Tom Brady explains how Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant helped him channel his anger into performance
Nobody in NFL history has ever won like Tom Brady. The quarterback has won, literally, more titles than any of the 32 franchises. He has seven rings, while the New England Patriots and the Pittsburgh Steelers each have six.
We have all seen competitive fire in Brady. While not everyone admires his intense desire to win, there's no denying that he was one of a kind and the greatest player to ever step foot on a football field. To do so, he had to maintain a high level of performance for more than two decades.
One of Brady's combustibles was his anger, which he learned to channel into performance after watching superstars from other sports, such as NBA stars Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. On "The Herd," his first public interview since announcing retirement, he explained to Colin Cowherd what he learned from Jordan and Bryant:
"So, I always deal with people who doubt me better. In the sense that the competition, you know, I love it when they give me a little more fuel for the fire. Not that I need it, but it draws a little, and I think there's a good emotion and sport to which anger.
"And you've seen in some of the great players that I always looked up to: Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Kobe Bryant, Jerry West."
Tom Brady used his anger to play better
The greatest quarterback of all time also had some interesting methods to keep himself at an elite level, from his TB12 method to some strict diets. But using anger as a motivator was also helpful throughout his career, igniting him from being a sixth-round selection in the 2000 draft to a legendary run:
"There's an anger when you play that's a really motivating factor, because it sparks action," Brady said. "You know, anger motivates you to wake up sometimes and dig deep.
"And I love digging deep, because I learn a lot about myself, and I think when we dig deep and people push us further than places we want to go, we can reach places that no one people have ever been."
If he used other people's opinions about him as fuel for his motivation, then he had more than enough combustible to propel his career. Nevertheless, using anger to prove someone wrong as a motivator is something that everyone does at some point in their lives. In Brady's case, it gave him bragging rights to be the best quarterback ever.