Brady didn't take a discount though. He came in and won a Super Bowl but he'd barely been a starter. I don't look at that contract in '02 as Brady giving a discount. That contract is comparable to the one Foles got after his Super Bowl run. The contract he signed in '05 made him the highest in the league.
After winning his THIRD Super Bowl, Brady signed a contract that put him
among the top paid in the league....but NOT the top paid in the league.
But he really, by then he was so great that he could've been the most and still have been giving the team a discount by not wanting even more than that.
Never was or has it been a goal of his. Ever.
It is a player's right to want to get what he thinks he can get, but Brady has never been one of those guys who had to have the absolute max that he could get. 10s of millions (and eventually and cumulatively >100 million) was enough.