Breaking News: He might not get a ring, but Tom Brady was the biggest winner of Super Bowl LIX….See More

Officially, Tom Brady has seven Super Bowl victories. Retired, he can’t add any more Super Bowl pelts to his wall. But if you were paying attention to the prologue to Super Bowl LIX and the way the Big Game played out last Sunday, the big winner of Super Bowl LIX was none other than TB12.

Echoing the ethos of the Super Bowl host city, New Orleans, it was Laissez les bons temps rouler (Let the good times roll) for Brady as thePhiladelphia Eagles rolled over Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs, 40-22, preventing an unprecedented Super Bowl three-peat and piercing the mantle of Mahomes’s transcendence. The Super Bowl cemented Brady as a sui generis force in pro football history. He never got eviscerated in that manner in a Super Bowl defeat

You have to go back to the famous populist politician Huey P. Long to find the last time someone so thoroughly dominated the scene in Louisiana. It all came up Brady. The Mahomes-Brady GOAT debate, which felt premature, was dealt a serious blow and temporarily tabled. The blowout nature of the game – Philadelphia led 34-0 – took the pressure off Brady the broadcaster calling his first Super Bowl to cap an uneven rookie season behind themic for Fox Sports. The game still ended up drawing the largest audience in Super Bowl history and went down as the single most-watched television broadcast in US history.

During that broadcast, Brady came off as magnanimous, relatable, and humble. He made it clear that unlike legions of Patriots fans he wasn’t rooting against Mahomes and the Chiefs with the power of a thousand suns.

Brady took the high road all week when it came to Mahomes reaching the uncharted territory of winning three straight Super Bowls, even knowing it was a cudgel that would be used against him.

I said, ‘Look, nobody would be more happy for you than me if you go do something that no other team in history has ever done – that no other quarterback has ever done,’ ” Brady said, according to Fox Sports.

Then during the broadcast, Brady opened a window into what it’s like to experience failure as an all-time great in the binary crucible of the Super Bowl. He expressed that his three Super Bowl losses with the Patriots stick with him more than his seven Super Bowl triumphs, six in New England.

He recalled that the day after the 2007 Patriots lost Super Bowl XLII and a perfect season to the New York Giants in the Arizona desert he awoke thinking it must have been all a bad dream because it was impossible to stomach.

No one on Earth could better explain or relate to in real time what Mahomes was feeling as NFL history disappeared into the ether. It was Brady the broadcaster’s finest hour.

The week of discussion about historical stature, legacies, and résumés benefitted Brady. It reinforced how remarkable his career was with the concatenation of championships, individual achievement, and longevity. He remains an unmatched combination of prolific passer, consummate winner, and unparalleled teammate-lifter.

With the haters turning their attention to moving Mahomes and the Chiefs, playing in their fifth Super Bowl in six seasons, squarely in their crosshairs, it created even greater appreciation for what Brady accomplished under that same microscope with so many willing him and the Patriots to fall during The Dynasty.

The dislike for Brady turned into appreciation for what he accomplished as his 23-season oeuvre was recounted as the metaphorical mountain Mahomes had to climb.

Brady’s former Patriots teammate and current Fox broadcasting one, Julian Edelman, brought up a pertinent point about the scrutiny the Chiefs faced and how much harder it makes sustained success.

You are America’s Most Wanted,” said Edelman. “Everyone thinks that if they beat you, the coach is going to get a job, the player is going to get a pay raise. Everyone plays and puts in that much more effort when they play that team.”