Patriots praise Tom Brady after 500th career TD pass, 71st to different receiver
By Ty Anderson, 985TheSportsHub.com
Sitting at 499 career touchdown passes after throws to Cordarrelle Patterson and James White in what finished as a 38-24 final over the Colts on Thursday, a broken play saw Tom Brady motion Josh Gordon to go his right and long.
And with just steps to spare behind the line of scrimmage, the 41-year-old stepped up and fired a hanging ball into double-coverage, where the 27-year-old outworked two Colt defenders for his first touchdown as a Patriot.
Gordon, whose line in two appearances with the Patriots now includes four catches on six targets for 82 yards and a score, spiked the ball in pure euphoria. As if the ball wasn’t worth a dime. (Ron Howard narrator voice: It was.)
With the ball crossing the goal line, Brady now sits at 500 career touchdown throws, becoming just the third quarterback in league history to reach such a milestone (Drew Brees, with 496, is knocking on the door). And with the catch, Gordon became the 71st different player to catch a pass from Brady, breaking a record previously held by Vinny Testaverde (70), which Brady tied during last week’s rout of the Miami Dolphins.
“To catch any pass from Tom is amazing, let alone some history-making catch or pass,” Gordon said after the victory. “You know, for him, I told him congratulations, and I know there’s many more for him to come. Hopefully, he’s got a lot more left in him – I’m pretty sure he does – so I’m looking forward to that.
“The next history point to make for him, I hope to be a part of it. So, it was awesome.”
Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, who has overseen every Brady NFL accomplishment since the duo first formed and took over the National Football League in 2001, shared similar sentiment when discussing his quarterback.
“It’s tremendous,” Belichick, whose team is now at 3-2 after a 1-2 start, began. “That’s a lot of touchdown passes to a lot of different guys, too. There’s no quarterback I’d rather have than Tom Brady. He does a great job week-in and week-out, year-in and year-out, all of the situations. He does a great job.”
Belichick also went on to say that nobody has meant more to the Patriots organization than Brady.
Brady, meanwhile, did his best to play it cool and bring it back to the team concept of it all.
“I think all these things like that, milestones and so forth, there are so many people that contribute,” Brady said. “So, I just think of all the people that have really worked hard; A quarterback doesn’t throw them to himself. He needs people to catch them and block and defenses make plays and coaches to coach. These are all great team awards.
‘So, pretty cool.”
Finishing his night on 500, Brady’s sights are now set on Brett Favre, who sits No. 2 on the all-time touchdown pass list, with 508 connections. Peyton Manning, the chief rival of Brady throughout his NFL career and whose former team Brady beat the bag out of Thursday, sits with the most touchdowns in NFL history, with 539.
Ty Anderson is a writer and columnist for 985TheSportsHub.com. Any opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of 98.5 The Sports Hub, Beasley Media Group, or any subsidiaries. Have a news tip, question, or comment for Ty? Follow him on Twitter @_TyAnderson.
