With the win in Super Bowl 49, Tom Brady’s legacy got cemented forevermore. No matter what comes of the DeflateGate investigation, Brady will still have four Super Bowl trophies and three MVPs in the big game. People can attach any kind of mental asterisk to the Patriots’ accomplishments, but those players and coaches are champions once again and that won’t be erased from the record books.

Even if Tom Brady had failed in this sixth attempt in the Super Bowl, he was already a legend. He had three world titles, two Super Bowl MVP awards, and endless regular season success. But in a ‘what have you done for me lately society’, we always want our athletes to do more. A fourth Super Bowl ring would erase any doubt about Brady’s greatness since he would join Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw as the only other QBs with that many Super Bowl Titles.

There will always be talk of how Brady would not be Brady without Belichick. The defensive guru has helped his QB by giving him the knowledge needed to exploit defenses and by setting up his own defense to stop the opposing quarterback for Brady. The New England signal caller would be the first to admit how much his coach has meant to his success. Without his defensive minded coach, Tom Brady would not be one of the greatest offensive players in the history of the NFL.

As Super Bowl 49 was winding down, it looked like Brady would face another devastating loss – and you’d have got good odds from any bookmaker on this. A loss that would be similar to the last two failures on Super Sunday to the Giants. The Seahawks had just benefited from a circus like catch that brought back memories of David Tyree’s helmet catch against the Pats. As Seattle moved the ball to the one yard line, the sense of impending doom was written all over Tom Brady’s face. But then, despite an ill advised call by Pete Carroll, it was the Patriots defense that cemented the win and Tom Brady’s legacy as Malcolm Butler intercepted Russell Wilson.

Brady played a whale of a game going 37 of 50 and throwing four touchdowns. He picked apart a historically great Seahawks defense. But in the end it took an undrafted defensive player from West Alabama to make sure one of the best quarterbacks in history got his fourth Super Bowl win. Brady’s defense made sure he wasn’t locked out of the elite realm that only Bradshaw and Montana occupied before this game.