Tom Brady arguably is the greatest quarterback in NFL history, but he hasn’t exactly been paid as such over the course of his legendary career.
Part of this is Brady’s doing. The 42-year-old on more than one occasion has sacrificed a piece of his own salary in order to provide the New England Patriots with more salary-cap flexibility to spread the wealth around the roster. Still, Brady’s career earnings pale in comparison to fellow quarterbacks far beneath the Patriots star in terms of both talent level and collection of accolades.
One of those players is Eli Manning. Yes, the New York Giants QB has two Super Bowl titles to his credit, but the rest of his career has been rather pedestrian. Manning, however, has raked in over $23 million more than Brady in career earnings and also has played four fewer seasons, according to Spotrac. This factoid does not at all sit well with former NFL cornerback and current ESPN analyst Ryan Clark.
“You know what? Right now, it’s not really a big issue to me because you don’t pay guys based on lifetime achievements. So where Tom Brady is in his career, where the New England Patriots are as an offense and as a team, it makes sense to put him in the top 10 of quarterback salary,” Clark said Tuesday on ESPN’s “First Take.” “But if you don’t want to make him the highest-paid based on what you’re going to ask him to do, his age, what he’s going to do going forward, that’s OK. But let’s get to the all-time money list of quarterbacks. There was a time when Tom Brady was the best quarterback in the game, and there wasn’t a question. When he had Randy Moss and he was throwing 50 touchdowns and that team went 16-0 to, yes, lose to Max’s New York Giants in the Super Bowl. But Tom Brady should have been the top-paid quarterback in this league for over a decade. Tom Brady should have made more money throughout his career than any other quarterback that’s played in this game. It’s OK that he’s taken some shorts to help the team and that he’s married to someone who’s also earned a good amount of money. But the fact that Eli Manning has made so much more money than Tom Brady — it legitimately makes me sick.”
Patriots fans likely will co-sign Clark’s sentiment, but let’s not act like Brady is by any means struggling from a financial standpoint. In addition to a handful of lucrative sponsorship deals, Brady’s TB12 company is poised to take off and run well beyond his playing days. And as Clark mentioned, Gisele Bundchen does pretty well for herself.
If Brady truly harvested a desire for a richer contract at any point in his career, he likely would have made it a sticking point in conversations with Patriots executives. Instead, the two sides have managed to find a middle ground nearly two decades running, and that likely will continue as long as Brady is taking snaps in Foxboro.
