One More Matchup For The Ages?

By Martin Rogers
FOX Sports activities columnist

An extended, very long time has handed since Tom Brady and Drew Brees first met on a soccer area. Certain, not fairly lengthy sufficient for the 2 timeless quarterbacks to but resemble their photographs in that tremendous History Channel meme cooked up by Brady’s social media crew.

However a very long time.

As Brady and Brees go head-to-head for a ninth and possibly last duel on Sunday (6:40 p.m. ET on FOX), it’s as becoming as might be that this one, of all of them, issues essentially the most.

Brees’ New Orleans Saints are in search of to provide their inspirational chief the proper sendoff earlier than he’s anticipated to stride away within the course of a commentary sales space and a future place within the Corridor of Fame.

Brady is looking down sports activities immortality, making an attempt so as to add to the six Tremendous Bowl rings he gained in New England by reimagining the fashionable historical past of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

The pair are associates, record-breakers and mutual admirers – and maybe nobody else understands what it has taken the opposite to achieve this level, nonetheless chugging at ages 43 and 42. However just one man can emerge from this weekend with these late-career goals nonetheless alive, the opposite should nurse the bitter tang of disappointment.

Every thing is at stake, but divisional spherical week has introduced loads of nostalgia and no scarcity of humor, memes however.

“We had been texting on Monday,” Brees mentioned. “Simply type of chuckling at this complete state of affairs. There’s 85 years and lots of soccer expertise that’s going to be on the sector on Sunday.”

“I’ve identified (Drew) for a very long time,” mentioned Brady, in the course of the Bucs’ media availability. “I’ve at all times had a large amount of respect for him, going all the way in which again to his Purdue days.”

It was throughout Brees’ school profession at Purdue that the QBs first encountered one another, with Brady’s Michigan Wolverines popping out on prime, 38-12, on Oct. 2, 1999. There’s some irony that their matchups began when the world at giant didn’t know them, in entrance of 111,468 at Michigan’s Large Home, and can finish with them as well-known as any athletes in America, however enjoying earlier than a restricted Superdome crowd of round 3,000.

“It was loud that day,” Marcus Knight, Brady’s main receiver within the Purdue recreation with 136 yards and a landing, instructed me by way of phone this week. “The Large Home was at all times loud.”

Brees went into the sport with Heisman aspirations and a rising fame, and with Purdue ranked No. 11 and Michigan No. 4. Brady was within the midst of a quarterback battle with freshman teammate Drew Henson.

“Brees was already Brees, however we weren’t that frightened about Tom to be trustworthy,” Matt Mitrione instructed me. Mitrione, a hard-hitting combined martial artist with Bellator and beforehand the UFC, was a part of the identical incoming class at Purdue as Brees, and began 35 consecutive video games at defensive sort out. “We figured our greater issues would come from (operating again) Anthony Thomas.”

Nonetheless, Brady stood tall, and after Michigan burst into an early lead, there was no wanting again.

“The Purdue offense with Drew Brees was unfold out and really dynamic,” Knight remembers. “We knew we needed to put lots of factors as much as assist our protection out.

“This was the 12 months when Tom was actually getting the primary alternative to show himself. You can see it in his eyes that he was on the lookout for the respect he was due. There have been different quarterbacks individuals had been speaking about, and he needed to make everybody take discover.”

Knight mentioned Michigan benefitted from the shock and awe issue of the large crowd, with Brees throwing for 293 yards but additionally tossing a key interception and coughing up a fumble within the first quarter.

Knight, who performed 21 video games for the Oakland Raiders from 2001-02 earlier than spending time in NFL Europe, is now the broad receivers coach at Indiana State and regularly makes use of the instance of Brady’s school struggles when mentoring younger gamers.

“I inform them to have a look at what he has completed,” Knight mentioned. “Should you can come by adversity, consider in your self when not everybody does, profit from your second when it arrives and grasp it, then it’s much more of a blessing than in the event you’d had it straightforward. That’s the story of Tom Brady.”

Brady’s TB12 routine has grow to be legendary, however, based on Mitrione, Brees’ consideration to element and aggressive spirit has at all times been simply as fanatical.

“We butted heads typically in school, I used to be a partier and he was way more conservative, however I might by no means throw shade at him due to how onerous he labored. Every thing was most depth. He would arrange these rubbish cans to follow deep balls and if he didn’t sink them he would get livid with himself.

“Competitors is his vice. I’ve by no means met anybody in sports activities with the identical psychological aptitude for competitors as him. We might do Final Frisbee for cardio they usually finally needed to inform Drew to cease enjoying for his personal security. He’d be full-length diving over offensive linemen to attempt to catch the frisbee. He needed to win that badly. While you see that, it’s not so shocking he’s been as profitable as he has.”

There are classes available in these tales for all of us, but neither Brady nor Brees are able to grow to be a fully-fledged a part of NFL folklore simply but. There’s nonetheless critical enterprise at stake and two legacies that may nonetheless be additional polished.

“(Brady) has essentially the most to achieve,” former All-Pro Brandon Marshall said on FS1’s First Things First, when discussing what this postseason means to the remaining quarterbacks. “It’s virtually like Kobe and Shaq. If Tom Brady goes to win a Tremendous Bowl with out Invoice Belichick, now we aren’t speaking about him as the best soccer participant of all time, I believe that thrusts him within the dialog as the best competitor in all of sports activities.”

Nonetheless, Tampa Bay will go in as underdogs (+3, per FOX Bet) and Brees additionally has the profession edge, having bested Brady on 5 of the eight occasions they’ve performed, together with a 38-3 beatdown on Nov. 8.

Each superstars have confronted numerous massive events like this earlier than, but this one feels slightly totally different. For time is ticking on each of them, and if issues don’t work out, there may be a very long time to consider it afterwards.