Unselfishness. Brady was never a pig at the salary-cap trough. Coming off that Atlanta Super Bowl win, in 2017, Brady’s salary was 8.3 percent of the team’s cap. The year New England went 16-0 in the regular season, Brady was 6.7 percent of the cap. Just spend to the cap every year, and I’ll be reasonable, he’d tell Pioli and his successors with the keys to the Patriots’ vault. When Brady won Sports Illustrated’s Sportsman of the Year in 2005, magazine editor Terry McDonell referenced Brady’s contractual unselfishness as part of the reason for the award.
This is from King’s article this morning and seems appropriate. Love him or hate him, he seems to have understood the sun of the part’s concept.