Tom Brady is the greatest football player of all time. He rose from being the 199th pick of the 2000 NFL Draft to the only player to win seven Super Bowls.
But before Brady got to seven rings, there was a time when he vacationed in the Bahamas and played a round of golf with Michael Jordan. While the two all-time greats were engaged in friendly trash-talking, MJ flashed his championship resume to TB12.
“Come back to me when you have six championships,” Jordan dared.
Brady had just won his fourth Super Bowl
The year the golf game happened was the one in which the New England Patriots defeated the Seattle Seahawks at Super Bowl XLIX. Although Malcolm Butler’s interception sealed the win for the Pats, Brady threw for 328 yards with 4 TDs to win his third Super Bowl MVP award.
The victory was also New England’s fourth Super Bowl win, putting Brady on par with the legendary quarterback Joe Montana. Joe Cool led the San Francisco 49ers to four Super Bowl victories and, at that time, was considered the GOAT of the NFL. Perhaps Tom felt he was already on that GOAT level, so he had the confidence to talk smack to MJ, even during a friendly round of golf.
But of course, Jordan wasn’t having any of Brady’s talk because there are levels to sports greatness. His Airness won six championships with the Chicago Bulls in the NBA, and since six is two more than four, TB couldn’t put himself in the same breath as Michael.
The target was already on Jordan’s back
Unknown to Mike, however, Brady had already put the target on his back even before they played that round of golf. One year earlier, Patriots wide received Julian Edelman was working out with TB at the latter’s home gym in L.A. when he noticed the location of the next Super Bowl on his whiteboard.
“It’s like March, and I’m like, ‘What is that?’ He said, ‘That’s where we’re going to go play the last game.’ I go, ‘We’re going to get you to pass Joe Montana’ because of four—you know, four Super Bowls,” Edelman said. “He looks at me with that golden stare, with those sizzling steel blue eyes, and says, ‘I’m not going for Montana. I’m going for Jordan.'”
Brady would go on to win the Super Bowl again with the Patriots in 2017 and 2019. In 2021, he did the unthinkable by leaving New England to play for Tampa Bay and leading the Bucs to victory at Super Bowl LV at the age of 43. It’s unknown if Tom ever played golf again with MJ or if he came back to MJ to show off his seven rings. But TB did get the last laugh on that one.
