This one flew way under my radar until I saw the Sports Illustrated story, but Tom Brady is set to become the oldest quarterback ever to start a game in the NFL. He’ll be knocking a former Falcon out of the record books when he suits up in Week 1.
That Falcon is Steve DeBerg, and the story of how he wound up starting one single game in 1998 a full five years after retiring from the NFL is a fascinating one. The longtime backup threw for over 34,000 yards in the NFL over a long career spent primarily as a backup, and when he retired after the 1993 season neither DeBerg nor any NFL teams expected him to get back into the league.