Is Brady now the greatest of all-time?

[KaiserUEO]

A few thoughts, as a huge Brady fan:

- I would never argue with anyone who thought Montana was the best ever. Or Unitas. Or Otto Graham. Or even Elway. It is a judgment call - if someone saw Brady and Elway play and think Elway was better who am I to say you are wrong?
- As a few others have pointed out it's sort of odd that because Wilson threw that pick now Brady is the best ever. On the other hand you could say something like that almost every year. If Vinatiari doesnt make those field goals Brady might only have one ring. If Tyree doesn't catch a ball off his helmet and if Welker catches that ball in 2011, then Brady could have 6. The point being it is always a team game.
- Someone said in the thread that Brady doesn't make many impressive throws. And, I think it's true that he doesn't make as many brilliant, eye popping throws as guys like Rodgers, and Peyton. But, the thing I do think he is the absolute best at is figuring out pre snap who is going to be open and then getting quickly the ball to them. I find it hard to believe that just anyone would go 37-50 for 328 and 4 td's against the Seahawks.
- As for the thought that he benefits from Belichick well of course he does - but Montana probably benefited from Bill Walsh. And Beli had exactly one winning season in 5 years as a head coach before Brady so...
- While I don't think you can use the word 'best', I do think you can say that there is no reasonable case that any QB has accomplished as much as Brady in the SB era. You can name the metric - SB wins, SB appearances, playoff wins, playoff winning %, reg season winning %, reg season total wins, division titles - and Brady is #1 in virtually all of them. If you want to talk stats he can measure up there too.

all true, but you left out the cheating.

 

[Ghost]

Stan Humphries.

All day, every day.

Only Chargers Super Bowl appearance, where they lost to a bunch of cheaters (49ers who should have been made to forfeit that game for being approximately 157,000,000,000,000 over the salary cap that year......it did seem fishy they were able to field an all-star team on both sides of the ball).

Just like Brady.

Cheaters.

Brady!

the 49ers.

Humphries 4vr! GOAT! San Diego SuperCharged!!!

You can see the greatness in his eyes...let it wash over you...

 

[dinosaurbbq]

Trent freaking Dilfer and Russell freaking Wilson approve of your measure of greatness. I do not. They each won a superbowl. Many better QBs haven't. Brady's team, with undoubtedly the best head coach and TE ever in the game, won 4 superbowls while he was the QB. Brady did nothing special last night. He got rid of the ball quickly to receivers and TE on short routes. Belichick was smart enough to devise a plan to attack their linebackers and DB with short passes all night, picking and picking and picking and it worked, only because Seahawks offense outside of Lynch is average to below average. If you play contain and keep Russell Wilson in the pocket most of the night and you control Lynch, you can beat Seattle. That's what they did. NE had superior WR and TE and they used them intelligently. Wins simply aren't the best indicator of QB talent or value or excellence.

Why do superbowl wins equate to the best QB? Andy Pettitte was probably the best post season starter ever (he has the most wins by a wide margin), but no one considers him the best pitcher ever. Randy Johnson won 5 post-season games in one year in 2001, but no one considers him the best pitcher ever. Most statistics knowledgeable baseball fans consider career wins and career postseason wins largely irrelevant to a pitchers' excellence or value. Most of them would look at ERA and WHIP versus league average to give some historical relativity to the evaluation.

Peyton Manning is the greatest QB ever. He shouldn't be penalized for the Colts having a god awful defense most of his years in the league or for his teams at the end being excellent but falling short in a winner take all single playoff game. He has a level of knowledge of defenses far beyond that of any QB to ever play the game. He is basically his own OC. Beyond that, he's thrown for more yards than any other QB in history. He's made average WR look like HOFers instantly. He throws the ball better on every pass type than Brady does. What more could you expect or use to evaluate a QB? Wins are not a reasonable effort to measure a QB's talent/skills. Certainly wins in a tiny sample, the playoffs or the superbowl, are not.

 

[two3zone]

How about off the field. Didn't he cheat on a super model with another super model? That's even more impressive than 4 Super Bowls and probably more rare than winning 4.

 

[Melancer46]

A few thoughts, as a huge Brady fan:

- I would never argue with anyone who thought Montana was the best ever. Or Unitas. Or Otto Graham. Or even Elway. It is a judgment call - if someone saw Brady and Elway play and think Elway was better who am I to say you are wrong?
- As a few others have pointed out it's sort of odd that because Wilson threw that pick now Brady is the best ever. On the other hand you could say something like that almost every year. If Vinatiari doesnt make those field goals Brady might only have one ring. If Tyree doesn't catch a ball off his helmet and if Welker catches that ball in 2011, then Brady could have 6. The point being it is always a team game.
- Someone said in the thread that Brady doesn't make many impressive throws. And, I think it's true that he doesn't make as many brilliant, eye popping throws as guys like Rodgers, and Peyton. But, the thing I do think he is the absolute best at is figuring out pre snap who is going to be open and then getting quickly the ball to them. I find it hard to believe that just anyone would go 37-50 for 328 and 4 td's against the Seahawks.
- As for the thought that he benefits from Belichick well of course he does - but Montana probably benefited from Bill Walsh. And Beli had exactly one winning season in 5 years as a head coach before Brady so...
- While I don't think you can use the word 'best', I do think you can say that there is no reasonable case that any QB has accomplished as much as Brady in the SB era. You can name the metric - SB wins, SB appearances, playoff wins, playoff winning %, reg season winning %, reg season total wins, division titles - and Brady is #1 in virtually all of them. If you want to talk stats he can measure up there too.

Yeah, I can't disagree with any of that.

 

[Tobias Funke]

Trent freaking Dilfer and Russell freaking Wilson approve of your measure of greatness. I do not. They each won a superbowl. Many better QBs haven't. Brady's team, with undoubtedly the best head coach and TE ever in the game, won 4 superbowls while he was the QB. Brady did nothing special last night. He got rid of the ball quickly to receivers and TE on short routes. Belichick was smart enough to devise a plan to attack their linebackers and DB with short passes all night, picking and picking and picking and it worked, only because Seahawks offense outside of Lynch is average to below average. If you play contain and keep Russell Wilson in the pocket most of the night and you control Lynch, you can beat Seattle. That's what they did. NE had superior WR and TE and they used them intelligently. Wins simply aren't the best indicator of QB talent or value or excellence.

Why do superbowl wins equate to the best QB? Andy Pettitte was probably the best post season starter ever (he has the most wins by a wide margin), but no one considers him the best pitcher ever. Randy Johnson won 5 post-season games in one year in 2001, but no one considers him the best pitcher ever. Most statistics knowledgeable baseball fans consider career wins and career postseason wins largely irrelevant to a pitchers' excellence or value. Most of them would look at ERA and WHIP versus league average to give some historical relativity to the evaluation.

Peyton Manning is the greatest QB ever. He shouldn't be penalized for the Colts having a god awful defense most of his years in the league or for his teams at the end being excellent but falling short in a winner take all single playoff game. He has a level of knowledge of defenses far beyond that of any QB to ever play the game. He is basically his own OC. Beyond that, he's thrown for more yards than any other QB in history. He's made average WR look like HOFers instantly. He throws the ball better on every pass type than Brady does. What more could you expect or use to evaluate a QB? Wins are not a reasonable effort to measure a QB's talent/skills. Certainly wins in a tiny sample, the playoffs or the superbowl, are not.

I don't have a problem with the bulk of your argument, but i have seen it come up a few times that Brady did nothing remarkable. He was just a product of a good scheme. Fact is, it is that scheme that prohibited him from doing anything remarkable. They devised a game plan and he executed it. all the while putting up 4 touchdowns, and putting his team in a position to win. While i agree that Wins and superbowls aren't the only measurement, having won 4 superbowls certainly does have a hug factor. this is the first of those Superbowls he has one with the Best TE ever, and his receiving corps in years past have been mediocre at best.

As for the part about Peyton being his own OC i hear that a lot, and my only point there is that when he takes that responsibility upon himself it makes him that much more responsible for the success of his teams. I personally believe Manning is a top 3 QB ever, but you cannot discount his lack of post season success, as it does measure his true value to an extent.

 

[Scooch]

all true, but you left out the cheating.

Good point, he did face several teams that cheated: Panthers did a ton of PEDs, Colts piped in recorded crowd noise, Ravens played guys who should have been in jail, Giants got away with blatant penalties (because of the Maras very close relationship with the league), etc.

Makes his accomplishments all the more impressive, really.

 

[Alsacs]

all true, but you left out the cheating.

That cheater has more Super Bowl appearance seasons (6) than your boy Eli has postseason seasons (5).
Montana/Brady 4 SBs 3 SB MVPs.

Brady has done it in the salary cap parity era. Montana played in an era of super teams look at his core Rice/Taylor/Rathman/Craig/Clark/Jones.

I know your trolling Pats fans with the cheating. NFLN reported Mortinsen's report of 11 footballs were 2 PSI below was patently false and that is was sparked this controversy. Brady is the Montana of this generation and Peyton is the Marino with 1 SB title unlike Marino.

Giants need to get their chit together so they can continue the presidential election every 4 yr NE-NYG Super Bowl(2008, 2012)as the Pats home schedule will get them 8 wins and if they go 4-4 on the road they will get another bye next year.
AFC is going to be NE, Indy, Houston, Baltimore and I like NE to get back to the SB.

 

[BuffOrange]

Can we really not distinguish between putting up 14 or 17 pts vs a Giants defense that didn't even rank in the top 10 in either of those seasons, and 28 vs Seattle (none of them of the cheap variety)? I get that he had nothing to do with David Tyree or Russel Wilson, but it's a 60minute game from Brady's personal standpoint, he got the result he deserved in the last five SB's he played. The Rams game not so much. Helmet catch talk makes my head explode. If Eli was more conventionally surgical on that drive would it matter? I understand why casual fans give casual fan analysis but why do diehard football fans do it?

 

[KaiserUEO]

That cheater has more Super Bowl appearance seasons (6) than your boy Eli has postseason seasons (5).
Montana/Brady 4 SBs 3 SB MVPs.

Brady has done it in the salary cap parity era. Montana played in an era of super teams look at his core Rice/Taylor/Rathman/Craig/Clark/Jones.

I know your trolling Pats fans with the cheating. NFLN reported Mortinsen's report of 11 footballs were 2 PSI below was patently false and that is was sparked this controversy. Brady is the Montana of this generation and Peyton is the Marino with 1 SB title unlike Marino.

Giants need to get their chit together so they can continue the presidential election every 4 yr NE-NYG Super Bowl(2008, 2012)as the Pats home schedule will get them 8 wins and if they go 4-4 on the road they will get another bye next year.
AFC is going to be NE, Indy, Houston, Baltimore and I like NE to get back to the SB.

Brady*

thats how he should be known.

if not for the carrol boner, hed still be with his 3 won by cheating. although it is nice that Eli is his personal kryptonite and will likely have a chapter dedicated to him in tommys autobiography.

theyre saying tommy should give the pick-up truck he won as MVP to butler...a nice gesture for sure.

but i think he should give it to carrol.

 

[Alsacs]

Brady*

thats how he should be known.

if not for the carrol boner, hed still be with his 3 won by cheating. although it is nice that Eli is his personal kryptonite and will likely have a chapter dedicated to him in tommys autobiography.

theyre saying tommy should give the pick-up truck he won as MVP to butler...a nice gesture for sure.

but i think he should give it to carrol.

Eli should give his MVP to Justin Tuck. Tuck was the reason the NYG won SB 42.

Brady gave the truck to butler. I guess Eli should thank Brett Favre for throwing a dumb INT in 08. Dude your entitled to your own opinions, but Brady is one of the greatest of alltime.

Eli isn't his kypronite it's the NYG DL and this SB the Pats adjusted their game plan against a good DL.

Brady has 4 rings and there is nothing that can take them away. Next year we get NE @ NYG so Eli can actually wake up and make the playoffs for the first time in 4 years.

1./1a. Brady/Montana
3. Elway
4. Unitas
5. Take your pick

 

[CuseIsInTheHouse]

 

[KaiserUEO]

Eli should give his MVP to Justin Tuck. Tuck was the reason the NYG won SB 42.

Brady gave the truck to butler. I guess Eli should thank Brett Favre for throwing a dumb INT in 08. Dude your entitled to your own opinions, but Brady is one of the greatest of alltime.

Eli isn't his kypronite it's the NYG DL and this SB the Pats adjusted their game plan against a good DL.

Brady has 4 rings and there is nothing that can take them away. Next year we get NE @ NYG so Eli can actually wake up and make the playoffs for the first time in 4 years.

1./1a. Brady/Montana
3. Elway
4. Unitas
5. Take your pick

Tuck was the MVP till brady took it from him.

then Eli took it from Brady.

why are we discussing brett favre in the NFC Champ game? are you trying to compare that int to this 1?? no way.

the NYG DL changed from game 1 to game 2. Eli did not.

yep, only 1 team wins. thats all anyone cares about, tommy has 4. good for him. Brady*

i expect the Giants and Eli to make the playoffs, if not, then their season ends like 31 other teams does. i dont lose sleep over it.

i will still take Elway #1.

 

[BuffOrange]

That's like the electoral map that makes Wyoming look more significant than Jersey..
Adjusted for inflation there's a lot of red in that chart.

 

[WalnutPark]

dp