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Love him or hate him, there’s no denying that Tom Brady is one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history. After nine Super Bowl appearances and six championships with the New England Patriots, TB12 led the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to their first appearance in the title game in 18 years in his very first season with the franchise, his 21st overall season in the league. So no matter the outcome of this matchup with Patrick Mahomes and the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs, that’s quite the accomplishment.

But speaking of accomplishments, there was one thing he’d never done in those first nine Super Bowl appearances: lead his team to a touchdown in the first quarter. But as we all just saw, that streak has come to an end.

Tom Brady is playing in his 10th Super Bowl

As mentioned just a moment ago — and surely you’ve heard it said about a thousand times in the build to Super Bowl 55 — Tom Brady is appearing in his 10th Super Bowl in 21 seasons in the NFL.

Actually, if you really sit and break it down, this is his 10th Super Bowl in 19 seasons as he only threw three passes as a rookie in 2000 and then missed essentially the entire 2008 season after tearing both his ACL and MCL in the very first quarter of the Patriots’ opening game that year, which just happened to be against the Kansas City Chiefs.

In those previous nine Super Bowl appearances with the Patriots, Brady won six of those games and earned four Super Bowl MVP trophies, the most in NFL history. But he somehow never led New England to a touchdown in the first quarter of any of those games.

In his first nine appearances in the title game, TB12 never led his team to a touchdown in the first quarter

As you can see from the tweet above that was sent out during Tom Brady’s last Super Bowl appearance with the Patriots, he never led New England to a touchdown in the first quarter.

In fact, the only scoring drive he led in the first quarter came in Super Bowl 52 when the Pats lost to the Philadelphia Eagles. New England won the coin toss that night and elected to defer. Philly’s first drive took more than seven minutes off the clock but only resulted in a field goal. The Patriots’ first offensive drive yielded the same result.

Brady completed six of eight passes for 60 yards on the drive but things stalled out on the Eagles’ eight-yard line and Stephen Gostkowski kicked a 25-yard field goal to even the score. Tom Brady would go on to throw for a Super Bowl record 505 yards in the 41-33 loss.

Tom Brady has finally broken the streak

Tom Brady has finally broken the streak. On the Buccaneers’ third drive of the first quarter in Super Bowl 55, TB12 completed six of seven passes for 50 yards and found his old pal Rob Gronkowski for an eight-yard score with 37 seconds remaining in the first quarter to give Tampa Bay the lead.

Stats courtesy of Pro Football Reference

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Senior Writer, Programmer

Luke Norris

Luke Norris began his sportswriting career in 2013 and joined Sportscasting in 2020. The former Section Editor of the NFL and Motorsports sections, he now spends his time here in the role of Senior Writer-Programmer. His well-rounded sports knowledge allows him to cover the NFL, NBA, PGA Tour, MLB, boxing, WWE, and NASCAR for Sportscasting.

Luke is an avid golfer who finds inspiration in the way sports can bring people together and provide a distraction from the real world. He hopes to provide a little entertainment or an escape from the real world with every article he writes, even if only for a few minutes.

In addition to his work here at Sportscasting, Luke’s work has appeared on  The Sportster, Inquisitr, GiveMeSport, FanSided, Yahoo! Fox Sports, and Sports Illustrated.