On Oct. 14, 2001, quarterback Tom Brady, then playing for the New England Patriots, threw his first NFL career touchdown pass – a 21-yard scoring strike to wide receiver Terry Glenn. After catching Brady’s first NFL touchdown, Glenn threw the ball into the crowd, which was caught by a long-time Patriots fan who has been going to games since the late 1970s, per a report by ESPN’s Tom VanHaaren. In that game, Brady completed 33 of 54 passes for 364 yards and two touchdowns with no interception. Before throwing his first career touchdown pass, Brady had no touchdown pass in his first 2 ½ games since taking over the starting job following a season-ending injury to Drew Bledsoe.
At the end of the 2003 season after the Patriots beat the Carolina Panthers in Super Bowl, the fan decided to put the ball in a safety deposit box at his local bank and was rarely brought out since then. The ball only saw daylight every Super Bowl the Patriots played in when the seller takes a picture of it and send it to his friends for good luck. During Brady’s two-decade tenure as starter, the Patriots won six of nine Super Bowl appearances.
The 43-year-old Brady reacted to the auction, which will be held from May 9 to June 4, on his Instagram Story, sharing a picture of the story regarding the sale and added the caption “LFG #1 of _____?” Since throwing his first career touchdown pass, Brady emerged as the NFL’s all-time leader in touchdown passes after he threw 580 more scoring strikes in the regular season, 10 more than Drew Brees, who retired recently after 20 seasons with the Chargers and the New Orleans Saints.
Including playoffs, Brady has 664 touchdown passes, way ahead of Brees, who had a total of 608.
Historic ball to make owner rich
Called by Lelands on its Instagram account as the “most important football in the world”, the historic football was verified by the auction company. According to VanHaaren, the football was specific to the Patriots at the time.
The ball could fetch the owner a lot of money as demand for Brady’s memorabilia is very high, especially after he led the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to their first Super Bowl since 2002. Just recently, Brady’s 2000 Patriots rookie card was sold for a record $2.25 million.
Brady joins calls for modified offseason work
Per Josh Alper of Pro Football Talk, Brady joined the conference call conducted by the NFL Players Association among its members regarding the union’s push for players to stay away from in-person work this offseason.
According to Alper, Brady encouraged players to have “very intense negotiations” with their teams about changing the offseason work in preparation for the upcoming season. Brady, during his talk, is convinced that there’s a better way to prepare, which was proven last season as the NFL completed its full season amid the pandemic.
