Brady loses SB. Is he still "the greatest QB of all time"?

The Game Room
21

Quite possible. I, however, think that people, rather than paying attention to what I actually say, take my comments and extrapolate them to an extreme, and then pretend that what they extrapolate is what I said. Apparently, people think that if I credit a game plan for short passing and point out that Brady was not asked to make very difficult throws in, just a lot of them, in ONE FUCKING GAME, then I must think Brady is somehow not great overall. I suppose I could make every post of mine a completely detailed assertion of not just my individual point, but also every limitation on every possible conclusion that every single poster could make from said point to save these problems. Luckily, I’m sure you’re not one of those, you’ll actually rely on what I said, rather than draw unwarranted conclusions

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:smack: Maybe not.

22

The inanity comes in when you count short passes underneath the coverage as being no big deal, and something that lots of quarterbacks could do. I guess Joe Montana’s whole career could have been replicated by any decent quarterback, eh?

If you want to make a nuanced argument, fine. But accept the fact that you’re apparently trying to split some hairs (for whatever reason), and don’t take it as a personal attack when you say that “Brady’s performance could have been done by most better than average NFLs quarterbacks, but I still think that he’s a good quarterback” gets interpreted as “Hamlet thinks Brady is just a better than average quarterback.”

It’s like having a fucking argument on whether a shirt’s color is cream or ecru. “Stop misinterpreting me! The shirt is CLEARLY ecru, not off-white!!!”

23

Or, I guess, you could continue to assume that when lots of people misunderstand you, they’re doing it maliciously and not because you’re communicating poorly. Hopefully that will continue to work out as well for you as it has in this series of threads.

24

Tom Brady’s consistency at it is one of the things that makes him great. Over his career, he has proven, time and time again, that he can make those plays repeatedly and sustain drives without making mistakes.

But, here’s the thing that seems to be confusing you. He’s not always perfectly consistent. Say, like in a game where he throws two interceptions. Apparently, pointing out that maybe he wasn’t as consistent or mistake-free in one game as he is usually, means that something argle bargle GO PATS!!!

I did make a nuanced arguement. It didn’t work. Posters took my nuanced argument and pretended I said something I didn’t.

I won’t take it as a personal attack. I simply take it as a wrong statement of what I said from someone who can’t fucking tell the difference between one single game and an entire career.

25

Not maliciously. I don’t think you misinterpreted me with any ill feeling. You’ve been more than patient with my sometimes abrasive way of responding to people saying I hold views that I don’t.

But that doesn’t mean you’re not wrong about what I said.

26

To be fair, that argument against Montana was made quite often in the 1980s, IIRC. (edit: by opposing fans, I mean)

27

I think Brady has proven himself over a very long period, and has been successful running several different types of offense during that time, with drastically different personnel.

He can run a bombs-away, deep passing attack, if that’s what’s called for. Or he can be a “game manager” and pound away at the defense by handing off to a Corey Dillon or Garrett Blount 40 times a game. Or he can run a short pass attack by throwing underneath, relying on quick timing. I have no doubt he COULD run the West Coast offense if Belichick asked him to.

You don’t have to rate him as the best QB ever, but you DO have to admit he belongs in the conversation. He’s been great for too long, in too many different systems, to be dismissed as a fluke.

28

Another one of his strengths. In 2007 with Randy Moss, for example, he averaged 4.85 air yards (yards traveled in the air), which was top 4 in the NFL. In 2011, with Gronk and Hernandez, he averaged 4.14 air yards, which is about average. This year, with Edelman, Vereen, and LaFell, he averaged 3.71, pretty low. Yet in those years, he’s always produced. He can make all the throws, and do so in a wide variety of offenses and with a wide variety of talent around him, usually making the players around him better.

29

To me, Tom Brady’s career has been that of a guy who’s well above average much of the time, but then also freakishly good under pressure, particularly in the playoffs. Even in the Tyree game, after a sluggish 3 quarters the Pats had the ball with 7 or 8 minutes left and drove for a TD…but the helmet catch is the final and (justifiably) lasting image from that game.

I’d probably take Brady over any other quarterback if I had to pick someone in his prime.

30

Joe Namath had a great arm. Indeed, the rap on him was that the only thing he could do was drop back and throw the ball a country mile. I agree he was overrated.

31

Tom Brady is not the greatest QB of all time. It’s gotta be Joe Montana, and I’d take several others before Brady as well.

32

See, but this is exactly the sort of thing I mean. I don’t see a single way in which Joe Montana is clearly better than Brady. Statistically, Montana and Brady are virtually identical (except that Brady, having thrown about 2000 more passes than Montana in the same number of seasons, has significantly greater counting stats). But completion percentage, TD%, INT%, Yards per attempt and per completion… all are so close that the difference is statistically insignificant.

Not so much a stats guy? Well, Montana made his reputation on 4th quarter comebacks, and indeed he’s credited with 31 in 15 seasons, plus 5 in the playoffs. In his own 15 seasons, Brady has 35, plus six in the playoffs.

Montana’s career winning percentage was .713 as a starter; Brady’s is .773 (Brady has a similarly better winning percentage in the playoffs, too).

Both guys have four Super Bowl rings, including three MVPs. Both guys had extremely memorable fourth quarter comebacks to steal victories in a Super Bowl.

Montana played for one of the best head coaches of his generation; so did Brady.

Both guys throw were/are known as cerebral QBs who make excellent reads, avoid catastrophic mistakes, and use short timing patterns to maximum advantage.

As far as I can tell, based on any measure you choose - statistical, anecdotal, results-oriented - Joe Montana and Tom Brady were basically the same quarterback through 15 seasons. I’d look with suspicion on anyone claiming that either of those guys is obviously better than the other, and am perfectly happy to say that they’re both part of the absolute upper-tier elite. Which one was better? I don’t know, I’ll never know, and I don’t care; I’m just glad I saw both of them play (and glad I saw my team beat both of them).

33

One big difference between them is that it’s so much easier to pass in Brady’s era than it was in Montana’s. Which leads me to my next question: has anyone come up with a metric like baseball’s ERA+ or OPS+, something to try and equalize performances between different eras? Besides that career value thing that pro football reference has? I guess what I’m asking is: how much better were Montana’s performances, compared to his peers (anyone from Danny White, Bartkowski, Fouts, Lomax, Ken Anderson, Phil Simms, Cunningham, and I know I’m forgetting some.) than Brady’s performances?

For me, Brady’s stood out enough from his peers in this era to place him above Montana (or Young, Marino, or Elway) in my mind. Probably Peyton too. But I’d really like some stat-based arguments, in addition to what you’ve laid out, to buttress that position.

Oh, and who was calling this Seattle defense the greatest of all time? Better than the '85 Bears or 2000 Ravens? Really?

34

Yeah, I’m not sure how you really pick a single QB as the GOAT. It’s not possible in my mind.

Though, and this is totally my subjective take on things, if I wanted to pick a single QB to lead a 4th quarter drive to win a post-season game, I’d probably take Montana.

Also, if there was a game outdoors in 30 mph winds, -20 degrees F, and driving snow, I’d take Brady every time. Man knows how to play in the elements like no other QB I’ve ever seen.

35

No dog in this fight, but how some please explain how a QB can be the “greatest of all time” without at least 1 superbowl victory as a minimum bar to the pantheon of “greatest of all time.” It just doesn’t compute for me. I can see “the greatest QB that never won a superbowl” or some other qualifier but straight out “greatest” has to have at least one Superbowl victory. YMMV

36

The question I was trying to ask was
If Brady had lost the SB, would he have still been talked about as the greatest QB?
storyteller0910 would that put Montanna over the edge as a better QB if Brady had lost?

Or maybe this will make it a little easier
If Seattle had won the game, do you think their defense would be considered as good as, say, the '08 Steelers or the '85 Bears?

37

There’s two sides of the ball to every game.

You could have the best QB ever, the love child of Brady, Montana, Manning, and Marino (don’t ask), and if the defense lets the other team score on every play the superQB is still going to lose a bunch of games and never make it to the Super Bowl. If your offense averages 50 points a game, that’s an amazing offense, but if your defense gives up 70 a game, you don’t have any super bowls in your future.

38

For my perspective, the answer is “no.” If the Seahawks had won, it wouldn’t change my overall opinion of Brady vs. Montana - that they’re essentially equal - at all.

Defensively, again, I’m not sure it would have changed my opinion either way. Just out of curiosity, I compared the 14-15 Seahawks’ points allowed and yards allowed with the league average, representing the result as a percentage of the average (so the lower the percentage, the better the team was relative to an average team in that season). I did the same for several well known top tier defenses. The results:

POINTS ALLOWED
00-01 Ravens (49.9%)
76-77 Steelers (51.5%)
85-86 Bears (57.5%)
13-14 Seahawks (61.7%)
14-15 Seahawks (70.3%)

YARDS ALLOWED
14-15 Seahawks (76.7%)
00-01 Ravens (77.6%)
76-77 Steelers (77.6%)
85-86 Bears (78.4%)
13-14 Seahawks (78.5%)

Overall, I’m not sure that the 14-15 Seahawks team really even belongs in the conversation when it comes to best defenses of all time; they limited opponents yardage by about the same rate as other historically well-regarded defenses but were far below those teams in actual point prevention. In fairness, this is a completely made up calculation that proves virtually nothing, but hey, what else is the Internet for?

39

I have to say, I do find the question kind of hilarious. I mean, with one minute to go, Brady was comfortably winning his fourth SB. Then a Seattle receiver makes a miraculous catch, basically making Brady’s team lose the game (barring another miracle, of course).

Did that crazy catch by the other team, while Brady was sitting on the bench, somehow make Brady worse so he couldn’t be the GOAT? And when there was a miraculous game-ending interception, again while Brady was on the sideline, did that interception make him a better QB?

(And, really, same thing applies to the Seattle defense. They weren’t on the field for the bounce-ricochet catch or the interception. )

Ah, well, xkcd is always relevant.

40

Why not? I don’t think winning a Championship really has much relevance on who is the better player… or even the better team (for example, the 2007 Patriots were a better team than the 2007 Giants, regardless of the Giants winning the SuperBowl). That can apply over a career as well.

I think baseball has a far better view on these things. I mean no one will look askance at someone who claims Ted Williams was the best player of all time (though hopefully they will argue with them because, c’mon, it’s the Babe), even though Williams never won a World Series and only appeared in one WS in his career.