FOXBORO — Fourteen months after its planned construction was announced, the Patriots finally unveiled their statue tribute to Tom Brady on Friday in a ceremony outside Gillette Stadium.
Located in the Patriot Place courtyard between the franchise’s Hall of Fame/pro shop and the GP Atrium, the bronze likeness stands a fitting 12 feet tall. It depicts Brady, stone-faced, with his helmet in his left hand and his right fist lifted in celebration.
The statue rests on a six-sided base, each side displaying the final score of one of the Patriots’ Super Bowl victories. Base included, it has a height of 17 feet, which Patriots owner Robert Kraft said was a nod to the 17 AFC East titles he won during his time in New England.
“There’s a saying: People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But they will never forget how you made them feel. And for two decades, Tom Brady made Patriots feel invincible,” Kraft said before the unveiling. “His story wasn’t scripted; it was earned. Every yard, every fourth-quarter comeback, every win. … He demanded excellence of himself and made everyone around him better. Tom wasn’t just the face of our franchise. He was the true heartbeat. It’s hard to overstate what Tom accomplished.”
Kraft rattled off a list of those accomplishments, from the Snow Bowl against the Raiders to the 28-3 Super Bowl comeback against the Falcons.
“These weren’t miracles,” he said. “These were just chapters in the epic career of Tom Brady.”
After the sheet covering his statue was removed, Brady addressed the crowd, which packed the plaza and watched from above on all four sides of the quarterback’s podium
“As RKK just said it perfectly, people will never forget how you made them feel,” he said. “Right now, I feel extremely honored, deeply grateful, and if I’m being honest, kind of old. I’m also a little surprised because usually, they don’t build statues until you’re really old, like (Mike) Vrabel and (Tedy) Bruschi. It’s not every day you get a statue, at least not one like this.”
Brady, reading from a prepared speech, also cracked a joke about this being “the first time in my life that Boston sports writers will describe me as ‘chiseled.'” He feigned a phone call from Bill Belichick, saying the coach wanted sculptor Jeff Buccacio of Natick to know “there’s still room for improvement.”
“I know the feeling,” a smiling Brady quipped.
Buccacio and his crew “spent more than 20,000 hours to perfect this statue,” Kraft said, and they captured Brady’s visage much more effectively than the creators of some other celebrity busts in recent years, most infamously the nightmarish portrayals of Cristiano Ronaldo and Dwyane Wade.
An up-close viewing of Brady’s statue reveals several subtle and appropriate details, from the Under Armour and Nike logos on his cleats and jersey, respectively, to the proper positioning of his eye black.
Belichick did not attend the event — which initially was scheduled to take place last season, before New England’s struggles prompted FOX to reroute Brady and the network’s top broadcast team away from Foxboro — but a slew of Brady’s former teammates did, including Vrabel, whose first preseason game as New England’s head coach kicked off less than two hours later.
Also in attendance were Devin and Jason McCourty, David Andrews, Brian Hoyer, Sebastian Vollmer, Ty Law, Lonie Paxton, Matt Chatham, Deatrich Wise, Jonathan Jones, Wes Welker and Kliff Kingsbury.
Wise and Jones both wore Commanders gear, having left New England this offseason to sign with Friday night’s Patriots opponent. Kingsbury, one of the many QBs who backed up Brady during the latter’s 20-year run with the franchise, is the Commanders’ offensive coordinator. Welker also works for Washington as a personnel analyst.
The ceremony was the third honoring Brady since he retired from the NFL in 2023. The Patriots honored him with a halftime presentation during their 2023 season opener and again in a lavish affair last summer inside Gillette Stadium, during which the team fast-tracked him into the Patriots Hall of Fame, retired his No. 12 and announced that he would be the first Patriots player or coach to receive a statue in his honor.
That number of Brady-centric events nearly matched the team’s win total from each of the last two seasons — 4-13 campaigns that both culminated in a head coach firing. Kraft referenced this post-Brady malaise during his address, saying he hopes the passionate crowd that turned out for the QB’s tribute “will be a predictor of the upcoming season, this kind of support.”
“Since Tom’s departure, we’ve been reminded just how difficult it is to win consistently in the NFL,” Kraft said.
Originally Published: August 8, 2025 at 6:57 PM EDT