The work ethic was particularly strong in the Bradshaw household. In his early childhood, the family lived in Camanche, Iowa, where he set forth the goal to play professional football. When he was a teenager, Bradshaw returned with his family to Shreveport. There, he attended Woodlawn High School, played under assistant coach A. L. Williams, and led the Knights to the AAA state championship game in 1965, but lost 12–9 to the Sulphur Golden Tornadoes. While at Woodlawn, he set a national record for throwing the javelin at 245 feet (74.68 m); his exploits earned him a spot in the Sports Illustrated feature Faces In The Crowd. Bradshaw’s successor as Woodlawn’s starting quarterback was another future NFL standout, Joe Ferguson of the Buffalo Bills. Bradshaw’s Steelers would defeat Ferguson’s Bills in a 1974 divisional playoff game.

When he arrived at Tech in 1966, Bradshaw caused a media frenzy on account of his reputation of being a football sensation from nearby Shreveport. Robertson was a year ahead of Bradshaw, and was the starter for two seasons in 1966 and 1967, and chose not to play in 1968. As Robertson put it: “I’m going for the ducks, you [Terry] can go for the bucks.”

In 1969, Bradshaw was considered by most professional scouts to be the most outstanding college football player in the nation. As a junior, he amassed 2,890 total yards, ranking No. 1 in the NCAA, and led his team to a 9–2 record and a 33–13 win over Akron in the Rice Bowl. In his senior season, he gained 2,314 yards, ranking third in the NCAA, and led his team to an 8–2 record. His decrease in production was mainly because his team played only 10 games that year, and he was taken out of several games in the second half because his team had built up a huge lead.

Bradshaw graduated owning virtually all Louisiana Tech passing records at the time. In 1970, Bradshaw received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement. In 1984, he was inducted into the inaugural class of the Louisiana Tech sports hall of fame. Four years later, he was inducted into the state of Louisiana’s sports hall of fame.

In the 1970 NFL Draft, Bradshaw was the first overall player selected by the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Steelers drew the first pick in the draft after winning a coin flip tiebreaker with the Chicago Bears due to the teams having identical 1–13 records in 1969. Bradshaw was hailed at the time as the consensus No. 1 pick.

It took Bradshaw several seasons to adjust to the NFL, but he eventually led the Steelers to eight AFC Central championships and four Super Bowl titles. The Pittsburgh Steelers featured the “Steel Curtain” defense and a powerful running attack led by Franco Harris and Rocky Bleier, but Bradshaw’s strong arm gave them the threat of the deep pass, helping to loosen opposing defenses. In 1972, he threw the “Immaculate Reception” pass to Franco Harris to beat the Raiders in the AFC Divisional playoffs, which is among the most famous plays in NFL history.

Bradshaw temporarily lost the starting job to Joe Gilliam in 1974, but he took over again during the regular season. In the 1974 AFC Championship Game against the Oakland Raiders, his fourth-quarter touchdown pass to Lynn Swann proved to be the winning score in a 24–13 victory. In the Steelers’ 16–6 Super Bowl IX victory over the Minnesota Vikings that followed, Bradshaw completed 9 of 14 passes and his fourth-quarter touchdown pass put the game out of reach and helped take the Steelers to their first Super Bowl victory.

Neck and wrist injuries in 1976 forced Bradshaw to miss four games. He was sharp in a 40–14 victory over the Baltimore Colts, completing 14 of 18 passes for 264 yards and three touchdowns, but the Steelers’ hopes of a three-peat ended when both of their 1,000-yard rushers (Franco Harris and Rocky Bleier) were injured in the win over the Colts, and the Steelers subsequently lost to the Oakland Raiders in the AFC Championship game, 24-7. Jack Lambert asserted that that 1976 Steelers team was the best team that he ever played on, including the four Super Bowl teams of which he was a part.

Bradshaw has also written or co-written five books and recorded six albums of country/western and gospel music. His cover of “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” hit Top 20 on Billboard’s country chart (and No. 91 on the Hot 100) in 1976; two other tunes (“The Last Word In Lonesome Is Me” and “Until You”) also made the country charts.

Bradshaw had his finest season in 1978 when he was named the NFL’s Most Valuable Player by the Associated Press after a season in which he completed 207 of 368 passes for 2,915 yards and a league-leading 28 touchdown passes. He was also named All-Pro and All-AFC that year, despite throwing 20 interceptions.

In addition to his television work, Bradshaw has appeared in several movies, including a part in the 1978 film Hooper which starred Burt Reynolds, Jan-Michael Vincent, and Sally Field, and made an appearance in the 1981 film The Cannonball Run. In 1980, he had a cameo in Smokey and the Bandit II which starred Burt Reynolds, Jerry Reed, and Sally Field. He made a guest appearance in The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. in 1994, playing Colonel Forrest March, a rogue U.S. Army officer who gave orders to his squad (played by NFL members Ken Norton, Jr., Carl Banks, and Jim Harbaugh) in a huddle using football diagrams.

Bradshaw won his second straight Super Bowl MVP award in 1979 in Super Bowl XIV. He passed for 309 yards and two touchdowns in a 31–19 win over the Los Angeles Rams. Early in the fourth quarter, with Pittsburgh down 19–17, Bradshaw again turned to the long pass to help engineer a victory: a 73-yard touchdown to John Stallworth. Bradshaw shared Sports Illustrated’s Sportsman of the Year award that season with fellow Pittsburgh star Willie Stargell, whose Pirates won the 1979 World Series.

After undergoing off-season elbow surgery, Bradshaw was idle for the first 14 games of the 1983 NFL season. Then on December 10, 1983, against the New York Jets, he felt a pop in his elbow while throwing his final pass, a 10-yard touchdown to Calvin Sweeney in the second quarter of the Steelers’ 34–7 win. Bradshaw later left the game and never played again. The two touchdowns Bradshaw threw in what would be the final NFL game played at Shea Stadium (and the last NFL game played in New York City proper to date) allowed him to finish his career with two more touchdowns (212) than interceptions (210).

Bradshaw’s retirement came as a surprise to some, and in hindsight unplanned on the Steelers’ part. Before Bradshaw’s elbow problems came about, the team chose to pass up Pitt quarterback Dan Marino in the 1983 NFL Draft as an heir successor to Bradshaw due in part to head coach Chuck Noll wanting to rebuild on defense and, according to Bill Hillgrove, the Rooney family not wanting Marino to face a lot of pressure in his hometown and needing to experience life outside of Oakland, where Marino grew up and where Pitt is located. The player the Steelers drafted instead (Gabriel Rivera) only played six games before becoming a quadriplegic following a drunk driving accident, and Marino’s subsequent success with the Miami Dolphins prompted Art Rooney to remind his sons daily until his death that the team “should’ve drafted Marino.” The decision also set the franchise back at quarterback: while the team would eventually return to being a Super Bowl contender after their rebuilding period during the mid-1980s, the team wouldn’t have a consistent quarterback until Ben Roethlisberger arrived in 2004.

Bradshaw retired from football on July 24, 1984, and quickly signed a television contract with CBS to become an NFL game analyst in 1984, where he and play-by-play announcer Verne Lundquist had the top rated programs. Prior to his full-time work for them, he served as a guest commentator for CBS Sports’ NFC postseason broadcasts from 1980–82.

Bradshaw’s anxieties about appearing in public, away from the controlled environment of a television studio, led to an unintentional estrangement from the Steelers. When team founder and owner Art Rooney died in 1988, Bradshaw did not attend his funeral. A year later, during his Hall of Fame induction speech, Bradshaw made a point of saluting his late boss and friend, pointing to the sky and saying, “Art Rooney … boy, I tell you, I loved that man.”

Bradshaw was promoted into television studio analyst for The NFL Today in 1990 (which he hosted with Greg Gumbel through the 1993 season). In 1994, with the Fox network establishing its sports division with their purchase of NFL TV rights, Bradshaw joined Fox NFL Sunday, where he normally acts as a comic foil to his co-hosts. On Fox NFL Sunday he hosts two semi-regular features, Ten Yards with TB, where he fires random questions at an NFL pro, and The Terry Awards, an annual comedic award show about the NFL season. As a cross-promotional stunt, he also hosted two consecutive Digi-Bowl specials in 2001 and 2002 on Fox Kids, providing commentary from the NFL on Fox studio in-between episodes of Digimon: Digital Monsters; the 2002 special was the final one as the Fox Kids block ended the same year. He appeared on the first broadcast of NASCAR on FOX where he took a ride with Dale Earnhardt at Daytona International Speedway the night before Earnhardt was killed in a last lap crash in the Daytona 500. Bradshaw also waved the green flag at the start of the ill-fated race.

In July 1997, Bradshaw served as the presenter when Mike Webster, his center on the Steelers’ Super Bowl XIII and XIV title teams, was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Bradshaw has had cameo appearances in many shows as himself, including Brotherly Love, Everybody Loves Raymond, Married… with Children, Modern Family, The Larry Sanders Show and The League. He also appeared on Malcolm in the Middle with Howie Long as the trashy coach of a women’s ice hockey team. He hosted a short-lived television series in 1997 called Home Team with Terry Bradshaw.

Still, Bradshaw never returned to Three Rivers Stadium for a Steelers game. When the last regular season game was played there on December 16, 2000, Bradshaw was with the Fox NFL Sunday crew, doing their pre-game show aboard the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman, while Fox covered the game live. Bradshaw expressed regret that he could not be there, but would later say privately that he did not feel he could face the crowds. It would not be until September 2002, when fellow Hall of Fame teammate and longtime friend Mike Webster died, that Bradshaw finally returned to Pittsburgh to attend his friend’s funeral.

In 2001, Bradshaw entered the world of NASCAR by joining with HighLine Performance Group racing team to form FitzBradshaw Racing. He also is the spokesman for Jani-King international, Inc. Bradshaw ended his ownership in 2006.

On October 11, 2001, Bradshaw received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the first NFL player to do so (Terry Crews was the second).

In October 2002, Bradshaw returned to the Steelers sideline for the first time in twenty years for a Monday night game between the Steelers and the Indianapolis Colts. In 2003, when the Steelers played the 1,000th game in franchise history, Fox covered the game at Heinz Field, and Bradshaw returned to cover the game. In addition to appearing to take his position on the Steelers All-Time Team in 2007 as part of the team’s 75th anniversary festivities, he also was on the sideline for the 2007 home opener, where the Steelers earned their 500th regular season win.

In 2006, despite the Steelers being one of the teams playing in the game, Bradshaw did not attend a pregame celebration for past Super Bowl MVP’s during Super Bowl XL in Detroit, Michigan. According to reports, Bradshaw (along with three time MVP and close friend Joe Montana) requested a US$100,000 guarantee for his appearance in the Super Bowl MVP Parade, and associated appearances. The NFL could not guarantee that they would make that much and refused. A representative for Bradshaw has since denied this report. After an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (February 6, 2006) Bradshaw stated that the reason why he did not attend the MVP parade was that he was spending time with family, that he hates the crowds and the Super Bowl media circus, and also that the only way he would attend a Super Bowl is when Fox is broadcasting the game (it was ABC who broadcast Super Bowl XL), though Bradshaw attended several press conferences in Detroit days earlier. Bradshaw also stated that money was not an issue.

In April 2006, Bradshaw donated his four Super Bowl rings, College Football Hall of Fame ring, Pro Football Hall of Fame ring, Hall of Fame bust, four miniature replica Super Bowl trophies, and a helmet and jersey from one of his Super Bowl victories to his alma mater, Louisiana Tech.

In 2006, Bradshaw returned to the silver screen in the motion picture Failure to Launch. He and Kathy Bates played the parents of Matthew McConaughey’s character. In one notable scene he appeared nude, which his own daughters (who were teenagers at the time) didn’t even know about until they saw the movie’s premiere with their grandmother and was half-heartedly warned by Bradshaw just moments before the scene. Bradshaw’s nude scene would be referenced by Jay Leno, who spent an entire segment mocking during an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. He mentioned on May 23, 2008, on The Tonight Show that he has been a guest 37 times, and that 34 of them were on a Friday, which happens to be the lowest watched night of television. He pleasantly joked with Jay about being a ‘filler’ guest. He made a similar reference in an appearance on March 15, 2010, stating he was asked to guest because of a cancellation. Jay stated that at least he was not appearing on Friday, which hosts the more well-known celebrity guests. As of December 28, 2012, Bradshaw has made 50 appearances on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

On November 5, 2007, during a nationally televised Monday Night Football game, Bradshaw joined former teammates including Franco Harris and Joe Greene to accept their position on the Pittsburgh Steelers 75th Anniversary All-Time Team.

Politically, Bradshaw is a long-time supporter of the Republican Party. In 2012, he went on record on Fox News as supporting the candidacy of Newt Gingrich for the Republican presidential nomination. In the same interview, he also labeled linebacker Terrell Suggs “an idiot” for making comments critical of Denver quarterback Tim Tebow’s public remarks about his Christian faith, saying Suggs “better be careful; if I were him I’d be on my hands and knees tonight asking for forgiveness because that’s totally unacceptable.”

Bradshaw has been married four times. He was first married to Melissa Babish (Miss Teenage America, 1969) from 1972–73; to ice skater JoJo Starbuck from 1976–83; and to family attorney Charla Hopkins, who is the mother of his two daughters, Rachel and Erin, from 1983-99. Erin Bradshaw shows champion paint and quarter horses and is an honors graduate of the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas. Rachel Bradshaw is a graduate of Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, and appeared in Nashville (2007), a reality television series about young musicians trying to make it in Nashville, and is the widow of former Tennessee Titans kicker Rob Bironas. The first three of Bradshaw’s marriages have all ended in divorce, a subject he ridicules frequently on his NFL pre-game show. Bradshaw was married for the fourth time, on July 8, 2014, to Tammy, his girlfriend of 15 years.

While Terry Bradshaw never had any problems with the Rooney family, he had a complicated relationship with Steelers head coach Chuck Noll. Noll and Bradshaw had an uneasy relationship during his playing days, with Bradshaw stating that he felt that Noll was too hard on him and never liked him, though the two made peace (at least publicly) before Noll’s death in 2014.

In an interview with NFL Films in 2016 for an episode of A Football Life about Noll, Bradshaw felt that the two had too much of a culture clash with their personalities. Bradshaw also stated that Noll belittled him constantly and wanted positive reinforcement instead of “being grabbed at”. In the same episode, however, former Steelers public relations director Joe Gordon characterized the animosity as “a one-way street,” with former teammate Jack Ham adding that Noll “insulated” Bradshaw from certain issues while taking a “rest of us be damned” approach with the other players.

In 2016 and 2018, Bradshaw had a leading role in the NBC reality-travel series Better Late Than Never, where he travels around the world with William Shatner, Henry Winkler, George Foreman and Jeff Dye. In 2017, he had a supporting role as a fictionalized version of himself in the comedy film Father Figures.

On January 16, 2019, he was revealed on the third episode of The Masked Singer to be The Deer.

On January 2, 2020, he was on the season 8 premiere of Last Man Standing.

On September 17, 2020, Terry and family premiered in the new E! reality show The Bradshaw Bunch.