“I Was a S*X Symbol”: Steelers Legend Terry Bradshaw Once Used Tom Brady to Escape His Own Popularity Long Before TB12 Dominated the NFL World

Before Tom Brady was dubbed TB12, there was another TB12 in the 70s and 80s who dominated the game like no other. Legendary Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw earned the TB12 name due to his jersey number, the same as Brady. 

In an interview in 2021, Bradshaw talked about an outrageous story about using Tom Brady’s name as an alias to escape his own popularity. It is worth noting that Brady was born in 1977. Safe to say, nobody knew at that time that Brady would become one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, if not the greatest. 

Terry Bradshaw talked about a story about Tom Brady and using his name

In 1983, Bradshaw was admitted to a hospital in Louisiana for elbow surgery. To escape from his own popularity, he used the name ‘Thomas Brady’. At that time, Brady was only five years old. 

Speaking about the connection between him and Brady, Bradshaw said, “Tom Brady! How lucky am I? There’s no question he and I are linked at the hip — same initials, same number. I had hair back then, I was a s*x symbol. I had it all going then.”

At that time, the Steelers quarterback had the most Super Bowl wins, i.e. four. Later, Brady surpassed that record by winning seven Super Bowls in total. “Everything Tom Brady has today is because of me, do you know that? Think about it. Every record he owns he had to go through me. Get used to that, Tom Brady,” Bradshaw joked about it. 

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It is worth noting that the elbow injury ended Bradshaw’s career, as he retired in 1983. Although the doctors performed a successful surgery, the quarterback aggravated the injury further by throwing balls against the doctor’s advice. 

Brady broke Bradshaw’s record by a long margin

Meanwhile, Brady broke all kinds of records during his long career, as he won 7 Super Bowls in his career, the most by any player in NFL history. Moreover, he won five Super Bowl MVPs. At the early stage, he followed the career of legendary quarterback Joe Montana and idolized him. 

Notably, both Bradshaw and Montana had 4 Super Bowl wins under their belt and Brady surpassed them by quite a margin. Currently, TB12 is 45 years old and came back from retirement to play for the Bucs once again. So far, he made a decent start to the 2022-23 season and it would be a remarkable achievement for him if he manages to win another Super Bowl.

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Can Brady win his eighth Super Bowl? Let us know in the comments.