Super Bowl 2025: Tom Brady will have front-row seat in Kansas City's quest to be GOAT
Former NFL quarterback Tom Brady makes an appearance on the field before an NFL football game between the New Orleans Saints and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Sunday, Jan 5, 2025, in Tampa, Fla. Credit: AP/Peter Joneleit
NEW ORLEANS
Kansas City is playing Philadelphia in Super Bowl LIX on Sunday, but in a lot of ways, it feels as if KC is going up against New England.
That’s the subtext to the greatness of Andy Reid, Patrick Mahomes and the rest of the regulars who are so familiar in this setting that when they walk onto the field at the Superdome on Sunday evening, the crowd might very well yell “Norm!”
They are chasing things that have never been accomplished — never been attempted, in some cases — and looking to overtake a team and quarterback for greatest-ever status even though it feels as if Tom Brady and the Patriots just barely finished punctuating their legacies.
The paint isn’t dry on those murals honoring New England’s unprecedented run — runs, plural, really — and Kansas City is poised to whitewash them with a win on Sunday and start the process over with new subjects.
At least Joe Montana had a few decades to enjoy being considered the GOAT, never mind that the acronym wasn’t even a thing between the time he won four rings and Brady zipped past him toward his seven in the HOV lane.
Brady has been retired for only two years and already faces this imminent threat to his perch atop the quarterback hierarchy.
Mahomes already draws comparisons to the until-recently-peerless Brady. If he wins a third straight Super Bowl to give him four championships before he turns 30 in September — winning NFL titles in half of his eight seasons — there are many who will start putting Mahomes ahead of Brady.
And now Brady may even have to announce his own usurpation at quarterback as the lead analyst for Fox’s broadcast of the game!
Good thing he doesn’t worry about such things . . . or at least says he doesn’t.
Brady interviewed Mahomes on Wednesday morning, a segment that will air Sunday.
“I said, ‘Look, there’s nobody who would be more happy for you than me if you go out and you do something that no other team in history has ever done, that no other quarterback’s ever done,’ ” Brady said on a conference call Wednesday. “I love seeing other people achieve great things . . . Anything that Patrick is doing, I don’t believe it will ever detract from what I accomplished in my career.”
His former Patriots teammates (and current Fox broadcasters) apparently feel the same way.
“You just have to appreciate what they are doing,” Rob Gronkowski said. “We had our time. We did the most with it as well . . . I appreciate what Kansas City is doing because we know how much time, dedication and hard work goes into being great. They’re role models. You have to respect it, appreciate it and tip your hat to it.”
Said Julian Edelman of the dueling dynasties: “That’s for other people to compare . . . The hay is in the barn. We’re done. We’re good.”
Kansas City has mostly downplayed its attempts at historical excellence this week, but it definitely is in the back of the players’ minds.
Brady is at least aware of how he is perceived now as a player . . . and how that perception might change by Monday.
“I think it’s natural for everybody to compare teams to teams of the past, players to players of the past, and none of it surprises me,” he said. “It’s been happening since I started as a young player. It’s not how I view things, though. I think that I approached the game in a way that was ‘can I be the best I can be for myself and my teammates? And what’s the best version of myself every single year without comparing myself to anybody else?’ It was me versus me all the time, and that was the motivation I needed.
“It was never about how many Pro Bowls or how many Super Bowls, how many MVPs to win. Because everyone’s got an opinion based on their own flavor, what they like to see. What they couldn’t have an opinion on was how I viewed myself. And I think that’s similar for [Kansas City] and for Patrick.”
That’s nice. Even a little sweet. Probably a good mentality for Brady and Mahomes to have.
It definitely won’t stop the rest of us from apple-to-appleing them though.
The Lombardi Trophy isn’t going to be the only thing up for grabs on Sunday. The “best” crowns will be, too. And however the game plays out, the king will be there to see it all happen.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
