You wouldn't think that throwing a 600th career touchdown in a game where you won 38-3 would become a secondary story, but it did for Tom Brady on Sunday at Raymond James Stadium. That's because the seven-time Super Bowl champion proved to be a key figure in Noah Reeb, a 10-year-old Buccaneers fan, beating brain cancer. Noah went viral in the stands for his sign that read "Tom Brady helped me beat brain cancer."
As the game started turning into a blowout, Bucs players started to interact with the fans, and that's when the sideline recognized the sign and got Brady's attention. The 44-year-old quarterback then went over to Noah and gave him his sideline Crucial Catch hat, which was met with the young survivor bursting into tears following the exchange.
"It was crazy," Noah told the "Inside the NFL" cast during an interview on the Paramount+ show (stream now). "I didn't believe it. It was crazy. I was so blessed and so grateful. ... As soon as he looked at me I started crying."
The meaning behind the sign goes back to Brady sending Noah a video encouraging him as he was in the midst of his cancer battle.
"Noah had already undergone two brain surgeries within a three-week span," said Noah's mother, Jacque. "Through community outreach and it's kind of like a ripple effect, we all of a sudden got a text in the middle of the day. Noah and I were in the car, he was having a rough time. Obviously, he's an avid football fan and Tom Brady fan, and I look down, click it and there's Tom Brady.
"I turned the phone over to Noah and I said, 'Noah, look at my phone. Look at who this is.' And he was just floored. ... Tears were shed in the car."
"I just wanted to tell him thank you," Noah's father, James, added of meeting Brady. "I just wanted to say 'We got it. It helped a lot. It really meant something to us and I just want to say than you.' For me, that was that elation. That was the relief that I got to tell him thank you and then it was all about Noah.
"... What was so incredible for both Jackie and I to see was he took that hat and put it on that same head [that was subject to a number of surgeries]. It was the culmination of a very long, hard-fought, hard-won, well-earned journey for Noah."
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