Tom Bradyturns 40 today. Almost impossibly, he remains the best quarterback in the world. The NFL's ageless wonder has worked tirelessly to stay on top of his profession, and one can assume that competitive fire seeps into all aspects of his existence.
That includes social media, where the Patriots quarterback has made a concerted effort to ramp up his profile in recent years. With that in mind, here's a ranking of our favorite Brady social media posts, either created by or featuring the birthday boy.
10. Tom's Asian adventure
In June, Brady and his son visited Beijing, Shanghai and Tokyo as part as a marathon promotional blitz with Under Armour. We could have highlighted Brady throwing spirals atop the Great Wall of China, but we settled on Brady's introduction to sumo wrestling. I wouldn't count him out in outright competition, even with the 200-pound weight disadvantage. They could never measure his heart!
9. Another year, another ring ceremony
Martellus Bennett was another personnel master stroke by Bill Belichick, who gave Brady one more dangerous weapon on the march to Super Bowl title No. 5. Bennett also brought some much-needed personality to Patriot Way. Here's the Black Unicorn and the GOAT, who can't help but upstage his teammate during the Pats' ring ceremony in June.
BONUS: Brady on the dancefloor that same night, reciting every word of "Ain't Nothing But A G Thang." I remain strangely impressed by this.
8. Dad Humor
Brady may be the greatest quarterback ever, but he's also something many people can relate to -- a 40-year-old dad with a corny sense of humor.
After the Pats won the AFC Championship in January, Brady posted a celebration photo and quoted The Hangover, which has basically his generation's version of Animal House.
7. Idle hands
Brady was suspended the first four games of the 2016 season for his alleged role in the Patriots' Deflategate scandal. During his controversial banishment, the quarterback began posting cover pages from the TB Times, a fictional newspaper that breathlessly covered the exploits of the Patriots. They were weird and a little surreal and I'm not convinced Brady knows they exist.
6. Curse? What curse?
The Madden curse is silly and untrue, so kudos to Brady for daring the video game gods to strike him down. Brady's camp released a series of videos poking fun at the idea the quarterback was in grave danger after being named the *Madden NFL 18* cover boy.
5. Tom has fun with missing jersey saga
The story of Brady's stolen Super Bowl LI game jersey became a global headline, but credit Brady for never coming off too upset about the whole thing. He actually seemed kind of amused by it all. Take, for instance, this "evidence board" shared a couple weeks after the theft.
The caption is a *Good Will Hunting* callback and subtle hat tip to his army of New England supporters.
4. The jersey homecoming
Brady's stolen jersey was eventually tracked down in Mexico and returned to the Patriots. Team owner Robert Kraft made sure to play up the reunion for maximum publicity, welcoming cameras into his office to capture the moment Brady and No. 12 were reunited for good.
3. Tom learns German
Brady and former Patriots teammate Sebastian Vollmer are buddies. Their chemistry is on clear display in the below video in which Vollmer attempts to teach Brady some basic German. Our favorite exchange as things went off the rails:
Brady: I am German, too. I'm part German. You thought you were the only German on the set? There's two Germans on the set!
Vollmer: Have you picked up anything at Christmas dinner?
Brady: Volkswagen.
2. Before he was the GOAT
Brady's hero story is well documented. After a successful but hardly legendary career at Michigan, Brady entered the NFL draft process as an unheralded, overlooked prospect without any of the tools needed to be a starting quarterback. Or so the football cognoscenti thought. The 199th overall pick of the 2000 draft dug up his old combine T-shirt and got nostalgic on Instagram.
1. The good life
Did you know that Tom Brady, in addition to being a living legend of professional football, is married to one of the most famous supermodels in the world? Yep, Tom has this life thing pretty much figured out. Happy 40th.
