The New England Patriots will be representing the AFC in this year’s Super Bowl.
How many times have we heard that line before?
The team, led by quarterback Tom Brady and head coach Bill Belichick, is set to get ready for his 8th Super Bowl appearance in which he will play the Philadelphia Eagles in Minneapolis in the 52nd installment of the big game.
Making the Super Bowl at the end of a season eight times in your career obviously means you’re doing something right. The Brady-Belichick duo has been able to have success year in and year out ever since Brady took the helm early in their 2001 season and haven’t looked back. Since that 2001 season, the two have won 5 Super Bowls, 14 division titles, and have been to 12 AFC Championship games, including an NFL record 7 in a row.
The regular season always seems like a cakewalk for Brady. Since he took over in 2001 as the starting quarterback, the Patriots have never finished with a losing record. Overall, Brady owns the most regular season wins as a quarterback with 196, has won 2 MVP awards and has been elected to 13 Pro Bowls. He currently sits in 4th-place all-time in total passing yards with over 66,000 and is tied for third with Drew Brees for total passing touchdowns with 488. Every year, you can always count on Brady’s Patriots to put up top performances in every game.
In the postseason, Brady is the same successful quarterback and has already made history with the most total passing touchdowns with 15 and total passing yards with 2,071. He also owns the record for most passing yards in a single Super Bowl game with 466 and most passes completed with 43, each done in Super Bowl LI (51). Of course, Brady is remembered more so for leading his team back from the largest deficit in Super Bowl history to win Super Bowl LI. All together in the postseason, Brady has the most wins by a quarterback with 27, the most touchdown passes with 68, and the most passing yards with nearly 10,000 to go along with 4 Super Bowl MVP awards.
Paired with Brady, Belichick has numerous records and achievements coaching the team. He sits in third place all-time with 250 total wins, 214 of which are with New England. The 27 postseason wins he shares with Brady place him at number one on the list of head coaches. Not only has he been a part of the five championships with the Patriots, but he has also won two additional Super Bowl rings as a defensive coordinator with the New York Giants, giving him 7 total victories.
An additional championship win for the Patriots would give the organization 6 Super Bowl wins, which would tie the team with the Pittsburgh Steelers for the most Super Bowl wins by a franchise in NFL history. Brady’s sixth ring would make him the first person to win six Super Bowls as a player. Sitting with five wins as a player in the big game, he is currently tied with former linebacker and defensive end Charles Haley, who won five championships as a member of the San Francisco 49ers and the Dallas Cowboys through the 1980s-90s. Belichick would acquire an 8th ring, which would be the most for anyone all-time.
If the Patriots can pull-off another victory in America’s biggest sporting spectacle, it would only further cement Brady’s status as not only the greatest quarterback to play the game, but even put him in the conversation as the best NFL player ever. For Belichick, it would cement himself as one of the greatest coaching minds in the sport. Their success seemed impossible, and seems to be virtually impossible to match.
