Which NFL team did Tom Brady support as a child?
A young boy from California who dreamed of playing for his home team gets rejected by them and goes on to become the GOAT and retire.
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Tom Brady (Image via The Ringer)
Irrespective of whether people watch the NFL, everyone around the world knows who exactly Tom Brady is. He is considered one of the greatest athletes of all time given the hardships he had to overcome to reach where he is right now. Brady was a quarterback in the National Football League for 23 years and has almost every record there is to his name.
In the years Tom Brady has spent as a quarterback, he has appeared in 10 Super Bowls and won 7 of them, which is an all-time record. He has won 5x Super Bowl MVPs and 3x NFL MVPs. The records under Brady’s belt include – Most TDs passes (649), Most wins in regular season history (251), most playoff wins (35), most playoff TD passes (88), and most Pro Bowl selections (15).
Tom Brady is a real-life example of how hard work triumphs over talent. He was selected 199th overall in the 2000 NFL draft by the AFC East’s New England Patriots after the rest 31 teams overlooked him. From that moment on, he made it his life’s mission to show everyone (including the 198 draft picks before him!) what they missed by becoming the greatest ever to throw the football. And in the end, Brady did what he set out to do and now rests as the GOAT of the NFL. There is no other quarterback in the history of football who is even close to Brady, and his record of Super Bowl wins will not be broken for at least the next five decades.
Let’s take a deep dive into the future hall of fame’s childhood and find out how his love for football was generated and which teams he aspired to play for when he grew up.
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Early Years and Football Influence
Tom Brady grew up in San Mateo, California, where he attended the Junípero Serra High School. He first started playing on Portola Drive in his hometown with his neighborhood friends. Brady’s childhood home is 20 miles south of San Francisco, which is a half-hour drive to Santa Clara where the 49ers currently play. Brady was as good a baseball player as he was a quarterback when he was young.
He used to hit long home runs to kids twice his age when he was around 10 years old. Scott Cannel, a childhood friend of Brady’s, revealed to Fox News that the legendary signal-caller always had the hunger to win and always be better even when he was a kid. “He was the most competitive kid out there. He hated to lose. He hated to strike out. He hated to misthrow somebody. It was kind of funny to see how competitive he was then, to how competitive he is now,” Cannel said.
Brady loved watching the San Francisco 49ers play at Candlestick Park with his parents. During an interview back in December 2022, Tom said, “You know I always consider myself a California kid. Grew up, obviously, loving Joe Montana and Steve Young and going to 49ers games, that’s where I fell in love with football…I was lucky to grow up in the Bay Area at that time.”
Childhood Memories of Favorite NFL Team
Tom Brady was really lucky to have grown up in the shadow of an NFL dynasty as he went on to create the biggest and unshakeable dynasty in the league a few years later. Young Tom got to see the 49ers, led by Joe Montana, win their first Super Bowl and also the next three, which increased his love for the franchise. When Brady was four years old, his parents took him to see the 1981 NFC Championship game between the Dallas Cowboys and the 49ers, where the infamous ‘The Catch’ took place.
The 49ers were on 3rd down and 3 at the Cowboys’ 6-yard line with 58 seconds left in regulation and Dallas leading the scoreboard. That’s when Joe Cool took the snap, rolled to right, and took all the time in the world until he throw to wide receiver Dwight Clark at the back of the endzone who made a leading catch to seal the game for San Francisco and advance to the Super Bowl.
The Catch is often regarded as one of the best plays in NFL history and Brady was there to witness it. The cheers and chants of Montana, the winning feeling, and the moment where the world literally stops for that one play are what remained with young Tom when he left Candlestick Park after the game and motivated him to be in the exact same spot when he grew up.
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Impact of Childhood Team on Brady’s Football Journey
Tom Brady played at the University of Michigan from 1995 to 1999. For the first two years at Michigan, he did not get a chance to start and was so frustrated that he almost had half a mind to transfer to the University of California, Berkeley, but decided against it. He fought for the starting job with Drew Henson in 1998 but won and got to start every game that season.
He again had to fight with Henson in 1999 and was again chosen as the starter. In the two years, Brady was the quarterback of the Michigan Wolverines, he had a 20-5 record with a Citrus Bowl and Orange Bowl victory. He completed his collegiate career with a 62.3 completion percentage and threw for 5,351 yards, and 35 touchdowns. Brady’s Combine performance didn’t impress anyone, which led to him being selected in the sixth round of the draft.
Tom who was a huge 49ers fan since his childhood, wanted his hometeam to draft him, but unfortunately, San Francisco passed him over which enraged the future NFL legend. “I loved the 49ers, I loved them through college, and then when they skipped over me six times I started to hate the 49ers and that’s just the way it went down,” Brady said last year in December. The 49ers really missed the chance of a lifetime and passed over Tom Brady. Who knows, maybe it would have been the 49ers that Brady won the seven Super Bowl with.
Tom Brady faced his home team, the team he loved and wished to play for since he knew how to throw a football, the 49ers, four times in his 23-year-long career. He had a passer rating of 82.4 with 1,202 yards, 8 touchdowns, and 5 interceptions against San Francisco with a 2-2 record.
Tom Brady’s dream to play for the 49ers remained a dream
Tom Brady spent two decades with the New England Patriots, where he established the Patriots dynasty by winning six Super Bowl championships. However, toward the end, his relationship with the team became sour for many reasons (including the Deflategate fiasco) which led to being ultimately leaving the team. After the 2019 season, Brady expressed his wish to play for the 49ers.
However, San Francisco outright declined his offer and said that they were going all in with Jimmy Garoppolo, who led them to Super Bowl LIV. This crushed Brady once again and he signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who welcomed him with open arms. After his second rejection from the 49ers, Tom went on to win Super Bowl LV and became the oldest quarterback in NFL history to ever lift the Lombardi Trophy at 43.
It looks like Brady’s career was shaped by the 49ers rejecting him at every point, which was the motivation for him to do better, be better, and show them what they missed by failing to acquire him TWICE!
The 45-year-old announced his second and final retirement after his 23rd season from football on February 1, 2023. However, the rumors about him joining the San Francisco 49ers for at least one football season or at least one regular season game still won’t die down. Mike Sliver said on The Herd with Colin Cowherd that the 49ers will try and talk Brady out of retirement once the dust settles down. While this is highly unlikely, if it happens (one in a million), then it would be a full circle for Tom Brady – from being rejected by his childhood team to coming back from retirement to play for them. It will make for a perfect ending for a story that inspired a whole generation of people.
A young boy from California who dreamed of playing for his home team gets rejected by them and goes on to become the GOAT and retire. But in the end, plays one final season for them and completes his childhood dream of hopefully winning the Super Bowl with them.
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