Tom Brady and Randy Arozarena: Tampa Bay Professional Athletes Making An Immediate Impact
After spending twenty seasons with the New England Patriots, quarterback Tom Brady had a great first year with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
In leading the Buccaneers to their second Super Bowl win ever, Brady threw forty touchdown passes during the regular season and
ten more touchdown passes during the postseason. The ten playoff touchdown passes were
one off the NFL record for
a single postseason.
With his impressive postseason, Brady set the career mark for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The previous record was five, held by Brad
Johnson (who was the quarterback for the Buccaneers when they won their first Super Bowl) . Brady's sixth (and record-setting) touchdown pass was
this memorable touchdown near the end of first half of the NFC Championship Game.
Of course, the Buccaneers are not the only franchise for which Brady is the career leader in touchdown postseason passes. Brady threw
seventy-three playoff touchdown passes for the Patriots. The seventy-three touchdown passes is not only a record for the Patriots, but for
the entire NFL. The previous Patriots' career
postseason touchdowns leader was Drew Bledsoe with six (over seven games). Brady once had six touchdown passes in
a single postseason game with the New England Patriots against the Denver Broncos.
Is Brady the only quarterback to be the career postseason touchdown passes leader for two different franchises? The answer is no!
Kurt Warner, who Brady defeated for his first Super Bowl
victory, threw fifteen postseason touchdown passes for the Rams and sixteen touchdown postseason passes for the Cardinals. No other Rams or
Cardinals quarterback has thrown over eight postseason touchdown passes. Interestingly, Warner only ranks
fifth all-time for the Cardinals and
sixth all-time for the Rams in career regular-season
touchdown passes.
Brady was the second recent Tampa Bay professional athlete to make a postseason splash in his first season with the team. Three months earlier,
Tampa Bay Rays outfielder Randy Arozarena hit a record
ten playoff home runs during the Rays' 2020 run to the World Series. Like Brady,
Arozarena set a franchise career mark:
the ten home runs are the most career postseason home runs in Tampa Bay Rays history. The 2020 season was Arozarena's first season with the Rays as he was
traded from the St. Louis Cardinals before the season began. Arozarena played
in just one season with the Cardinals, his only MLB season before his tenure with the Rays. Brady played twenty seasons with the Patriots while Arozarena
had twenty at-bats (!!) with the Cardinals.
After some online research,
I found that the ten home runs would be a career postseason record for twenty (!!!) other MLB franchises. Those twenty franchises include the A's and
the Giants. The A's and the Giants have been around for over one hundred years, while the Rays have existed for less than thirty years. Arozarena is
only twenty-eight years old so if he is traded to or signs with one of those twenty teams, he has a decent chance of becoming the first player to
be the career postseason home runs leader for two different franchises.