Sports on Tap: The GOATs

Steph Curry finished the month of April with an all-time NBA record for distance shooting -- 96 three-pointers, the most ever by an NBA player in a calendar month.

He averaged 37.3 points a game in April, his best month ever, and -- entering May -- had scored 30 or more points in 14 of his most-recent 16 games.

One stat that shows Curry's value is the Warriors' record
in the eight games he has missed this year -- 1-7.

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In the National Football League, Tom Brady is widely considered the GOAT at the game's most important position.

After winning six Super Bowls as New England's quarterback, Brady won a seventh for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the Super Bowl played in Tampa in February of 2021.

What are the prospects that Brady, who will turn 44 shortly before Tampa opens this year's season, will be a champion yet again?

Several factors argue in favor of that outcome...

  -- Brady's demonstrated greatness...

  -- The fact that Tampa Bay has re-signed all 22 of its offensive and defensive starters who won the most-recent Super Bowl...

  -- The retirement from the NFL of Drew Brees.  Brees led his New Orleans Saints to two victories over Brady and the Bucs last season, leading the Saints to a division title over Tampa Bay.  The Bucs dominated the rest of their opponents .. and were unbeatable in December, January and in the Big Game in February.  With Brees gone, what team is there in Brady's division to challenge for the division title (which means a berth in the NFL playoffs)?  The Carolina Panthers?

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Steph Curry amazed on Saturday, scoring 49 points on 11 three-point makes in three quarters of play.

Curry has made 10 or more three-pointers 22 times in his career.  No other NBA player has performed the feat more than five times.

He sat out the entire fourth quarter as Golden State had built a 39-point lead over Oklahoma City after three, blowing out the Thunder, 136-97, in San Francisco.

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Steph Curry closed out the NBA regular season in dominating fashion, scoring 46 points in San Francisco against the Memphis Grizzlies.

Curry won the NBA scoring title with a 32-points-per-game average.

Curry thus joins Michael Jordan, Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as players who have won multiple NBA scoring titles.  Curry previously was top scorer in 2015-16 with a 30.1 points average.  In the same year, he was crowned league MVP in a first-ever unanimous vote.

Curry's Warriors defeated the Grizz in the Sunday finale, 113-101, and are the second-ranked of the four teams in the NBA Western Conference play-in series.

Golden State with Steph vs. the L.A. Lakers with LeBron, this Wednesday night, May 19th.

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CC. I hope you will forgive me for going off-topic just a bit here by commenting on an NFL player who while nowhere near the Greatest Of All Time was - for a while - the most attractive NFL player alive. I read somewhere that he is thinking of making a come-back; I don't think that would be a productive move at all. Still...

The young man was Tim Tebow, whose name will be known by all NFL fans of the period - and maybe by some who never even saw him play. You yourself will know of him, and may even have been as enthralled as I was by his desperate inconsistency and plain good luck.

I devoted one of my personal online-journal posts to him, a few years ago, and I am taking the liberty of giving the link below. I ended that post with this sentence If you Google “3:16 game” you will have your choice of 56 million entries to read all about it. I've just Googled the same thing now, and the number of entries is now 121 million! I have to say I don't really believe that current figure - but you never know... I'm not going to check with Google!
https://barlowscayman.blogspot.com/2014 … tball.html

Steph Curry has been named a finalist for Most Valuable Player of the NBA.  He led the Warriors to 15 wins in the last 20 regular-season games.  Golden State won its final six games of the season.

However, Curry's season came to a crashing halt in San Francisco on Friday night (May 21) in an overtime loss to the Memphis Grizzlies in the novel play-in series.

Curry scored 39 points, but was smothered by the Memphis D in the extra period, as the Grizzlies prevailed, 117-113.

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cccmedia wrote:

Among sports fans, the term GOAT means Greatest of All Time.

In the 20th century, sports fans knew a different meaning for "the goat."  It meant the guy you could blame a loss on.

For instance, in 1966, in future Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax's final start, when outfielder Willie Davis dropped consecutive fly balls and then picked up the second ball and threw it over the third baseman's head, Davis was 'the goat' in the Dodgers' 6-0 loss in a World Series versus the Baltimore Orioles.  The hapless Dodgers also set a Series record for offensive futility, scoring only two runs in Game 1 and being shut out in Games 2, 3 and 4.

This week, a rookie infielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates was the goat of this type on one of the worst plays in modern baseball history, demonstrating an amazing inability to understand the fundamentals of infield play and how a run is scored. 

The play is described and a video link provided at our new thread on this Expat Café forum, titled The Weird, The Wild and the Wacky in the World of Sports.

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The second post on the Weird/Wild/Wacky thread is about another GOAT -- a 'greatest' in the 21st Century context -- sportscaster Marv Albert, a legend in his own time, the greatest-ever basketball announcer.

Marv is retiring at age 80.

His autobiography, his big break starting in play-by-play, his classic on-air calls, his 'wild and wacky' schtick, his comeback after a preposterous but true sex scandal -- all these come up in that post.

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A year ago, quarterback Tom Brady's move to the NFL Tampa Bay Buccaneers was a big question mark.  How would he fare in his first season away from New England?

Brady bolstered Tampa Bay's offensive power not only in his personal free-agency decision .. but also in attracting to his new team the future Hall of Fame tight end Rob Gronkowski and superstar wide receiver Antonio Brown.  The Bucs turned a late-season run into an NFL championship.

The fact that all three men will lead the team again in the 2021 season and the unusual feat (reported above) of re-signing all their starters makes Tampa an odds-on favorite to make it to another Super Bowl.

In an article now posted at nfl.com, the site's football analyst Marc Ross makes the following points about Brady's 2021 supporting cast....

-- Tampa Bay is 'stacked' at the tight end position with Gronkowski, Cameron Brate and O.J. Howard (the latter returning from injury).

-- The offensive line is solid and features second-year man Tristan Wirfs, who is on his way to becoming "the best lineman in the NFL."

More from the nfl.com article....

Defensively, the Tampa Bay pass rush is unsurpassed with Shaq Barrett, Vita Veia and Jason Pierre-Paul.  The team also has "perhaps the best linebacking duo" in the league. 

Special teams... Ryan Succop, coming off a stellar season in which he converted 90 percent of his field goal and extra-point attempts, re-signed for three more years.

"There is no weakness on this roster," concludes analyst Marc Ross.

--

The Buccaneers will host the NFL's 2021 Kickoff Game in an expanded 17-game regular season, on Thursday night, September 9th.  They will be facing the Dallas Cowboys in Tampa.

"9/9 can't come soon enough," Brady posted on his Instagram Story.  "Excited to open against 'America's team'."

--

Brady's Bucs will travel to Foxboro, Mass., three weeks later in Brady's first-ever game as a visitor to Gillette Stadium.  He won six Super Bowls for the Patriots in his 20-year tenure.  It will be Tampa Bay at New England, October 3rd, on Sunday Night Football.

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Gordon Barlow wrote:

CC. I hope you will forgive me for going off-topic just a bit here by commenting on an NFL player who while nowhere near the Greatest Of All Time was - for a while - the most attractive NFL player alive. I read somewhere that he is thinking of making a come-back; I don't think that would be a productive move at all. Still...

The young man was Tim Tebow, whose name will be known by all NFL fans of the period - and maybe by some who never even saw him play. You yourself will know of him, and may even have been as enthralled as I was by his desperate inconsistency and plain good luck.

I devoted one of my personal online-journal posts to him, a few years ago, and I am taking the liberty of giving the link below. I ended that post with this sentence If you Google “3:16 game” you will have your choice of 56 million entries to read all about it. I've just Googled the same thing now, and the number of entries is now 121 million! I have to say I don't really believe that current figure - but you never know... I'm not going to check with Google!
https://barlowscayman.blogspot.com/2014 … tball.html

Tim Tebow really isn't remembered all that fondly in NFL circles. He had some very limited success, but nothing like he experienced in college. (He was cut the other day in his bid to come back as a tight end, by the way). If you go to college at Florida or follow college football, you'll probably remember his name for quite a while, but he didn't make that big of a splash in the NFL and even less so in his attempt to play baseball.

padwock wrote:

Tim Tebow really isn't remembered all that fondly in NFL circles. He had some very limited success, but nothing like he experienced in college. (He was cut the other day in his bid to come back as a tight end, by the way). If you go to college at Florida or follow college football, you'll probably remember his name for quite a while, but he didn't make that big of a splash in the NFL and even less so in his attempt to play baseball.

You won't get any argument from me, Paddy! as I wrote in my blog-post, "One of the most erratic of players, his competence in the game was like nothing so much as the little girl with the little curl in the nursery rhyme – who when she was good, she was very, very good; but when she was bad she was horrid. Tim's problem was that he was often (usually?) horrid for the first 80-90% of every game, and sometimes superbly good in the closing minutes."

I'm a non-American, who has only a so-so appreciation of American Football, and doesn't think much of the College game at all. But I well remember the excitement and exasperation that TT generated when he played in the NFL, including in me! I think my description of his greatest NFL moment (the last play of the Pittsburgh game) hit the spot, pretty much.

An instant classic.

Tom Brady demonstrated his GOAT bona fides tonight (Thursday, September 9) by leading his Buccaneers to a  31-29 come-from-behind victory over the Dallas Cowboys at Tampa, in the 2021 NFL Kickoff Game.

Brady completed two key passes to Rob Gronkowski, his decade-long tight end in New England, and another key one to Chris Godwin .. in a two-minute drill that resulted in a short go-ahead field goal to clinch the win.

Earlier, Brady completed four touchdown passes, including two to Gronkowski (their overall 99th and 100th TD connections all-time) on 379 yards passing.  He threw two interceptions, one being on a Hail Mary pass to the end zone as time expired in the first half.

It was a duel for the ages as Cowboys talented QB Dak Prescott threw for 403 yards and three touchdowns on a remarkable 42 completions .. with one interception off a dropped pass.  Prescott had led a drive in the closing minutes that produced a 48-yard field goal that put the 'Boys ahead.

The Dallas lead was short-lived .. as the visitors left too much time for the GOAT.  Brady's winning drive was so efficient, it left him time to deliberately throw three incomplete passes out-of-bounds in order to set up Tampa' s winning field goal and leave Dallas with an insufficient two seconds on the clock to respond.

Brady's Bucs overcame numerous obstacles and situations along the way, including 90-degree Tampa temperature, dropped passes and a Chris Godwin lost fumble just short of the Dallas end zone late in the game.  Godwin redeemed himself with the last-minute grab that put the Bucs into easy field-goal range.

Brady became the first NFL player at any position to have started 300 games.  His team has won 231 of those games.

---

In the national telecast on NBC, Brady appeared in commercials for Subway's hot sandwich bread .. and for a cryptocurrency investment company, the latter commercial featuring him with his supermodel wife, Gisele.  Commercials for sports wagering outfits were prominent (Caesars, MGM, FanDuel), alerting football fans to what they are in for during game breaks in the 2021 NFL season.

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Five more TD passes by TB12.

Tom Brady threw for five touchdowns on Sunday afternoon (Sept. 19) as his Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat the Atlanta Falcons, 48-25.

The game in Tampa was still close in the fourth quarter when the Bucs scored 20 unanswered points to pull away .. on a Brady TD pass and a pair of Mike Edwards pick-sixes.

Brady completed 24 of 36 passes for 275 yards with no interceptions.

It was his team's 10th win in a row dating back to last season and the playoffs, with a new NFL-record nine straight games scoring 30 points or more.  Brady completed two TD passes each to Rob Gronkowski and Mike Evans .. and one on a circus grab by Chris Godwin in the Atlanta end zone.

Atlanta's veteran QB Matt Ryan played well until Edwards' late picks.  Matty Ice has never beaten Brady, who is 9-0 lifetime versus the Falcons, including the epic comeback win when the Patriots scored 31 straight points in Super Bowl LI.

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The Brady-Belichick rematch in New England.

Tampa Tom Brady's return to New England in NFL Week 4 on Sunday Night Football was the most-heralded game of any regular season matchup in years.

It had the elements NFL broadcasters love -- a superstar player coming back to face his longtime ex-coach in a back-and-forth game decided in the final minute.  Brady and Patriots coach Bill Belichick together went to nine superbowls dating back to the 2001 season .. winning six NFL championships.  This was 44-year-old Brady's first game against his former team, and given the realities of NFL scheduling, probably his last game ever at New England unless he plays to age 50.

The NBC telecast showed many of the New England fans appearing in full-body goat costumes to razz their longtime hero.  Brady came out to applause pre-game, but was roundly booed when Tampa Bay took the field in the first quarter.  In his first series under center, Brady proceeded to set the all-time record for passing yardage, eclipsing that of the retired Drew Brees .. which now stands at 80,560 yards.

To win, Brady would have to overcome a miserably rainy night, the absence of his passing soulmate Rob Gronkowski (out with a ribs injury), and being outshone by New England's rookie quarterback who threw two touchdown passes to Brady's none .. and who threw for more completions and yardage than the Tampa GOAT.

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Brady's brain.

On a night when his passing effectiveness was reduced by weather and below-average performance, Tom Brady had to use his smarts to fashion a game-winning drive in the final minutes at New England.

When he spotted his old Patriots teammate Kyle Van Noy matched up against a speeding Tampa Bay back, Brady picked on the veteran linebacker resulting in a 31-yard interference penalty when Van Noy had to foul Leonard Fournette to prevent a long completion.

Then, when a New England corner had to leave the game for a single play after being shaken up in a collision, Brady picked on the inexperienced substitute player.  Brady threw for a first down that put his Buccaneers in position for a 48-yard field goal that put them ahead at the two-minute warning, 19 to 17.

---

Patriots rookie quarterback Mac Jones then moved his team to the Tampa Bay 40, close enough for Coach Belichick to call for a fourth-down field-goal try by superstar kicker Nick Folk that could win the game for New England. 

The distance, 56 yards, was too much in the driving rain.  The kicked ball doinked off the left upright and back into the end zone -- no good.

Once again, on a big stage, the GOAT had found a way to win.

GOAT mode.

Tom Brady went into GOAT mode in the fourth quarter in Tampa on Sunday (Oct. 10), leading his Tampa Bay Buccaneers (4-1) to three touchdowns in the first six minutes of the quarter .. as the Bucs turned a one-score game into a rout, defeating the Miami Dolphins, 45-17.

Brady threw for 411 yards and five touchdowns with no picks.  He threw two TD passes to Antonio Brown in the second quarter -- one a 62-yard crosser and sprint -- and two more to Mike Evans in the fourth-quarter barrage.

The GOAT-ish feats were all the more impressive because Brady suffered a hand injury early in the game, playing through it with his typical "old school" attitude.

With the outcome secured, Brady rested while the Bucs' backup QB Blaine Gabbert mopped up on an 84-degree day under the Tampa sun.

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Curry's masterpiece quarter.

Dominating the first quarter as few players ever have, Stephen Curry scored 25 points in the quarter and his Golden State Warriors claimed a victory in their home opener of the 2021-22 NBA season, defeating the L.A. Clippers, 115-113.

Curry matched his highest-scoring first quarter ever on perfect 9-for-9 shooting, including five three-pointers.  The shooting masterpiece put the Warriors ahead by 17 after one quarter.  Curry finished with 45 points and ten rebounds.

Curry scored eight points in the game's final 1:54, including a go-ahead bucket from way behind the three-point arc in the final minute.

The win gives the Warriors a 2-0 record to start the season.  Curry had posted a triple-double (double figures in points, rebounds and assists) two nights earlier in a seven-point win over LeBron and the L.A. Lakers in Los Angeles.

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Brady passes 600.

One year ago, the Chicago Bears defeated Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 20-19.

It was a different story in today's rematch in Tampa.

Tom Brady threw four touchdown passes with no picks and the Bucs crushed the Bears 35-3.  And that was just the first half!

With favorite-target Rob Gronkowski still out after a month, Brady found Mike Evans for three touchdown receptions.  Tampa went to the ground game in the second half, cruising to a 38-3 final, lifting the team to a 6-1 record.

Brady became the first NFL player to pass for 600 touchdowns, ending the game at 602.

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Tebow was quite far from being the greatest of all time. In fact, he's probably a lot closer to the worst QB of all time than the best. Amazing in college, but not a good pro. He was making a comeback as a tight end and was cut by one of the worst teams in the league.

The GOAT's passing game.

Tom Brady threw four touchdown passes as his Tampa Bay Buccaneers defeated the Atlanta Falcons in Atlanta today, 30-17.  It was Brady's 39th career game with at least four TD's, an all-time NFL record.

Two of the touchdown passes were grabbed by tight end Rob Gronkowski in the end zone.  The GOAT and The Gronk are now the number-two tandem all-time in touchdown hookups with 90.  Only the passer-receiver combo of Peyton Manning and Marvin Harrison of the Indianapolis Colts, with 112 passing TD's, has more.  In retirement in 2016 Manning predicted that his record with Harrison would never be broken.

In Atlanta, Brady completed 15 passes in the first quarter alone, a personal record that is unequaled in the NFL this season.  In all, he completed 39 of 51 passes for 368 yards, adding to his league-leading total for 2021.

Brady and wide receiver Chris Godwin dominated the Falcon defense with 15 Godwin receptions, the most by any receiver in a game this year and a single-game franchise record.

Brady's only real blemish was a pick-six by the Atlanta defense just before the half, making the halftime score Bucs 20, Falcons 17.  The Tampa defense shut out the Falcons the rest of the way.

Once Tampa got ahead by two scores in the second half, the defense made life unbearable for Falcons QB 'Matty Ice' Ryan with sacks, hits and hurries.  Brady -- with New England and now Tampa Bay -- is 10-0 versus the Falcons, including Atlanta's embarrassing Super Bowl loss to the Patriots in a game the Falcons led by 25 points.

--

The win puts Tampa Bay at 9-3, all but assuring the Brady Bunch a division championship and a spot in the playoffs .. as New Orleans, Carolina and Atlanta all have 5-7 records entering the final month of the season.

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Brady aerial records.

Tom Brady threw his 700th career touchdown pass* in overtime today -- more than any other player in NFL history -- lifting his Tampa Bay Buccaneers over the Buffalo Bills in Tampa, 33-27.

Little-used wideout Breshad Perriman was the recipient of the short pass, slipping a tackle and flying 58 yards down the sideline to the end zone.  Brady was 31 for 46 in passing for 363 yards and no picks.

Tampa had blown a big lead, scoring no touchdowns and a single field goal in the second half .. before the offense came to life on their first drive of the OT period.

In the first half, Brady had set a new all-time mark for career pass-completions -- eclipsing the now-retired Drew Brees's 7,142 completions.

The Tampa Bay win has put the Bucs (10-3) half a game behind the Arizona Cardinals (10-2 and playing Monday night) and tied with the Green Bay Packers (10-3 after beating the Bears) in the conference battle for top seed in the playoffs and a first-round bye.  Brady's team remains undefeated at home this season.

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*Record includes regular season and post-season touchdowns.

MFN update... The Cardinals got Ram-handled in Phoenix, 30-23, on Monday night .. putting Tampa Bay, Green Bay and Arizona each at 10-3 atop the NFC standings.

Official NBA Three-point King.

With Steph Curry's parents and NBA legend Ray Allen in attendance at Madison Square Garden tonight (December 14, 2021), Curry swished a first-period three point shot -- a fall-away jumper -- to set a new all-time record for made three-point baskets, 2,974.  Allen had held the record since 2011.

In the Golden State Warriors' only scheduled game in New York this season versus the Knicks, Curry set the record on the big stage of his sport's most-iconic arena.  The achievement marks close to 9,000 points scored by Steph Curry on three-pointers alone.

The game was stopped after The Shot as Curry was congratulated by teammates, and by Ray Allen and Steve Kerr.  Kerr -- the Golden State head coach -- is the three-point king of the NBA by percentage of shots made from downtown (45.4 percent in his career).

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Brady rolls.

Tom Brady led the NFL in the major passing departments in the 17-week season with 5316 yards in the air and 43 touchdown throws.

Even without his top pass-catchers in recent weeks and into the playoffs (Godwin/Brown/Fournette), Brady put on a clinic against the Eagles in the Wild Card Round today (January 16, 2022) in Tampa.   He hit favored target Rob Gronkowski and wideout Mike Evans with one touchdown pass each.  The Buccaneers built an insurmountable 31-0 lead.

A year ago, Brady's Bucs were just 7-5 before running the table all the way to their Super Bowl victory.  This year they again seem to be peaking in January, regardless of whom the GOAT is targeting with his passes.

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I thought this thread was going be about Brady retiring. He's undoubtedly the GOAT. Not so sure about Curry, but I suppose he would be in the conversation at least.

Pro football's GOAT in vintage form.

In a game in which he set an incredible all-time

passing record, Tom Brady had the opportunity

to lead a vintage Brady comeback in the final

minute of the game.

Brady's Tampa Bay Buccaneers trailed 13-9

on Sunday with 44 seconds remaining in the

fourth quarter.

It had arguably been the worst month of

for Brady during an NFL season since

the leg injury in Game 1 of 2008 that

sidelined him for all of that forgettable year.

In 2022, Brady's team had  lost most of his

receiving and tight ends corps to injury

and retirements.  In losing the most recent

three games, Brady's team reached

the halfway point of the regular season under

.500 (3-5) for the first time in his 22 years as

a starting QB.  Brady's wife of 13 years,

supermodel Gisele, had just divorced him

in a widely-publicized parting of the ways,

the announcement coming in late October.

--

Now, with only 44 seconds left on Sunday,

the Buccaneers trailed the defending

NFL champion Los Angeles Rams, the Bucs

having scored their 9 points on field goals ..

now starting their final drive at their own

40-yard line, 60 yards from the Rams' goal.

That's when vintage Tom Brady showed up.

With L.A. defending the sidelines to keep the

clock running out .. and with L.A. assigning

double teams against his top wide-out

receivers, Brady found rookie backup

tight end Cade Otten in the middle of the

Rams' backfield for a gain of 28 yards on

the first play of the drive.

Then Brady twice connected with a

previously little-used backup receiver,

Scotty Miller, for two sideline receptions ..

and the Bucs were at the L.A. 13-yard line.

Brady was on-target to one of his

veteran receivers in the end zone, but

the pass was incomplete, broken up

by pass interference.

The P.I. penalty put the ball at the

Rams' one-yard line.

Brady rolled right as TE Otten faked

a block and rolled toward the right corner.

Brady hit him in stride with under 15 seconds

remaining, completing the final pass of

the brilliant drive and scoring the

winning touchdown.

The final score was Tampa Bay 16, L.A. 13.

Brady threw 58 passes Sunday for

36 receptions and 280 yards with

no interceptions.  His amazingly low

total of picks allowed during the

entire first half of the season stands at one.

(to be continued)

One hundred thousand yards.

The landmark-record referred to above is this...

On Sunday, Tom Brady surpassed 100,000

passing yards in his remarkable career.

The record-setting mark was reached on a

short pass to Leonard Fournette, a running

back known as Postseason Lenny, in the

Buccaneers' 16-13 victory over the Rams.

No other NFL passer has ever come within

14,000 yards of Brady's new landmark record.

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Brady Dazzles Versus Saints

in late Monday Night Football action.

Until the final five minutes in Tampa, NFL GOAT

Tom Brady and his Buccaneers offense appeared

moribund.  The New Orleans Saints led 16-3

as the Bucs offense revved up.

In those final minutes, Brady played nearly

flawlessly, passing for a pair of touchdowns and

shocking New Orleans, 17-16, the winning

score coming with just three seconds remaining.

The late Brady comeback -- in fact, its was

his latest ever game-winning pass -- included

TD tosses in the final minutes to rookie tight end

Cade Otton and rookie running back Rashad White ..

and key passes to 33-year-old veteran Julio Jones

and little-used wideout Scotty Miller.

The climax came on a six-yard pass to White

who received the ball at the two-yard line and

dived into the end zone for the tying score,

punctuated by the winning extra-point kick.

For Brady, it was his 44th career

come-from-behind drive in the fourth quarter

or overtime, a record ..

and his 20th victory on a Monday night -- also

a new record.

This was the biggest fourth-quarter comeback

of Brady's 23-year career with the exception

of Super Bowl LI in which he led a comeback

from 25 points down to defeat the

Atlanta Falcons.

The win puts the Buccaneers close to clinching

the NFC South division .. as they lead

second-place Atlanta by two games plus

the potential tie-breaker (division record)

heading into the final weeks of the season.

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Pelé 1940 - 2022

I saw Pelé play once, in the Minerão in Belo Horizonte. It must've been 1973 or thereabouts. He already had retirement in view and was taking it easy, mostly setting shots up for others. He was still showing what made him unique, though: it was as if he could always see five minutes into the future, know where everyone else would be, and put himself right into the gaps, gracefully and seemingly without effort.

His athleticism was superb of course, and his technical mastery of every aspect of play, but other great players have sometimes matched him in those. That special genius for the game, though, puts him in a class by himself. All Brazil mourns its favorite son today. RIP to the King. ⚽️

Steph Curry's epic NBA performance.

In the final minutes of Game 7 in Sacramento,

Steph Curry started a dribble at three-quarters court,

then split two defensive double-teams as he drove

the ball the distance for a layup that scored his

49th and 50th points. His Golden State Warriors

went on to crush the Sacramento Kings, 120-100,

on Sunday afternoon.

It was the NBA scoring GOAT's greatest performance

or close to it. No player in NBA history had scored

50 in a Game 7. Curry's drive and score lifted

his Golden State Warriors to a 24-point lead and

the win in the decisive game of the first-round

playoff series.

Curry scored seven three-pointers, with most of

his points coming from all angles, using the

glass, weaving around defenders, employing

teammates setting picks .. and once inbounding

near the Kings' basket to then receive a

touch pass from Draymond Green, race to the

corner and quickly launch a successful shot

from past the three-point arc.

Curry's line was 50 points, 8 rebounds,

6 assists.

He was mightily aided by the big center

Kevon Looney, who grabbed over 20 rebounds

for the third time in winning four games,

and in so doing, dominated Kings center

Domantas Sabonis in the close-out quarters

of decisive Game 7.

The Golden State victory earns the team the

right to host the L.A. LeBrons in a matchup

of the association's top two marquee players,

starting in San Francisco on Tuesday, May 2.

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