Tom Brady named No. 1 player by peers in "NFL Top 100"

BOSTON -- At his age, Tom Brady really shouldn't be able to play football at all. That he's able to suit up every Sunday is a minor miracle in and of itself. That his peers consider him to be the very best player in the league? That's downright absurd.

Yet Brady has made a habit out of accomplishing the absurd in the past few years, most recently by being voted the No. 1 player in the National Football League by his peers. 

Brady landed at the top spot, as announced Sunday night, ahead of Aaron Donald (No. 2), Aaron Rodgers (No. 3), Cooper Kupp (No. 4), and Jonathan Taylor (No. 5). Patrick Mahomes came in at No. 8 and Josh Allen was at No. 13 to round out the top QBs.

"I gotta go with Tom Brady, man. He 80 years old, throwing for 5,000 yards, man," Broncos receiver Jerry Jeudy said on the NFL Network's show. "I gotta go with Tom Brady."

Brady isn't quite 80 years old, but last year at age 44, he led the league with 5,316 passing yards and 43 passing touchdowns. It was his highest-ever* passing yardage total, and his second-highest passing TD total, only behind his record-setting 2007 season. (*He obviously had the extra 17th game to reach that mark this past season.)

Brady made his NFL debut in the 2000 season, winning his first Super Bowl a year later, when many of his current peers were graduating from kindergarten or learning how to ride their bicycles without training wheels. In watching the video from the NFL showing how and why Brady earned these votes, it's clear that players hold him in the highest possible regard.

"When he first came [to Tampa Bay], it was crazy," Bucs D-lineman Vita Vea said. "I'd be in my stance, and then he would be like under the center, giving the snap count. And I look up and I'm like ... that's Tom Brady right here."

"I'm gonna stick with Brady. Growing up, seeing this man tear up the league, and he's still doing that years down the line, it's crazy to see," said Falcons cornerback A.J. Terrell, who was 3 years old when Brady won his first Super Bowl. "And for me to be able to play against him, he's still at the top of his game. It's just unheard of."

This marked the fourth time that Brady's been voted the No. 1 player in the NFL since the "Top 100" began in 2011. He most recently landed the top spot in back-to-back years in 2017 and 2018, with Aaron Donald (2019), Lamar Jackson (2020) and Patrick Mahomes (2021) claiming that spot the past three years. Brady was at No. 7 last year and was all the way down at No. 14 in 2020, after his final season with the Patriots.

Brady, of course, would not have been eligible for this list of best active players if his retirement had stuck. But the retirement lasted all of one month before the quarterback decided to come back for year 23 at age 45.

"We say it every year on 'Top 100' -- This is a list voted on by peers," the narrator said on the show. "But even the guys voting know that Tom Brady is peerless."