftKings Marketplace.

9 Religion

Brady was raised as a Roman Catholic, but in a 2015 interview with The New York Times, expressed he was 'less religious than he is spiritual'. 

Brady stated, "I don't know what I believe. I think there's a belief system, I'm just not sure what it is."

10 Politics

In 2004, he told ESPN The Magazine that being a U.S. Senator would be his "craziest ambition".

However, while there has been speculation that Brady would run for political office, in a 2015 interview he stated he had no interest in doing so.