Tom Brady reaches 100,000 total passing yards: What you don't know

After Brady topped 100,000 yards on Sunday, the story was changed.

Tom Brady recorded his first passing yards in a meaningless game in 2000.

They came in the form of a 6-yard pass to a tight end in a Detroit Lions game. The pass was the only one of Brady's rookies to complete.

Brady passed the 100,000 career passing yards mark in the regular season and playoffs, a milestone that has never been reached and could never be matched.

In Week 9 of the season, Brady reached the 100,000-yard mark with a 15-yard completion to Leonard Fournette that led to a 50-yard field goal by Ryan Succop. It adds another layer of separation between Brady's achievements and those of the other players.

The totality of Brady's accomplishments can be seen in the 100,000-yard mark. It shows his incredible endurance in the game.

The coach of the Las Vegas Raiders said that he was amazed. The number speaks to longevity.

It's a stat that shows Brady's status as a fixture in the playoffs. It's why he's more than 12,000 yards in front of the second-place quarterback.

Brady has been around long enough to have survived his peers. He almost always beats them in the regular season and in the playoffs.

"Quarterback wins" is not a real stat according to them. We can make an exception for the greatest winner. Brady has a.759 regular-season win rate and a.744 postseason win rate.

A quarterback can get to 100,000 yards by doing that. With the milestone in sight, let's take a look at some statistics from Brady's journey, with some input from the people who helped him get here.

'Not trying to get greedy'

Brady has led the league in passing yards just four times in his career.

He has 266.2 career passing yards per game. It's an impressive number, but it's also behind the likes of Matthew Stafford, Matt Ryan and DeshaunWatson.

Brady's approach is based on his ability to make the right play. There are an endless number of slot receiver who have excelled while playing with Brady.

Welker, Brady's teammate for six seasons in New England, said "you can sit back there and just hold on, kind of messing around." He knows that if you have a No. 1 you should take it. It isn't trying to get rich. Keeping in third-and-manageable and just moving the ball is what I'm trying to accomplish.

It's difficult for a defense.

It's kind of perfect that the longest completion of Brady's career was not very long.

In a game against the Miami Dolphins, Brady dropped a throw over a defender at the 17-yard line, and Welker took it the distance for a 99-yard touchdown.

Brady stood near the back of his own end zone to deliver the ball after a few seconds.

Welker said that he took a speed release and put it on a line.

Brady had a laugh at Welker's expense.

Welker said that he was told during training camp that he couldn't run seam routes. He was talking to me. Being able to talk trash to him on the sideline was very satisfying. He just smirked.

'A cannon for an arm'

No quarterback could reach Brady's statistical heights without being able to throw a deep ball.

Ask Randy and Deion. They caught nine passes of 50 yards or more from Brady, the most by any receiver with whom he has played. Moss broke Jerry Rice's single-season receiving touchdown record when he played with Brady.

One of the most famous examples of Brady's deep ball is a completion to Jabar Gaffney in a game. Brady had a career-high in air yards on the play.

Brady threw a cross field pass to Moss, who mishandled the low pass, and then threw another cross field pass to Gaffney, who ran it in for the touchdown.

It was in the rotation because we saw how their defense was playing us. Their aggressiveness was what made it happen. They'd been looking at our screens.

Gaffney kept running down the field. The timing was thrown off by the mistake on the play. The defense had to recover after the ball was thrown.

Gaffney said it was like a slow motion movie.

The ball flew over the outstretched arm of Anthony Smith, who had drawn the ire of the Pats by guaranteeing a win in the locker room. For a second Brady was unaware of this.

There was a little extra sauce on that one.

Gaffney still marvels at Brady's accuracy.

He said that he could never stop running on that quarterback. He's able to put it out there. You are always close to him. There is a cannon for an arm.

The postseason's 'ultimate competitor'

Three of the top four players in the playoffs are associated with the New England dynasty. Adam Vinatieri went to the playoffs 15 times with the New England and Indianapolis teams. Stephen Gostkowski is tied with Jerry Rice for the most games played by a kicker.

Brady is his own man. He has played in 47 games in the playoffs. If he hadn't excelled in the playoffs, reaching the 100,000- yard mark wouldn't be possible.

It's more than just that Brady has won seven Super Bowl titles. Brady has been able to accumulate unprecedented numbers due to the deep playoff runs. Brady has been given nearly three additional seasons of games because of his performance in the playoffs.

Three times in Brady's career, he has passed 1,000 passing yards in a single playoff game.

The level of Brady's accomplishments in the playoffs can be seen in the NFL's all-time passing yardage list. In the playoffs, his 13,049 passing yards are 5,710 more than Manning's.

Troy Brown, who is responsible for 3,913 of Brady's yards, said that the quarterback is the ultimate competitor. He just had to finish regardless of whether you were up or down.

'Hard to play until you're 45'

Does Brady have a chance at this mark? Let's take a look.

Only one other quarterback with more than 70, 000 passing yards is still alive. Ben Roethlisberger is the only one who will be walking through the door in the near future.

The Packers' Rodgers and the Colts' Ryan are close to Brady. Neither is likely to last long enough to mount a challenge. Rodgers is considering retiring. Ryan was benched last week.

There are younger quarterbacks in the league. For most of Brady's career, he has only had a 17 game regular season and an expanded playoffs field.

It's not likely to be enough.

The most realistic candidate would be the quarterback of the Kansas City Chiefs. He could reach 100,000 yards by his 40th birthday. He would need to average 18.3 games per season and 300 passing yards per game for the next 14 years.

It's not a big deal if you're willing to ignore the possibility of injuries or the likelihood of a decline with age, which seem to affect most NFL players more than Brady.

Mahomes imagined playing at Brady's age before the Chiefs' game against the Bucs. It wasn't easy to understand.

It's difficult to play until you're 45 years old, and I don't want to be out there just hanging on.

It would take the Chargers' Justin Herbert until his 43rd birthday to reach 100,000 yards. It would take Joe Burrow until he was 46 years old to do it.

Brady is the oldest player in the league by five years. Even though the Buccaneers are struggling, he's still productive. Brady had a career high in passing yards last season. His production and longevity are beyond belief.

The crazy part is that. There has never been a down year in his career. He has always been great and had a great season.

Will anyone ever be able to duplicate Brady's accomplishment? It will only be time that tells. There are a lot of hours.

Paul and Mike are reporters for the Raiders and the Pats, respectively.