The Sporting News has named New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady its 2007 Sportsman of the Year. Brady becomes the first athlete ever to win the award twice. The Sporting News also honored Brady in 2004.

Update [2007-12-18 22:37:44 by tommasse]:
(It turns out that Mark McGwire also won twice, by himself in 1997 and as co-winner with Sammy Sosa in 1998.)

The gist of the Sportsman of the Year announcement story by Mike Nahrstedt is imaging an NFL without Tom Brady. It's an interesting, if not frightening and depressing, exercise, but one not entirely original. (Don't bother with most of it, just scroll toward the bottom for the "Tom Brady is George Bailey" theory -- and ignore the comments for obvious reasons. Um, by the way, the rest of the site is not exactly family friendly and more than a little disturbing in places.)

Nahrstedt's one obvious mistake is that Matt Cassel wouldn't necessarily be New England's current quarterback. After all, it would have been Damon Huard replacing Drew Bledsoe in 2001, and who know what would have happened after that. Chances are, Bledsoe would have returned to the starting lineup when medical personnel cleared him to play, there would have been six more years of futility, and Bledsoe would still be playing out his contract.

Yikes.

Fortunately, the reality is that the NFL does have Tom Brady, and, even better, the New England Patriots have him. And with Brady, 52 other players and the coaches, "we" have an unbeaten team. At least in that respect, it really is a wonderful life.