Making the case for Brady

[JaiDee]

Can Tom Brady claim the title of "Best Quarterback of all-time''?

 Consider the facts;

 Not one losing season in his 10-year career.

  3 Super bowl rings;  2 super bowl MVP's

   Most touchdown passes in a season; 50

 Most touchdown passes in one quarter; 5

    1 MVP award, and heading for number 2 this year;  that is THE number 1 player out of 1600 players, for 20% of his career.

  The highest winning percentage of ANY quarterback during the first 100 starts of his career. The guy is just a winner.

  Doesn't throw interceptions;  this year his ratio of TD's to INT's is 30/4.

 
  But it's not just the records and the consistency of the guy, who plays awesome every single year; it's the fact he has done all this with a bunch of nobody's!  Seriously,  besides Randy Moss and Wes Welker,  can you non-Patriots fans name any of his wide-outs over the years??  

The immortal Jabar Gaffney? David Givens? David Patten? Brandon Tate? Even if you know who Troy Brown and Deion Branch are, and the 2 new tight ends we have right now look pretty good,  he hasn't been surrounded by superstars during his career, not by any means.  

Only one pro-bowl running back to keep the defenses honest as well, Corey Dillon, and he only played for 3 seasons.  If you can name even ONE defensive superstar since 2000 you get a gold star, save for Richard Seymour who is gone now; my point being he has essentially done it all with a bunch of cast-offs and no-names.

    OK,  here is my top-5 list from my considerable experience following this sport as a diehard fan since 1970, in order; these are only players I have seen personally, I guess Johnny Unitas would be on here also but I was too young for him.

1}  Montana
2} Bradshaw
3} Elway
4} Brady
5} {Tie} Manning and Marino

          Tom just signed on for 4 more years after this one; could he be the best of all time when he retires?

Don't bet against it.

[guydesavoy]

No argument about Montana. He was THE clutch QB   3X SuperBowl MVP I think..

What about Roger Staubach ? Or maybe I am just stuck in the 70's  

And Favre ? Comeback Queen

[Crackerjax]

Hard to argue against Brady based on his record as a winner over the years and with admittedly marginal receivers - but somehow he feels like a bellichek creation.

If winning isn't an absolute (and Marino's on the list), Dan Fouts needs to be in the discussion. Did it in an era when the passing game wasn't as easy as with today's rules.

[kahuna]

(guydesavoy @ Dec. 23 2010,17:21) And Favre ? Comeback Queen    

Dec 7, 1980 (Pearl Harbor Day) the Niners made the greatest comeback in NFL history...
Down 35-7 at the half to the Saints, Walsh pulled starter Steve DeBerg and replaced him
with rookie QB Joe Montana and the Niners won 38-35...The next season they were SB champs...

[guydesavoy]

 

The Stats can tell many stories...on paper. But the test of a True Champ is the defining plays in the big games.

[BlueBallz]

We have had this discussion throughout the years before!! Brady HAS to be up there in the top 5 no doubt. Please remember, his story is FAR from being written so it can only get much better.

The only one that might not belong in there ios Bradshaw. He was quite good and a big game player but was more a product of his team i.e. his team was less reliant on him than othe rpart of the team like The Steel Curtain and the running game. This is not to diminish his accomplishments but just food for thought.

Its also very hard to judge QBs form the 60's, 70's, and 80's because the rules/game has changed quite a bit since the "3 yards and a cloud of dust" mentality. The running game used to be a much bigger part of pro football than it is today.

Interesting conversation though.....

The bottom line is Brady as a top 5 QB is a no brainer.......and thats from a JETS fan!!!

[JaiDee]

(Crackerjax @ Dec. 23 2010,18:33) Dan Fouts needs to be in the discussion

Fouts is one of my favorites, ever! I used to love watching him in the 80's, almost every game was over 300 yards. Super-accurate passer.

Staubach was very good also, I'd say top 10 for sure..... and Bradshaw, yes he was at the head of a very talented team and he had great role-players around him but he was really accurate and also had GUTS; he would get out there and run with it no problems, and that was long before these new rules which are meant to protect the QB were put in place.

The fact he owns 4 rings puts him at number 2 in my book; no one is better than Montana however, who also has 4.

Brady may get number 4 this year also, and again think of the team he is doing it with!! Hell, the defense has been near the bottom in every catagory since day one, if they win it all this year he moves up past Elway IMO.


Just me personally but I wouldn't put Favre even in a top 20 list; turns over the ball way too much, and history proves you can't count on the guy to win in the clutch.

[Jake_Sully]

The rumor goes that Brady was ready to ride off into the sunset with his supermodel wife after the last 2 years but what got him fired up for this year was the.. J E T S players talking crap and that motivated him even more. All I can personally say is, it couldn't have happened to a nicer team than the jets what happened to them in new england!

And the Giants might have beaten the Pats once but they don't talk and they know they got lucky with the Tyree helmet catch. Throw out that play and its a 4th ring for Brady and the Pats and a perfect season.

I'm personally not convinced Montana and Elway were this good as Brady.. I never saw Bradshaw play but Steve Young was pretty sharp when he did play usually. Manning is good but Brady is better.

In my mind yes and if Brady should win another ring, that solidifies him over Montana if anyone has any doubts now.

[JaiDee]

(Crackerjax @ Dec. 23 2010,18:33) If winning isn't an absolute (and Marino's on the list)

When Lefty used to read here we always talked about how Marino not winning one title would be held against him by sports historians, and that's for sure; had he won 2 or 3 he may be best all-time, right up there with Montana.

 But still he has to be mentioned *somewhere* in the top 10; the guy had a rifle for an arm and struck fear into defensive backfields for about 15 years. Too bad he didn't win the big one, he deserved at least one... and this coming from a Dolphins hater!

[JaiDee]

(Jake_Sully @ Dec. 23 2010,21:47) And the Giants might have beaten the Pats once but they don't talk and they know they got luck with the Tyree helmet catch. Throw out that play and its a 4th ring for Brady and the Pats and a perfect season.

Couldn't have said it better meself,  Jake!

  From a new england fan it's just sour grapes of course,  but damn it that one lucky play fucked up a 19-0 record and a 4th ring for Brady.

 Every time I see that dickhead Coughlin losing his mind I just smile....he was an asshole at Boston College, a bigger asshole at Jacksonville and a classless slimeball now that he's with the Giants; seeing Philly come back against his candy-apple red face last week made my day!!

Chewing out your punter on national TV was a classy move, bee-atch; who gets to chew YOU out for not having your team ready for an obvious onside kick with 7 minutes left?

[BlueBallz]

Layoff Coughlin is a good coach..........and the onside kick was never a no brainer! Reid said had the GMen put out the hands team, they would NOT have done it. Also had the Eagles not come back Reid would ahve been roasted for NOT challenging a fumble where the replay showed the Giants defender did indeed touch the Eagles player on his way down. That menat it WAS NOT a fumble. Thats when the Giants scored to make it 31-10.......

[Crackerjax]

I also get a kick out of Coughlin's sideline tics - too many "strong, silent types" in the league as it is. I look forward to the return of Cowher and Gruden and their sideline antics as well.

A little emotion is always good from the entertainment standpoint. Trash talk works for me too - so Sexy Rexy and the long downtrodden J-E T-S are my current favorite team in the AFC. Of course as an Eagles fan it helps that he is the spawn of Buddy - Philly still loves Buddy Ryan more than Andy Reid despite NO playoff wins vs 5 NFC Championships and one SB appearance.

Faking the kneel down and throwing for a gratuitous last second TD in a blow-out of Tom Landry's scabs goes a long way in Philly. We're classy that way....

Always fun to debate who are the greatest of all time and it is obviously very subjective. I think that the question of winning is in many ways just an easy way to try and settle the debate as opposed to a true barometer, but it certainly does come in handy if you're in the anti-Marino camp.

Elway's lucky that Terrell Davis appeared in Denver and Peyton's lucky he got Rex Grossman in 2007 or there would be more brickbats thrown their way too.

[TEXASMAC]

What college did Brady attend?

[Jake_Sully]

A retarded one that thought of him as a backup behind Drew Henson (who?).

But that turned out to be a boon in disguise as he licked his wounds and became more of a team guy vs being ego centric. How many QB's are like that vs the whole alpha male macho in your face thing.

[EyeMahk]

(Jake_Sully @ Dec. 23 2010,17:47) And the Giants might have beaten the Pats once but they don't talk and they know they got lucky with the Tyree helmet catch. Throw out that play and its a 4th ring for Brady and the Pats and a perfect season.

The Giants got lucky? On all the Patriots Super Bowl Wins, the margin of victory in each game was an Adam Vinatieri field goal. - 3 points; two of which were in the final seconds of the game.  A different bounce here or there, and Brady would have the same number of Super Bowl rings as I do.  

And if you had money on the Pats in the 4 Super Bowls, you'd have lost in three of them, they failed to cover 1 and 2 touchdown spreads in the last three they played in.  I'm a few "quids in" on those bets.    

Brady hasn't won a Super Bowl since the Pats were caught illegally videotaping defensive sideline signals (might be worth a few points in a Superbowl, huh?) And I don't expect them to win the Superbowl this year either. Why? Because I believe in Karma; Belichick has free will to choose good or evil (play the right way or cheat) and Karma will have him suffer the consequences.  But maybe not being able to complete a perfect season and a losing a Super Bowl to a 14-point underdog is the completion of his bad Karma. We'll see.

BTW, I think I'm saying what MOST football fans think of the Patriots.