First, an explanation:
Tom Brady is the most talented quarterback among the 1,036 men who have ever had a chance as an NFL quarterback. He won six Super Bowls. Sunday, he will play in his tenth, which is the most unlikely since his first, which was 19 years ago and at a time when most people still thought of him as a Drew Bledsoe holder.
In the next hundred years – perhaps in the next thousand, perhaps forever – it will be impossible to write the history of the NFL without including Tom Brady’s name in the first paragraphs. Even if Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs win this one, and Mahomes gets a third of the way to Brady, and even if Mahomes ends up matching or exceeding that number someday, Brady will remain a memorial to excellence and the ultimate goal of anyone who plays, trains or cares about football: winning championships.
There is a problem with that designation.
MAAT doesn’t have a cute, furry emoji like GOAT does. More accomplished, of all time, it does not have – will never have – the same meaning as the greatest of all times. And here’s the thing: it’s easy to confuse the two or to consider them synonymous. They are not. The fact is that most men who played in that position prefer to be remembered as Brady will be remembered.
Even if these guys were – that is – better defenders.
(In the 18 years prior to this, the next thing I would have to do is prepare for the influx of emails from Fairfield and Springfield, Montpelier and Providence, Bangor and Manchester and hundreds of other charming New England cities – not to say anything about Boston itself – which would fill my email with rage in the next few days. Fortunately, they took a brief – albeit temporary – sabbatical to deify Brady. Instead, we will certainly hear the fans of both Buccaneers in due time. .)
“You saw what he did this year,” said Tampa coach Bruce Arians earlier this week. “You have seen what he has done throughout his career. Did you see what he did in Green Bay [to win the NFC Championship]. What else can I add to that? “
Yes, Aryans learned all year long what Bill Belichick knew (and could even admit if he spilled a glass full of sodium pentothal) for every day since September 23, 2001, the day Mo Lewis almost broke Bledsoe, the day Tom Brady first trotted out old Foxboro Stadium as a QB1 for the first time: you want to win a football game, hand over the keys to Tom Brady. He will win the football game. He won 230 of 299 games as an NFL quarterback. He has 33-11 in the playoffs. That is a winning percentage of 0.767.
The most talented quarterback of all time.
But he is the best?
He is better than Aaron Rodgers, who has the best quarterback rating of all time (104.3), who launches spirals so perfect they resemble art more than athletics, which can run a little, which caused so much damage in the relentless bad weather of NFC North, and who is a not-so-terrible 126-63-1 as a starter?
It is his career, weight for weight, better than Peyton Manning, who won two titles, made four Super Bowls playing for four different coaches, who has five MVPs of the regular season against three of Brady, who is recognized as a connoisseur of the position and spent 15 years as an unquestionable darling among the owners of fantasy football and who is behind Brady in fourth place on the QBR list, 96.62-95.71?
Let’s dust off the files for that argument too. Before Brady, Joe Montana was the undisputed designated MAAT, and he could present an equally compelling case for GOAT, since he was 4 by 4 in the Super Bowls, since he was the unquestioned king of his generation (and, not by chance) , served as a hero and idol for a certain boy who grew up in San Mateo, California, by the name of Thomas Edward Patrick Brady). Brady passed Montana in one category; would you list it higher on the other?
Two more names from the history books:
John Unitas has won three championships (two in the NFL and one in the Super Bowl) over 14 seasons. He was 118-63-4 years old in 176 years as a Colt. At a time when even great defenders routinely obtained completion percentages below 50% and had more choices than TDs, Unitas had some terribly modern figures: 54.7% completion, a rate of 287-246 TD -INT. His QBR (78.20) is the 71st of all time, but of the 70 ahead of him only Fran Tarkenton, Roger Staubach and Bart Starr were his contemporaries; he was decades ahead of his time.
What about Starr? It was his record of five titles that Brady broke. Starr was the most important packer, even though it was the Green Bay racing game that won its mythology. Jerry Kramer, who blocked for Starr all those years, once said: “If the Old Man” – would be Vince Lombardi – “dreamed of something called ‘Packer Air Strike’ instead of ‘Packer Sweep’, Starr would have set records that none man would be able to touch. “
Also receiving votes: Drew Brees … Dan Marino … Steve Young … Otto Graham … Sonny Jurgenson … Staubach … John Elway … YA Tittle … Terry Bradshaw … Dan Fouts …
Some others, perhaps. And, perhaps, if we could put together a Punt, Pass & Kick competition for the ages, we would be able to evaluate that and judge better. But of all 1,036 defenders who won the NFL, only one won six titles, with the number 7 on deck. Only one is the MAAT. Is he also the GOAT? Probably not. Ask him if he cares.