Some people are talking about how Seattle’s defense would have been considered the greatest ever if they’d won. Others are saying Brady is the greatest QB of all time. But the game turned on one play. What if?
If Seattle had handed the ball to Lynch and pounded out a TD, would that have cemented their legacy as the greatest defense? They came within one bad call of winning it all. Sure they allowed Brady 2 TDs late in the game, but if they’d won no one would be talking about that. It would be “they stifled Brady and despite his comeback attempt, they still beat him and validated their defense”. So how does one play take all that away?
Would Brady still be talked about now as the greatest QB if he’d lost? I think if New England lost some people would still be calling him the greatest QB. But most people would be saying “He couldn’t cheat so he couldn’t win”.
What Seattle ran the ball and won? Would that have significantly affected the perception of Seattle’s defense or Bradys skills? I think it’s so strange that one play which didn’t involve the Seattle defense or Tom Brady could so profoundly affect the public perception of both.
Nitpick: If Seattle had run the ball and got the TD, there was still ~30 seconds on the clock. In theory it’s still possible for Brady to throw a Hail Mary and win, in which case many people would definitely be talking about him being “the greatest”.
To answer the actual question, it is far too early to tell if Brady is “The greatest!” when he still has his career to finish. He has very impressive numbers to be sure and has set a lot of records, but I think we need the perspective of a few years to really evaluate a player.
So, I would disagree with a GOAT nod for Brady right now, but that’s because I don’t think ANY current QB should get it. A few years after he retires and we can look back at his record dispassionately (well, as close to dispassionate as possible), THEN we can see if we still think he’s the GOAT. Right after the Super Bowl is a bad time to make those kinds of calls.
I think it would have changed perception. I feel people take SuperBowl victories way too much into account when they consider the value of a QB. For one, that’s why Eli Manning is so overrated.
If Seattle won, their defense would be considered one of the best ever (some people would start threads wondering if they were as good as the 85 Bears and we’d laugh at them, etc).
It probably would change the perception more than is warranted. For most Super Bowl teams, you can find a play or two that could have prevented their wins. New England could have lost this one, and they could have easily won the two they lost. Baltimore probably should have lost to Denver a couple years ago, and they never would have even reached the AFC Championship game. And as a Chargers fan, I’ll claim that the only reason Peyton Manning has a title is that Marlon McCree fumbled that interception back to the Patriots :).
Yes and no. You’re right about Eli Manning being overrated due to hs SUper Bowl wins. But I can think of some champion quarterbacks who are underrated.
Bart Starr is the example I like to give. Yes, he’s in the Hall of Fame, but if I put Starr on a short list of the greatest quarterbacks ever, I think MANY (maybe most) people would say, “Come on! Starr was good, but everybody knows he was a nickel and dime passer who just threw a few passes to keep the defense honest. Everyone knows the Packers won with the running game.”
Yes, everybody knows that, but it’s not true! In the 1966-67 season, the year the Pack won the first Super Bowl, Bart Starr averaged 9 yards per attempt! Meanwhile, their leading rusher was Jim Taylor who averaged a measly 3.5 yards per carry.
The Packers DIDN’T win with the running game. They won on Bart Starr’s arm.
Come on, Brady isn’t the greatest of all time. It’s just another thing that’s thrown out there after a Super Bowl win. Like when the Ravens won a couple years ago, folks started talking about Joe Flacco as becoming an elite quarterback.
Hint: he isn’t, and winning a Super Bowl doesn’t make him one.
I think that Starr’s issue is that it was waaay in the early years of the Super Bowl. I mean I remember growing up in the 80s and hearing Terry Bradshaw’s name far more than Roger Staubach’s. A lot of that is because Bradshaw won 4 Super Bowls, but I’d argue that Staubach (who won 2 and lost… what… 3?) was the better QB in the 70s.
And, of course, we have Marino vs. Montana. Montana is always on the top 3 of anyone’s rankings (and I think he was quite good), but Marino is no where close to there in the discussion of Best All Time. He’s always considered a second tier, simply because he never won a Super Bowl. Imagine how this conversation would be different if Marino’s Dolphins won in 1984/85 over Montana’s 49ers?
It’s why Peyton Manning getting his one Super Bowl was so important for his legacy (same with Elway’s SB victories in the twilight of his career, and Favre’s one SB win - I don’t really understand why people put Elway and Favre above Marino in all time rankings, - Ok, I do, they overrate the SB wins by Elway and Favre in this discussions).
There’s probably no system for figuring out who’s THE greatest quarterback of all time. No system that will convicne EVERYBODY, at least. But it should be sufficient to say that Tom Brady is a great quarterback who belongs on the short list of contenders for the title of Greatest of All TIme.
There are a LOT of names someone could offer for GOAT that I wouldn’t scoff at. Brady is definitely one of the guys I wouldn’t scoff at.
On my list:
Sammy Baugh
Tom Brady
Otto Graham
Sid Luckman
Dan Marino
Joe Montana
Peyton Manning
Bart Starr
Roger Staubach
Johnny Unitas
You pick ANYBODY on that list as “best ever,” I won’t be inclined to argue with you. In a few years, if you’d like to add, say, Aaron Rogers to the list, I won’t argue that one either.
If you’re going to talk about overrated QBs because of a Super Bowl, the conversation begins and ends with Joe Willie Namath.
A middling qb with a weak arm who had a good game when it counted, but over his career didn’t have numbers NEARLY impressive enough to warrant his fame/reputation as a good qb.
I think the reason Brady is in the GOAT talks is because of what he was able to accomplish with the people he was surrounded with. He won Super Bowls with receivers so random I can barely remember who they are (Reche Caldwell is the only one I can remember). Not counting his ONE year with Moss/Welker/Stallworth he has won with a supporting cast of nobodys.
Opposite him is Peyton who has played with HOF caliber players practically his whole career and could only win the big one against Rex Grossman
Of course the counter argument against this is that both Brady and Peyton Manning had one year in the middle of their careers where they were injured for entire season. The Patriots went 11-5 (edit: and just missed the playoffs on a tie breaker). The Colts went 2-14 and had the first pick in the draft (and picked a QB because few people thought Peyton would be able to come back from the neck injury).
I think so, yes; he’d have played in 6 Super Bowls and won three. And in fact, if it weren’t for the 2006 AFC title game (the Patriots blew a 21-3 lead) or the loss to the Jets in the 2010 divisional playoffs, it could very well have been 8 Super Bowl appearances, perhaps winning four or five.
People want to avoid the recency effect when evaluating athletes but in sports it’s probably one of the less fallacious methods. Given improvements in nutrition, training, PEDs, and widening talent pools it’s pretty likely the best athlete in the moment, or the last decade or so, really is the GOAT. This is more obvious in events with objective standards, though people still try to handwave for past heroes. But the records keep going down.
It’s likely if you transported the best QBs of today to the past they would make previous era QBs look woefully inadequate. Likely true for 2060’s QB in today’s era as well.
Also, it is likely unfair to include Russell Wilson on that list. He likely is a Top 10 QB in the league currently, and he’s only in his 3rd season at that.
I also was thinking that all this focus on SuperBowls does a great disservice to fantastic QB’s who never won the “big game” and thus aren’t even considered for Greatest. I mean why shouldn’t Fran Tarkenton or Dan Fouts be in consideration on the list? Or even Warren Moon?
Uh, are you arguing that Dilfer, McMahon, etc are elite quarterbacks?
If so, I must say, I can’t figure out what sport you’re watching. In one thread you’re saying that half of the starting quarterbacks in the league would have performed like Brady, so he isn’t all that good; now you seem to be saying that Jeff Hostetler is an elite quarterback.
By naming QB’s who have won the Super Bowl, yet are average NFL QB’s at best, I thought it fairly obvious that I was agreeing with you that Super Bowl wins alone are a horrible measure of a QB’s abilities.
And stop with the Hamlet says Brady isn’t all that good crap, please. I get sick and tired of posters misrepresenting my positions.
Everyone has a different definition of “greatest.” Does it mean most accomplished, or most stats compiled, or most talented, or…whatever. Brady is among the most accomplished, that’s for sure. Six Super Bowl appearances and 4 wins is quite an accomplishment.
I think Elway, Marino, Montana, Payton Manning and maybe even Aaron Rodgers are or were more talented. If I was starting an NFL franchise next year and could choose any QB in history in his prime, I’d personally take Payton Manning.
If you are finding that a large number of presumably well-intentioned people are misunderstanding you, perhaps the fault is less with the listeners than the speaker. I also get the impression, across multiple threads and in multiple contexts, that you are very anxious to diminish Brady as much as you can.
As for the OP: Like “best friend,” I think of “greatest QB ever” as more of a category than an individual. Brady belonged there before Sunday, and continues to belong there now. Trying to establish a hierarchy among the guys in that category - in my mind, that’s Brady, Unitas, Montana, Marino, Manning, and Starr - is a fool’s errand, because everybody’s going to have slightly different priorities and they’re really quite close together in terms of actual skill.
That’s very well stated. I think we can all agree that Brady belongs in the pantheon of elite all-time QBs and maybe that’s as far as we need to go with that.
The other side of Brady’s SB wins is that the Patriots could very easily have lost his first 3 Super Bowls games too.
sb 36 (2002) NE 20 StLou 17 Game tied at 17 with 1:30 left in 4th qrt.
sb 38 (2004) NE 32 Carolina 29, Pats win on fg at the gun.
sb 39 (2005) NE 24 Philly 21. Game tied at 14 after 3qrts.
But for the fluke of the Tuck Rule the Pats would’ve been out of one those too. .