Tom Brady was in the Fox booth on Sunday for the Chicago Bears’ game against the Atlanta Falcons, and he took a jab at the home crowd. “I kind of feel bad for these fans when they tune into a game on Fox,” he said, according to Pro Football Network.
Falcons fans know why. In Super Bowl LI, Atlanta led the New England Patriots 28-3 before Brady brought his team back to win 34-28 in overtime, the biggest comeback in Super Bowl history.
In 2000, nobody expected much from him. The Patriots took him out of Michigan in the sixth round, and his first contract reflected that.
Six Quarterbacks Went First
Brady was the 199th pick in the 2000 NFL Draft. Six quarterbacks were taken ahead of him: Chad Pennington, Giovanni Carmazzi, Chris Redman, Tee Martin, Marc Bulger and Spergon Wynn.
He never forgot the list. Twenty years after the draft, he wrote on Instagram, “Nope, I haven’t forgot,” ProFootballTalk reported.
A $38,400 Signing Bonus
The Patriots signed him to a three-year deal worth $864,000, with a $38,400 signing bonus, according to NBC Sports Boston’s Tom E. Curran.
“As the 199th overall pick in the 2000 draft, Brady’s deal was commensurately modest,” Curran wrote.
Brady spent his rookie year as a backup. He took over as the starter in 2001 after Drew Bledsoe was injured, and he finished that season by winning the first Super Bowl in franchise history.
The Raise After His First Ring
The rookie deal didn’t last. In August 2002, the Patriots tore it up and gave him a five-year, $30.52 million contract with a $10 million signing bonus, per NBC Sports Boston.
The numbers kept climbing from there. He signed a six-year, $60 million deal in 2005 and a four-year, $72 million extension in 2010 that included $48.5 million guaranteed.
He also took less than he could have. In 2013, he agreed to a three-year, $27 million extension that Curran described as giving the Patriots “a huge financial break.”
Seven Rings and a Seat in the Booth
Brady won six Super Bowls with New England. He added a seventh with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Super Bowl LV, after the 2020 season.
Fox lined up his next job before he retired. The network signed him to a 10-year, $375 million deal to be its lead NFL analyst once his playing days were over, first reported by Andrew Marchand of the New York Post in May 2022, per NBC Sports Boston.
That works out to about $37.5 million a year.
For another rookie deal that paid off in a big way, read how Nike signed a rookie Michael Jordan for $500,000 a year.
