The New England Patriots unveiled a gigantic bronze statue of Tom Brady on Friday, which will forever immortalize the quarterback outside the team’s Hall of Fame at Patriot Place.
The bronze sculpture, which was commissioned by Patriots team owner Robert Kraft, was unveiled ahead of Friday night’s preseason opener between the Patriots and the Washington Commanders at Gillette Stadium. It’s the first statue the team has built for any player.
The statue depicts Brady’s iconic celebratory pose with his first raised in the air, which adds a little more height to the model. The pose is not tied to a specific moment in Brady’s career, and the facial design features the laser-focused expression he carried through games throughout his career.
The statue even looks like Brady, which is no small accomplishment by the local sculptors who constructed the statue.
New England football fans will be flocking to the Brady effigy, which will is illuminated from above so it’s visible both day and night. Here’s everything you need to know about the new Tom Brady statue standing at Patriot Place outside Gillette Stadium.
Where is the Tom Brady statue located?
The Tom Brady statue is located in the Patriot Place Plaza at the base of the lighthouse, adjacent to the Patriots Hall of Fame. The landmark welcomes fans as they make their way into Patriots Place, with Brady standing at the “front door” of Gillette Stadium.
How tall is the Tom Brady statue?
The statue of Brady is 12 feet tall, matching the number he wore on his jersey throughout his career. But when you include his raised fist, the figure measures 14.5 feet, and it stands at an overall height of 17 feet when you add in the 2.5-foot granite base.
The height of 17 feet is symbolic too, representing the 17 AFC East titles the quarterback led the Patriots to in his 18 seasons as the team’s starter.
The entire structure weighs in at just over six tons. The statue itself is 1,800 lbs, while the base is 10,500 lbs. The base it a hexagon to symbolize the six Super Bowl championships Brady brought to Foxboro as a member of the Patriots.
Who made the Tom Brady statue?
The statue was sculpted by Buccacio Sculpture Services, which is located in Canton, Massachusetts. Jeff Buccacio — a Natick native who is a lifelong Patriots fan — led the design process for the statue.
“Jeff, you and your team did an incredible job. Seriously, it is so accurate, so detailed,” Brady said during his speech Friday, before he pretended to get a phone call at the podium. “Sorry, that was coach [Bill] Belichick. He said there was still room for improvement. I know the feeling.”
A number of techniques were used to construct the Brady statue, including bronze casting, 3D scanning, traditional clay sculpting, and modern enlargement methods. It took Buccacio Sculpture Services over 20,000 hours to produce the statue.
“I knew that there was a big responsibility with this work of art,” Buccacio told WBZ after the unveiling. “I was born and raised here, and I did not want to disappoint. I didn’t want to have to move out of Massachusetts.”
Tom Brady with the New England Patriots
Brady’s Patriots career may never be matched in the NFL, as he brought six Super Bowl championships to Foxboro during his 20-year run with the team. He went from being the 199th pick in the 2000 NFL Draft to one of the greatest to ever play in the NFL, as he captured three NFL MVPs and a number of records (including 89,214 passing yards, 649 touchdown passes, and 251 regular-season wins) over his career in addition to all those Lombardi trophies.
Brady was enshrined in the Patriots Hall of Fame last June during a special ceremony inside Gillette Stadium, which was attended by over 60,000 fans, Brady’s former teammates and foes-turned-friends in the NFL, and former New England head coach Bill Belichick. It was that evening that Kraft announced plans to unveil the Brady statue.
The Patriots had hoped to have the statue ceremony during the 2024 season, but Brady and the team couldn’t find a date that worked for both parties due to Brady’s busy broadcasting schedule with FOX. The statue remained in storage for over a year in Foxboro, but the monument now sits outside the Patriots Hall of Fame where it will immortalize the greatest player in franchise history.
Matt GeaganMatthew Geagan is a sports producer for CBS Boston. He has been part of the WBZ sports team for nearly 20 years. He moved over to the web in 2012 and has covered all the highs (and a few lows) in Boston sports.
