brady-5.png
Getty Images

Along with his records, Super Bowl wins and individual accolades, Tom Brady's peerless longevity is one of the things that will be part of his legacy long after he retires, assuming the 44-year-old ever does decide to hang up his cleats. 

Brady attributes at least part of his longevity to his desire to continue to strive for greatness. But had the Patriots capped off their undefeated 2007 regular season with a Super Bowl title, that may have been enough to satisfy Brady's ultra competitive appetite, which Brady admits may have altered the years following that game. 

"Had we won that game, I'm not a big hypothetical guy, but maybe the desire is a little bit different if you're looking at [a] silver lining," Brady said in Episode 4 of ESPN's "Man in the Arena" 10 part documentary. "Maybe the desire to reach that point, maybe I would have been fulfilled, not to stop playing at that time, but I don't know, maybe I play another seven or eight years and I'm fulfilled. 

"Maybe not," Brady continued with a smile, "but there's not much I can do about it now. Maybe that's the lesson in life. Dealing with what happens, positive [and] negative. You can't change it. You can learn from it and hopefully it can make you a good person and you deal with life in a positive way. And when things don't go your way, appreciate the other people who it goes good for, and then try your hardest to get back there again. 

"And I knew that if I ever won a Super Bowl again, I was going to celebrate the [expletive] out of that one."

Brady has won four more Super Bowls since New England's historic 17-14 loss to the Giants. Brady is 7-3 in Super Bowls, with two losses to the Giants in the big game. But Brady's first Super Bowl loss, against a six-loss Giants team that the Patriots defeated on the final week week of the regular season, is the most significant 

"That game would have defined what that team in NFL history meant to the league, meant to what greatness was," Brady said. "I still think that was the best team I've ever played on, even though we didn't win the Super Bowl. Wasn't the most accomplished team, but it was probably the best team … it was the best team. It was probably the best team in NFL history." 

Along with being the only team to go 16-0 in a regular season, the 2007 Patriots boasted the NFL's top-ranked offense and fourth-ranked defense. New England's offense scored an NFL record 589 points. Brady won his first league MVP award after throwing a then-NFL record 50 touchdown passes. Nearly half of those touchdown passes went to Randy Moss, whose 23 touchdown catches that season broke Jerry Rice's 20-year-old record. 

Moss' six-yard touchdown pass gave New England a four-point lead with just 2:42 left in Super Bowl XLII. But after the Giants regained the lead following David Tyree's improbable hemet catch that set up Eli Manning's touchdown pass to Plaxico Burress, Moss and Brady just missed connecting on a deep pass that might have gone the distance. Brady's final fourth down heave also fell incomplete, completing the NFL's biggest Super Bowl upset since the Jets upset of the Colts in Super Bowl III. 

Moss, one of two members of that team who are currently enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame (the other is linebacker Junior Seau), is not sure if an NFL team can achieve perfection after his 2007 Patriots team fell just short of that goal. But he's not counting it out, either. 

"I hope," Moss said, "I'm still on this earth to be able to see it." 

2021 Tom Brady jerseys now available

Can Tom Brady win his eighth Super Bowl at age 44? If you're a Brady fan, it's time to get a new jersey featuring No. 12. Shop red, pewter, and gray jerseys, t-shirts, hoodies, and gear here.

We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links.