Here’s another Friday afternoon sports chart for you. Who has held the post-merger passing record in the NFL over time? It should be no surprise that the names at the top of the list now are mostly active or recently retired. The NFL is a passing league, and more so with each season’s rule changes.
Enjoy this chart, which begins in 1970 and does not include yards accumulated in the old AFL or pre-merger NFL.
Time for another sports graph! This time, let’s look at football. Specifically, which NFL team has the most regular season wins since the NFL-AFL merger of 1970? That time period started out well for the Miami Dolphins, but it ended…well, see for yourselves.
Last week, I wrote about Tom Brady trying to trademark Tom Seaver’s nickname. This week, we find that he is even shadier than that. According to court filings discovered by NBC Sports, Brady’s TB12 foundation is suing a professional lacrosse player, Trevor Baptiste. Baptiste’s crime, in Brady’s eyes, was to have the same initials as him.
The Atlas Lacrosse Club midfielder used the mark “TB9” on his own equipment and in marketing. Like Brady, he used his own initials and uniform number as a shorthand for himself. TB12, Inc. sued Baptiste, claiming the mark will cause consumer confusion. Baptiste, faced with the high-priced lawyers marshaled by the New England superstar, was forced to comply.
The message: only Tom Brady is allowed to have the initials TB. Look out Terry Bradshaw, Brady will be coming for you next!
A combination of professional success, vapid personality, and a caddish past makes Tom Brady pretty damn unlikable to anyone who isn’t a fan of the New England Patriots. But this week, he found a new way to annoy people by filing a trademark application on his alleged nickname, “Tom Terrific”.
Now everybody who cares about sports—as opposed to just Boston sports—knows that the nickname “Tom Terrific” belongs to three-time Cy Young Award winner and Hall of Famer Tom Seaver of the New York Mets. Seaver won 311 games in his twenty-year career, and was inducted into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot with 98.8% of the vote, a record at the time. He was the first player to have his number retired by the Mets and is one of two players in the Hall of Fame as a Met.
It takes a lot for me, a diehard Phillies fan, to side with the Mets. But this nickname-squatting is unacceptable. Brady could not beat New York in the Super Bowl, and he shouldn’t be allowed to steal the moniker of one of the city’s greatest professional athletes.
