Who would have thought Tom Brady would go right back to Super Bowl LI, when the Patriots were down 28-3 to the Atlanta Falcons before completing the biggest comeback in Super Bowl history, and turn it into a lesson of sorts? But that’s what he did during his commencement speech at Georgetown University’s prestigious McDonough School of Business, with Patrick Mahomes’ alma mater, Texas Tech University, catching a stray in the process.

Feb. 5, 2017: The game had looked dead for New England. Robert Alford’s pick-six off Brady helped push Atlanta to a 28-3 lead, while New England sat stuck on three points deep into the third quarter. Then came the slow turn. A Patriots touchdown made it 28-9, Dont’a Hightower’s strip-sack on Matt Ryan gave them life, and Brady started pulling the game back piece by piece. Danny Amendola caught a crucial touchdown, Julian Edelman somehow kept the tying drive alive with that juggling catch, and James White scored before Amendola’s two-point conversion made it 28-28. In overtime, Brady won the toss, marched New England down the field, and White finished the comeback. 

But Brady was not bringing up 28-3 just to relive the night. He was using it to tell the graduates that when things go wrong, the people around you matter as much as the plan. And that is where Danny Amendola came in.

“Danny went undrafted out of Texas Tech. He was cut by three NFL teams. He wasn’t the tallest, he wasn’t the fastest, but he had a huge heart, and he played his ass off in the biggest moments. And I hope you guys find colleagues like Danny. Having business school friends are great, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes you need a kid from a glorified community college who can bail your ass out of any jam,” said Tom Brady. “If you want to achieve great things, surround yourself with people like him.”

Brady’s point was not that Amendola had the cleanest football résumé in the room. It was almost the opposite.

Amendola was not a first-round pick, not a physical outlier, and not the kind of player the league immediately rushed to crown. At Texas Tech, he had been productive, finishing his college career with 204 catches for 2,246 yards and 15 touchdowns, including a senior season with 109 receptions for 1,245 yards. Still, when the 2008 NFL Draft came and went, his name was not called. Yet, that is what made the praise land. 

Amendola had to build his way into the league from the outside. He signed with the Dallas Cowboys as an undrafted free agent, spent time on practice squads, had a stop with the Eagles, and eventually found a real role with the Rams before landing in New England. By the time he became one of Brady’s trusted playoff targets, his career had already been through the kind of uncertainty Brady was pointing to in front of those graduates.

In Super Bowl LI, after Atlanta went up 28-3, Brady found him on a key 4th-and-3 to keep New England alive. Amendola later caught a touchdown, then added the two-point conversion that tied it at 28-28. He finished with eight catches for 78 yards and later said he needed four IVs during the game. So when Brady talked about someone who could “bail your ass out of any jam,” he had a real moment behind it.

That is also why the Texas Tech line needs some context. The “glorified community college” remark sounded sharp on its own, but it came inside a tribute to Amendola, not a serious attack on the school. Brady even softened it later in the transcript shared through his 199 newsletter, adding a parenthetical “sorry, Lubbock” that he did not say during the speech.

Mahomes comes into the picture because he is Texas Tech’s biggest modern football name. The Kansas City Chiefs quarterback played there years after Amendola and has since become the school’s most famous NFL export. So any Brady joke about Texas Tech naturally gets framed around Mahomes, especially with their own Super Bowl history already part of the larger NFL conversation.

But Brady was not directly talking about Mahomes, and Amendola and Mahomes were never teammates at Texas Tech. Amendola played there from 2004 to 2007, while Mahomes arrived much later, playing from 2014 to 2016. Their link is the school, not the locker room.

If anything, the joke was more likely aimed at Amendola himself, or even at the broader Texas Tech-to-Patriots pipeline that also included Wes Welker, another Red Raiders receiver who became one of Brady’s favorite targets. Brady, after all, has no real Texas Tech connection of his own. He is from Northern California, played at Michigan, and was speaking at Georgetown in Washington, D.C. The Red Raiders’ line worked because it let him roast a friend while still making the larger point: the person who saves you may not always come with the flashiest background. Sometimes, it is the overlooked one who has already had to fight for every inch.

Brady may have started his speech on a light note, but he continued cracking jokes about the New York Jets and even decided to share what he learnt from his former New England Patriots head coach, Bill Belichick.

Tom Brady joked about his former head coach

The “glorified community college” remark did raise a few eyebrows. Taking a shot at an NCAA college program seems like a bold move even for someone like Tom Brady. However, it was not long before the NFL legend managed to shift the mood in the room with his remarks on his former head coach, Bill Belichick.

“I usually don’t do well with compliments,” said Tom Brady. “I had a coach for 20 years tell me how s—ty I was every day.”

It was under Belichick that Brady got his first shot at being a quarterback for the Patriots. The partnership stayed for 20 years until the former QB left for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. While they formed one of the most formidable partnerships in the NFL, Belichick obviously did not praise Brady much to keep him grounded.

His comments on the legendary coach drew laughter from the people sitting in the room. It did not take long for the remarks to circulate on the internet. The two have always had a healthy relationship and have always praised each other. A few days back, Belichick said, “Tom wasn’t great, but worked hard to become the greatest.”

Despite the comments, there is no doubt Brady has nothing but respect for his former coach. His thoughts about Belichick during the commencement speech were just to remind the students how tough love works. While Belichick might let the comment about him slide, it is still not clear what Texas Tech students and teachers make of the Brady joke.