Trying my hardest to think of someone with more drive and only one pops to mind and that's Cristiano Ronaldo (maybe Federer). Brady just might be the most driven athlete ever, like in any sport, anywhere.
Imagine being a 40 year old athlete after already accomplishing becoming the greatest in your field and achieving every team goal and more, yet STILL getting up every morning trying to actually get better as opposed to what most greats did (Kobe, Jordan, Manning etc.) who just let their body dictate when it was all said and done. For the MVP level at which he is still playing at, the superlatives are running thin to continue describing him.
You can't beat father time but Brady is taking that man to double overtime for sure.
Claiming a player is the most driven athlete of all time but zeroing out all the other great athletes because they "let their body dictate" their performance is pure bias. I think its very difficult to say Tom Brady has worked harder than MJ or Kobe. I think its far more valid to say that Brady has been far more open minded on how to extend the performance of his body as he's aged than those two.
Brady is as maniacal as Kobe, MJ, Ronaldo, Federer, etc. about being the very very best.
But you cannot say that Brady is more driven than Michael Jordan. I think they're on par, but Michael Jordan is Michael Jordan. He is the epitome of American athletic greatness at a time when America was probably at its best, and the world looked to MJ as the epitome of greatness.
Most athletes at the highest level are a bit maniacal, at least the ones who succeed. Isiah Thomas the 1st scored 25 points in the 4th quarter on one leg in Game 6 of the 88 finals, maybe the most ballsy individual athletic performance ever.
Ultimately, no matter how driven Brady is, football is a sport where players can only have impact on one side of the ball. Basketball is a two-way sport and drive + hard work = success is hard to apply in sports because there are so many factors, but in general individual basketball players can elevate their play to have far more impact on the outcome for their team. The hero of Super Bowl XLIX was Malcolm Butler, not Brady. However, the hero in game 7 of the 2016 finals was Lebron, the man went balls out to beat the Warriors, its just a limiting aspect of the sport. Thus, its very hard to elevate Brady's drive as GREATER than any other great athletes of all time. Not to limit him, just the nature of the sport itself.
