By that I mean that he is the most skilled person to ever play that position. I maintain that Bo Jackson is the greatest running back of all time. One suspects many mediocre quarterbacks would have won a Super Bowl or two under Belichick, but what about a Dan Marino or a Philip Rivers? By contrast, Tom Brady has enjoyed an extraordinary period of ownership stability with one of the sport’s greatest defensive minds guiding the ship the whole way. Peyton Manning alone has won Super Bowls with both different coaches and different franchises. The 49ers’ George Seifert and the Cowboys’ Barry Switzer were inheritors of teams they were smart enough not to screw up.
Of the 12 quarterbacks with more than one Super Bowl championship, only Montana, Aikman, Roethlisberger, and Peyton Manning won Super Bowls with different coaches, and students of the sport would agree that Montana’s and Aikman’s last championships came with teams built by the coaches with whom they had won their first championships. It is no coincidence that every quarterback but one (Peyton Manning) who has multiple Super Bowl rings had that kind of stability, too: Bart Starr, Bob Griese, Terry Bradshaw, Roger Staubach, Jim Plunkett, Joe Montana, Troy Aikman, John Elway, Ben Roethlisberger, and Eli Manning won their Super Bowls with the same historically stable franchises. The Robert Kraft–Bill Belichick partnership has produced an extraordinary era of stability. Well, Brady has enjoyed something we might call Pax Kraftica. Roman philosopher, Seneca, spoke of something called Pax Romana in reference to a period of prolonged stability and prosperity during Rome’s long history.
During that same period, more than half the NFL’s defenses have allowed more points than the worst Patriots defense. Only three times in the last 17 years has the Patriots defense ranked outside of the league’s top 10. During the Belichick–Brady championships run, the Patriots have put together one of the greatest defensive dynasties in NFL history. That other half - the defense - has been fantastic for Brady (talkin’ about you, Malcolm Butler) over the course of his career. For roughly half of every game the quarterback isn’t even on the field. A quarterback’s performance is dependent upon several factors that are beyond his control: his coaching, his offensive line, the skill of his receivers, his team’s ability to run the ball, and so on. It’s not even like baseball, in which the pitcher and batter are engaged in a one-on-one contest and the other players on the field are largely irrelevant until the ball is in play. Football is nothing like sprinting, tennis, or bowling, in which individual performance and statistics tell the tale. That’s because his record is only the fastest since such records have been kept with hyper-accurate clocks that use photoelectric cells. But even Bolt’s G.O.A.T.* label needs an asterisk. After all, we have objective data to support Bolt’s claim: his 100-meter sprint time smashed all previous records. Usain Bolt has been called “ the greatest sprinter that ever lived.” Because his is a sport where individual performance alone determines the outcome, this title has greater merit than Brady’s “greatest” label. But by that logic, Trent Dilfer was better than Dan Marino, and Brad Johnson was better than Jim Kelly.
It’s a simple and tempting measurement of greatness. The implication is that those with rings are better than those without rings, and he who has the most rings is the G.O.A.T. No, it usually boils down to the fact that Brady has six Super Bowl rings. Best passer? Best athlete? The most skilled person to ever play that position? When you listen to their arguments, it becomes clear that almost no one believes he’s any of those things. But I am having trouble with the “G.O.A.T.” label - that is, “Greatest of All Time” - and I think there are several reasons why we should, in the words of Keith Jackson, say “ Whoa, Nelly!” to this careless sports talk.įirst of all, as someone who writes and constructs arguments for a living, I find myself a bit frustrated by the lack of clarity on what sportswriters and commentators mean when they say that Tom Brady is the G.O.A.T. So when I say that he is overrated I don’t mean that he is not good or that he is average. Brady’s accomplishments are beyond dispute. He has been named MVP of that game four times, and he owns no less than 54 NFL records. He has led the Patriots to an unprecedented nine Super Bowls (and a 10th seems likely).
Tom Brady is unquestionably a great quarterback and among the greatest of all time.