The GOAT continued to separate himself from everyone else. With the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' Super Bowl win, Tom Brady padded his already unprecedented NFL records. The quarterback won his seventh Super Bowl ring - four more than any other QB in league history and the most by any player at any position - and his record fifth Super Bowl MVP honor.
That seventh title puts him in incredibly elite company in professional sports. While he's alone in NFL lore, around other sports he's one of only a handful of North American athletes to win at least seven championships at the highest level of their respective sport.
NBA:
Bill Russell - 11 titles: Ten players in NBA history have at least seven titles to their name, and nine of them have one thing in common - they were on the dynastic Celtics. Russell was the leader, as part of all 11 championship-winning teams in the 13-season span between 1957-69. Though the Finals MVP award didn't come into existence until right after the dynasty ended, it's named after Russell, and it's safe to say he would be right there with Michael Jordan, who won the award six times.
Sam Jones - 10 titles: Russell's teammate in the 1960s, the Hall of Famer only missed the first championship (1957). After that, he was as integral as anyone in the Celtics' run, three times leading the C's in scoring.
John Havlicek, Tommy Heinsohn, KC Jones, Satch Sanders - 8 titles: Four more staples of Boston's dynasty, all four are in the Hall of Fame. While the latter three were all around from the early stages of the 11 titles, Havlicek was "only" there for the final six. He made up for it, though, by leading Boston to a pair of other titles in 1974 and 1976.
Jim Loscutoff, Frank Ramsey - 7 titles: Two more members of the Celtics' legendary run. Ramsey is in the Hall of Fame and is best known as essentially creating the "sixth man", coming off the bench to help Boston. Lotuscoff, meanwhile, is tied for the most championships ever by a non-Hall of Famer. A bench contributor, he averaged 6.2 points and 5.6 rebounds in his nine-year NBA career that ended with his seventh title in 1964.
Robert Horry - 7 titles: The only non-Auerbach Celtics player with at least seven championships in NBA history is "Big Shot Rob". Horry won his first two titles with Houston in 1994 and 1995, hitting clutch shots in the waning seconds on two occasions during the '95 playoff run. Then he was on the three-peat Lakers from 2000-02, most notably hitting game-winning threes against the Blazers and (famously) the Kings in the Western Conference Finals. He added his final two rings with San Antonio in 2005 and 2007, and in Game 5 of the 2005 Finals scored 21 points in the fourth quarter and overtime, including the game-winning three.
MLB:
Yogi Berra - 10 titles: Just like the NBA with the Celtics, the multiple Yankee dynasties dominate this list, led by the Hall of Fame catcher Berra. In his playing career Berra won ten championships from 1947-62, most famously catching Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series.
Joe DiMaggio - 9 titles: Debuting a decade before Berra, DiMaggio won nine titles in pinstripes. He burst onto the scene as a 21-year-old in 1936 and led the Yankees to four straight championships to begin his career, and lost just one World Series in his career (in 1942 to St. Louis).
Hank Bauer, Bill Dickey, Mickey Mantle, Babe Ruth, Phil Rizzuto - 7 titles: All five players were members of one Yankee dynasty. Ruth, obviously, led the first one, with Bill Dickey on both the tail-end of the Ruth dynasty and the early DiMaggio days. Rizzutto joined on in the early 1940s, then he and Hank Bauer were on the teams that bridged from Joltin' Joe to Mantle.
Of the seven players in MLB history to be on at least seven World Series champion rosters, Ruth is the only one to win a title somewhere other than the Bronx. His first three championships came in Boston (1915, 1916 and 1918).
NHL:
Henri Richard - 11 titles: Hey look! Another dynasty! The Canadiens were the dominant team in the league from the mid-1950s through the early '70s. Richard was the most consistent presence, winning a Cup as a rookie in 1956, then another ten over the next 17 years. He scored the Cup-clinching goals in 1966 and 1971, the latter of which came in Game 7 when he scored both the tying and winning goals.
Jean Beliveau, Yvon Cournoyer - 10 titles: The legendary Beliveau actually has his name engraved on Lord Stanley 17 times - easily the most in NHL history - but seven of those came as an executive. As a player, he was on the same teams as Richard, winning five straight championships from 1956-60, then five more from 1965-71. In 1965 he won the inaugural Conn Smythe Trophy, going to the playoff's most valuable player.
Cournoyer came along midway through the Richard/Beliveau years, winning his first title in 1965. He'd carry the load when the old guard retired, hoisting the Cup six times in the 1970s, including four straight from 1976-79. He also won the Conn Smythe in 1973.
Claude Provost - 9 titles: He has the most championships by anyone not in the Hockey Hall of Fame. In 15 pro seasons he won nine titles with Montreal, with his best seasons coming in 1962 (33 goals) and 1965 (64 points).
Maurice Richard, Jacques Lemaire, Serge Savard - 8 titles: Two more Canadiens, Richard won his first title as a 22-year-old in 1944, then was the star in the early days of the dynasty in the 1950s.
Lemaire and Savard were both stars on the 1970s teams. Lemaire scored a pair of Cup-winning goals, in 1977 and '79, while Savard became the first defenseman to win the Conn Smythe Trophy, doing so in his second pro season in 1969.
Red Kelly - 8 titles: Our only non-Canadien, if it was a year in which Montreal didn't win a championship in the '50s or '60s, chances are Kelly was on the team. The defenseman won four Cups in Detroit (1950, 1952, 1954 & 1955), then a decade later was a blue-line staple during Toronto's three-peat from 1962-64, while adding his final championship with the Leafs in 1967.
Jean-Guy Talbot: One more member of Montreal's dynasty, Talbot was a defenseman on the Habs teams that won four straight Cups in the late '50s and added three more the following decade.