Reflecting on Tom Brady’s NFL career after he announces retirement, plus most surprising Super Bowl teams ever

Welcome to the Tuesday edition of the Pick Six Newsletter!

Actually, let’s call it the Tomsday edition of the Pick Six newsletter, because today is all about Tom Brady. After 22 years in the NFL, it appears Brady has finally gotten bored of winning Super Bowls because he officially announced his retirement on Tuesday morning. This is not a drill, people: TOM BRADY HAS OFFICIALLY RETIRED. 

Honestly, I was starting to think Brady would never retire, so I am mildly surprised to actually see this happening. If you’re a football fan under the age of 30, Brady has basically been around your entire life and it’s hard to imagine an NFL season without him. 

Brady will almost certainly go down as the greatest player in NFL history. We’ll have plenty of Brady talk today, plus we’ll be taking a longer look at Super Bowl LVI. 

As always, here’s your weekly reminder to tell all your friends to sign up for the Pick Six newsletter. To get your friends to sign up, all you have to do is click here and then share this link with them. 

1. Today’s Show: Tom Brady announces retirement

Due to Brady’s retirement, I’m guessing you can figure out what the topic of the podcast was today and if you can’t, I’ll go ahead and tell you: it was one straight hour of Tom Brady talk. Will Brinson was joined by CBSSports.com’s Tyler Sullivan, who lives in Boston and grew up as a Patriots fan. Although, it might not have been a good idea to have a Patriots fan on the podcast since Brady SNUBBED the Patriots in his retirement statement, which you can read by clicking here. 

Brady set so many records during his career that it would be impossible to list them all here, but we can still take a look at some of his more improbable accomplishments. 

• Brady will end his career with seven Super Bowl wins, which is not only the most for any player, but it’s also more than any other FRANCHISE in the NFL. Brady also won an NFL record five Super Bowl MVP trophies. Brady has also played in the most Super Bowls ever (10) and will retire with the highest single-game passing total in Super Bowl history (505 yards). 
• Brady won a total of 35 postseason games, which is an absurd number when you consider that the next highest number for a quarterback on that list is Joe Montana, who won 16. 
• The 44-year-old finished his career with an NFL record 13,049 passing yards in the playoffs, which is almost double the next closest player on the list. (Peyton Manning finished with 7,339.)
• In 22 years, Brady won 243 regular season games, which is the most ever by a QB in NFL history. Brett Favre and Peyton Manning are tied for second on the list with 186. No active QB is even within 100 games of catching Brady. (Aaron Rodgers has the most with 139 wins.)
• He’ll retire with the NFL records for most most passes attempted in a career (11,317 passes), most passes completed (7,263) and most touchdown passes (624). 

To be honest, we probably could have done an entire newsletter about Brady, but even though we don’t have that, we do have plenty of coverage. You can listen to today’s podcast or read our multitude of stories on the website, including our official story here. We also listed all of his records here. 

To listen to today’s episode — and subscribe to the podcast — be sure to click here. You can also watch today’s podcast on YouTube by clicking here.

2. Ranking the most surprising Super Bowl teams ever

Before the 2021 NFL season started, the Bengals were given 150-to-1 odds to win the Super Bowl. That means if you bet $100 on them to win and they took home the Lombardi Trophy, you’d win a cool $15,000. 

With the Bengals overcoming such improbable odds to get to the Super Bowl, CBSSports.com’s Bryan DeArdo decided to rank the five most surprising Super Bowl teams of all-time.  

1. 2021 Bengals
2. 1999 Rams
3. 1981 49ers
4. 2001 Patriots
5. 2003 Panthers

The crazy thing about this list is that the Bengals actually have something in common with each of the four other teams. At the top, the Rams were also 150-to-1 to win the Super Bowl in the preseason, which means the Bengals will tie them for longest preseason long shot ever to win it all if they beat this year’s Rams. The Bengals also are in the Super Bowl after having the worst record in the NFL two years ago, which would tie the 1981 49ers and 2003 Panthers for the fastest turn around from worst record to a Super Bowl appearance. 

As for the 2001 Patriots, they were led by an unflappable second-year QB who led a Super Bowl run that no one saw coming, which sounds a lot like this year’s Bengals. To check out DeArdo’s full story, be sure to click here. 

3. Five early bold predictions for the Super Bowl

Between now and Super Bowl Sunday, we will be making a lot of predictions about the game, so I thought I’d get things started off early here by offering five bold predictions from our Jordan Dajani.

1. Kendall Blanton scores the first TD of the game. 
2. Odell Beckham THROWS a TD. 
3. Aaron Donald ties Super Bowl record for most sacks (3.0)
4. Ja’Marr Chase scores a TD, but is otherwise shutdown by Jalen Ramsey
5. Bengals win first Super Bowl in franchise history

Based on that final prediction, you’re probably thinking that I paid Jordan a handsome amount of money to pick the Bengals, but I promise you, that is not the case. If you want to see his full explanation for each prediction, be sure to click here. 

4. Super Bowl records that could fall this year

If you’ve ever watched a Super Bowl before — and I’m guessing you have since you’re subscribed to a football newsletter — you may have noticed that multiple Super Bowl records seem to get broken every year. With that in mind, CBSSports.com’s Bryan DeArdo decided to take a look at a few records that could fall in Super Bowl LVI. 

Here’s what to watch out for: 

• Joe Burrow could win the triple crown. If the Bengals win it all, Burrow will become the first quarterback in NFL history to win a Heisman Trophy, a national championship and a Super Bowl title. Three positional players have pulled off the triple crown — Charles Woodson, Tony Dorsett and Marcus Allen — but a QB has never done it. 
• Youngest coach to ever win a Super Bowl. If the Rams beat the Bengals, Sean McVay will become the youngest coach in NFL history to ever win a Super Bowl. At 36, McVay would break the record that is currently held by Mike Tomlin, who won a Super Bowl just weeks before turning 37 (McVay turned 36 in January). 
• Most receiving yards in a Super Bowl. The record of 215 is currently held by Jerry Rice, but that could be in danger with Ja’Marr Chase and Cooper Kupp both playing in this game. Chase already topped that number in one game this season. On Kupp’s end, he became the first player to exceed 2,000 receiving yards in a season (playoffs included), so Rice’s mark could definitely be in danger. 

 If you want to check out more records that could fall on Super Bowl Sunday, then be sure to click here. 

5. Ranking the 12 losing teams’ chances of making the Super Bowl in 2022

The NFL playoffs started with 14 teams and now that we’re down to two, that means there are 12 teams from this year’s postseason that didn’t make it to the Super Bowl. The only reason I’m pointing that out is because Cody Benjamin decided to rank those teams based on who has the best chance of getting to NEXT YEAR’S Super Bowl. 

Here’s how that list breaks down: 

1. Chiefs
2. Bills 
3. Packers 
4. Patriots 
5. Buccaneers 
6. 49ers
7. Titans
8. Cowboys
9. Cardinals
10. Eagles
11. Raiders
12. Steelers

Based on this list, Cody is giving the Steelers the worst chance of getting to the Super Bowl next season, which makes sense, because they don’t even know who their quarterback is going to be in 2022. In that same vain, you could argue the Buccaneers are too high because they don’t exactly have a QB for next season, and although the Packers currently have QB, they might not have one much longer. The 49ers could also have some QB struggles next season if Trey Lance can’t improve upon what Jimmy Garoppolo did in 2021. 

Anyway, to read Cody’s full explanation for his rankings, be sure to click here. 

6. Rapid-fire roundup: NFL reveals national anthem singer

It’s been a busy 24 hours in the NFL and since it’s nearly impossible to keep track of everything that happened I went ahead and put together a roundup for you. 

• NFL announces national anthem singer. Multi-Grammy-nominated artist Mickey Guyton will be handling the national anthem before Super Bowl LVI. Guyton was the first black artist to receive a Grammy nomination for Best Country Album of the Year. 
• Super Bowl injury updates: Tyler Higbee and C.J. Uzomah could both play. The Rams tight end and the Bengals tight end BOTH sprained their MCLs over the weekend, which means they’re dealing with the same thing right now. It’s not easy to get back from an MCL sprain in two weeks, but Zac Taylor and Sean McVay both left open the possibility of their guy playing on Super Bowl Sunday. 
• Jim Harbaugh set to interview with Vikings. The two sides made contact over the weekend, and now, an actual interview is scheduled to go down Wednesday. That also happens to be national signing day, and if Harbaugh is willing to skip out on that, you can bet that means he plans on being in the NFL in 2022, so don’t be shocked if he ends up getting hired this week. As always, you can keep tabs on all coaching interviews by clicking here. 
• John Madden memorial will take place in Oakland. John Madden’s family announced this week that a public memorial will be held for the NFL legend. The memorial will take place the day after the Super Bowl (Feb. 14) at RingCentral Coliseum in Oakland. 
• Cincinnati schools closed on Feb. 14. The city of Cincinnati is so excited about the Bengals getting to the Super Bowl that school has already been canceled the day after the Super Bowl. If the Bengals win, that means the children of Cincinnati will be able to stay up late to celebrate without worrying about the fact that they need to wake up for school the next day. And if the Bengals win, the city will be partying like it’s 1989, so this makes sense. 
• Antonio Brown auctions off glove from meltdown. If you want to buy the glove that Antonio Brown wore during his meltdown in New York, you can do that by clicking here. The glove is up for auction and the bidding is currently over $1,000. If you do buy it, please send me multiple pictures. 
• Peyton Manning on ‘Saturday Night Live.’ I didn’t mention this yesterday, but Manning was on “SNL” over the weekend and you can see his pretty hilarious appearance by clicking here.