Happy Birthday to the man who played a crucial role in helping the New England Patriots get six Super Bowl Championships! That man, of course, is Tom Brady. Patriots fans everywhere are definitely grateful for what he helped the organization accomplish. Today (August 3rd) is Tom Brady's 45th birthday. Remember when he was drafted by the New England Patriots way back in 2000?

Back then, Brady was just this sixth round draft pick out of the University of Michigan that no one really thought much about until an injury to Drew Bledsoe occurred in a game against the New York Jets in 2001. In stepped the young Tom Brady and the rest is pretty much history.

So what has happened in that time since then?

Tom Brady is still playing football. Yes, we all know that the New England Patriots have won six Super Bowls, with Brady having a total of seven. But what has happened elsewhere in the world since Tom Brady became the GOAT?

1) Fast Internet

Bert B via Unsplash
Bert B via Unsplash
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It seems like computers probably looked like this before we had fast internet. As if they couldn't even fit in a normal-sized picture. But back before anyone knew about TB12, like leading up to 2000, there was a connection known as a 56k modem. This also meant you had to be off your landline telephone. Remember those? That connection speed means that you could get 3.36 Mb of data per minute or 201 Mb per hour. Today, the AVERAGE internet speed it 42.86 Mb per second. Just fast enough to get a split-second Google result of how many Super Bowls that Tom Brady helped win for the Patriots.

2) Social Media Platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.

Getty Images
Getty Images
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When Tom Brady was drafted in 2000, no one had ever heard of anything called 'Facebook', or Mark Zuckerberg for that matter. In fact, if the timeline for the movie 'The Social Network' is accurate, Mark Zuckerberg would have still been in high school when Brady was drafted. But now, we have all these social media platforms literally at our fingertips through our phones. No one would have been able to look up why Tom Brady was drafted in the sixth round, unless of course you were using the aforementioned 56k modem at the time. Make sure someone else wasn't using your landline phone so you could connect too.

3) The Apple iPod, iPhone, and iPad

NurPhoto via Getty Images
NurPhoto via Getty Images
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Imagine a world where people didn't walk around staring at their phones all day. That's how life was when Tom Brady was drafted in 2000. The now, late Steve Jobs had several new product ideas for Apple in the early 2000s that have now come to fruition. The first was the iPod. It has since been which was released in 2002. The iPhone didn't come along until 2007. The first iPad was introduced in 2010. If we fast-forward to today, the iPod has discontinued and has been dissolved into Apple Music, which can be played on your iPhone. The newest iPhone these days is the iPhone 13.

4) YouTube

SOPA Images/LightRocket via Gett
SOPA Images/LightRocket via Gett
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You can pretty much look up any Super Bowl highlight from any of the six that Tom Brady has helped the New England Patriots win at a moments notice thanks to YouTube. It came out back in 2005. When Tom Brady was drafted, no one thought you could look up almost any video in history, or any Tom Brady highlight when he was at the University of Michigan for that matter. Now, pretty much any video you want is on the incredible platform and MOST of it is completely free.

5) Abolishing the NFL's "Tuck Rule"

We don't need to discuss this any further. Watch at your own discretion. Just know that an AFC Championship, and then a Super Bowl would follow up this Patriots victory. And then five more Super Bowls would follow. The "Tuck Rule" was abolished in 2013.

And there it is. Not of that was in existence when Tom Brady was drafted in 2000. Now it's 2022, and the GOAT is still playing. Happy Birthday, TB12!

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