Super Bowl trophy renamed after Tom Brady? Why one NFL legend is pushing for it
None of the major team trophies in the NFL are currently named after a player. Bill Belichick thinks that should change, though, and he has a specific player in mind.
The six-time Super Bowl-winning head coach believes that the quarterback he won each of those titles with should be the namesake of the Super Bowl trophy.
"Maybe they should name it the Brady Trophy," Belichick said on the "Let's Go!" podcast, in reference to Tom Brady. "He won seven of them."
Currently, the Super Bowl trophy is named after Hall of Fame head coach Vince Lombardi, who led the Green Bay Packers to victory in each of the first two Super Bowls. While those two Super Bowl wins were the only two Super Bowl wins for that iteration of the Packers, Lombardi had also helped Green Bay win three NFL titles before those victories.
Since then, though, several other dynasties have emerged. The Pittsburgh Steelers won four Super Bowl titles in the 1970s. The San Francisco 49ers had four Super Bowl wins in the 1980s. The Dallas Cowboys won three of their five Super Bowls in the first half of the 1990s.
Brady and Belichick followed the Cowboys in the NFL's line of dynasties, going on an unprecedented run with the New England Patriots. The duo led the team to six Super Bowl titles, winning three in the early 2000s before adding three more in the 2010s. Brady won his seventh Super Bowl title in 2020 with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, not only giving him the most of any player in NFL history, but also giving him more than any team.
As Brady and Belichick's success with the Patriots was once viewed by many as unlikely to be matched, the Kansas City Chiefs are slowly gaining ground. Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid have already won three Super Bowls and punched their ticket to play in their fifth big game together (Super Bowl LIX, Feb. 9 at 6:30 p.m. ET on FOX) as they seek to become the first team to ever win three straight Super Bowls.
With Belichick being one of the people who can relate to the success that the Chiefs have had, Belichick was asked by his "Let's Go!" co-host Jim Gray how big of an ego he had and how much he had to sublimate it for the good of the team. Belichick laughed at that notion, saying that "coaches don't win games, coaches lose them" before adding that the Super Bowl trophy should be named after Brady.
"Players win games. You can't win games without good players," Belichick said. "I don't care who the coach is, it's impossible. You can't win without good players. You know, I found that out when I had [Lawrence] Taylor and [Carl] Banks and Harry Carson, Pepper Johnson, Jim Burt, Everson Walls, all those guys at the Giants. Same thing when we got good at Cleveland and then at New England. It's [Tom] Brady, it's [Willie] McGinest, it's [Mike] Vrabel, it's [Tedy] Bruschi, it's Corey Dillon, it's Randy Moss, Troy Brown, Lawyer Milloy, Ty Law, Rodney Harrison. Those are guys that won the games. I didn't make any tackles. I didn't make any kicks. That was [Adam] Vinatieri that made that kick in four inches of snow.
"You got to have good players and as a coach, you want to give your players a chance to win. You want to put them in a position where if they go out there and play well, they'll have a chance to win. That's what Coach [Bill] Parcells taught me, is there's always a way to win. You just got to figure out what it is, and you have to give the players a chance."
Brady will be a part of his first Super Bowl as a broadcaster this year, calling Super Bowl LIX on FOX. Belichick, meanwhile, became North Carolina's head coach in January.
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