These questions are of course fraught and unfathomable but generally fun.
But for a guy who does know 'is onions about this sort of stuff I think you have made a rather ungracious qualification when preaching to the home team.
So a spitball in return:
Gretzky played 1,487 MHL games which are 3x20mins games.
DG Bradman played 54 Tests (5 days * 6 hours) so Braddles spent more hours playing Test cricket than Gretzky spent hours on the ice. Then if you add in his 234 first class games Bradman spent 5 times as many hours playing first class and Test cricket as Gretzky spent playing ice hockey for his club side. (which of course makes no comparison to the necessary effort expended during those hours: for instance Bradman was absolutely crap at ice skating but on the other hand Gretzky didn’t face hours of bodyline bowling from Larwood, Voce and Bowes)
What you really need to compare is Bradman’s career Test performance vs Gretzky’s career international performance. I was interested in the comment in the link from NHL.com regarding the 1981 Canada Cup tournament “In his first competition against the world’s best professional players” . Because for most of those 1,487 games when he played in a his own pantheon and set records likely to be ever unsurpassed he wasn’t playing only against the best team in the world.
Gretzky had a peerless international career … but he wasn’t 3 standard deviations above the best of his peers.
Bradman was in pretty decent form during the 1930 tour of England scoring 974runs at an average of 139 batting 7 times in the 5 Test series.
So everybody knew what good news for the England team and its fans London’s “The Star” newspaper banner on August 20, 1930 was celebrating.
If I gave the impression that I think Brady is more dominant than Jordan, I apologize. I don’t. I’ve said a few times in this thread and elsewhere that you simply can’t be as dominant in football as you can in other sports like basketball and hockey. And Brady has never been an overwhelming presence in football, his strength is that he wins.
And in football, that’s what matters. He’s the GOAT of football because he has won more often, and for a longer period of time, than anyone else in the sport. And he’s still doing so at an age when all his rivals were out of the sport. But I agree with you that he’s not the same type of transformative player as Jordan or Gretzky.
As to his popularity, it’s still a mystery why you’ve heard of Jim Brown, Jerry Rice, and Walter Payton but not Tom Brady. But I don’t think it can be attributed to Brady not being as good as them, because he clearly is. It’s more interesting to me that you’ve heard of those other guys and in what context than that you haven’t heard of Brady. I don’t expect the world to know much about what is essentially a sport only played in the US. Frankly, he’s probably known around the world more for being married to Giselle than for his football.
…you see, I don’t even get this. These are team sports. Steve Waugh’s strength wasn’t that “he wins”, even though he was the most successful Test Captain in history. Grant Fox is regarded the greatest first-five in All Black history but that isn’t because “he wins” but because of his tactical mastery, ability to distribute the ball and being one of the greatest goalkickers of all time.
So why does Brady get credit for “winning?” Is he alone responsible for all the times teams he has been in have won?
I sure hope this doesn’t keep you up at night because not even I know why I’ve heard of the first three but not the latter. Jim Brown’s an actor and I’ve seen some of the things he’s been in. And the other two are just names I recognize. No big mystery here.
Agreed! In fact, at the end of the game, I commented that the true MVP was the entire Buccaneer defense. They held the powerful KC offense to ZERO TDs. That’s an astounding accomplishment! Also, the success of their running game made play action effective and Brady’s job easier.
He’s more responsible than any other single player on the team. Every offensive play goes through his hands, not just by being the guy who gives the ball to someone else, but by being the guy who has to evaluate the defense being presented, adjust the play as necessary, communicate those adjustments to his teammates, react to the defense as it is being played and deliver the ball to the right teammate at the right time in the right place, for the play to be successful.
He’s been both the leader of fantastically explosive offenses, as well as the great “game manager” who minimizes mistakes.
A football QB has been called the single most important position player in sports. Every play on offense goes though his hands, but what he does during the pre-snap and during the play is critical to the success of the offense. Even if he’s handing off the ball to a running back who gains all the yards, the QB is taking the play call from the bench, analyzing what the defense is showing in a matter of seconds, potentially putting a receiver in motion to identify man coverage, modifying the blocking scheme as needed, making a decision to change the play as needed, etc. Once the ball is snapped he needs to read the defensive coverage, go though his progression of receivers, extend the play by moving the pocket or scrambling to avoid coverage, communicate with his receivers and decide where to throw the ball, dump off the checkdown, throw the ball away, or scramble for yardage.
While it’s possible to win without a good QB, it’s much, much harder. Even when Peyton Manning’s arm was pretty shot during his last season with Denver, he was still able to do all those other things that a great QB has to do and help the team win. Brady gets a lot of credit for those wins because he is critical to those wins.
Can we please stop using acronyms which, when pronounced as an actual word, end up meaning something 180 degrees opposite of the intended meaning?
Bill Buckner, Jean Van De Velde, Andres Escobar, Scott Norwood, the 1951 Dodgers, 1978 Red Sox, and 2004 Yankees are all GOATs. The people being discussed in this thread are not.
Those are goats. We’re discussing GOATs. Completely different things and pretty well established conventions. Sorry, I think the terms are well understood in The Game Room forum.
…so you can’t be responsible for “winning” if you play defense? Only the Quarterback in an American Football team is eligible to get the credit for “winning?”
Defenses can win championships, but it’s rare that any single player on a defense has the impact on a team like the QB does. It’s not a critique of the players on defense, it’s just the nature of the game. A “shut down corner” is extremely valuable in football. He can take away the opponent’s most valuable receiver. But because of that, the offense won’t throw to that receiver and the impact is mostly in a negative sense; you don’t see something that didn’t happen.
Putting pressure on the QB, stopping the run, and excellent coverage are by their nature team activities. There are important defensive positions, and the middle linebacker has often been called the QB of the defense, but none of them rise to the level of importance as the QB. And the league has made a calculated decision to favor the offense in all recent rule changes, so much of the credit for success goes through the QB. It’s just the nature of football.
A good defense is measured on their ability to shut down an opponent’s quarterback. It’s a many-to-one relationship. Defenses can win championships with a mediocre QB, look at the 2015 Broncos or the 2000 Ravens. But that doesn’t take away the fact that a great QB can also be instrumental in winning championships.
No individual defensive player has the impact of the Quarterback. They are one of 11 players on the field, each one of which has limited, but important, responsibilities to have the defense function as a whole. The QB is different because every play starts with him, he has to adjust to his teammates doing their jobs, the defense doing their jobs to find where the mismatches are, where his players are winning the match and get the ball to them. The QB has to also see where his players are losing, which of his linemen is letting pressure through, which of his receivers is well covered, and account for that as well.
A defensive player, let’s say the Middle Linebacker, often considered the “primary” leader of the defense doesn’t have to do that. He has his assignment, and is not expected to notice that his Defensive End is being well blocked this play, and he needs to adjust his positioning change the play entirely. His assignment may not even have him in a position to see the DE. Defense, by its nature, involves strictly designated roles. The QB position, by it’s nature has its role being “watch all 21 players who aren’t me, then do the right thing.”
That’s a bit of a stretch; 70% of what you say could also be said of the center (who modifies the blocking schemes NOT the quarterback).
Quarterbacks are important, but they’re not the only player on the team, or even necessarily the most important. American football is first and foremost a team sport; examples abound of teams with fair to middling quarterbacks having spectacular seasons, especially in the college ranks. Why? Because it’s about the team, not just the QB. You can’t lay all the credit for the Patriots’ wins at Brady’s feet; it’s as much the rest of the team and Bill Belichik’s doing as Brady’s.
Not to detract from Brady’s ability, but the reason the Buccaneers were in the Super Bowl wasn’t solely due to Brady’s arrival in Tampa. Hiring Bruce Arians had something to do with it, as did the hiring of Todd Bowles.
I’m personally not convinced that winning games has anything to do with how dominant a player might be in a team sport. Ted Williams is widely reputed to be one of the very best hitters of all time, and he played in ONE World Series during his 19 year major league career.
I see your point about game length but no, this doesn’t make any sense. In the case of cricket, international play is now and was then well established as effectively the standard, the elite level of the sport. That is not the case in hockey. International play is great, but the quality of opposition is sometimes dubious and the sample sizes aren’t very large. In hockey, the NHL IS the standard, especially in the last 3-4 decades as European talent has been in it.
A baseball pitcher has even more impact on his team’s performance. A pitcher can truly win a game by himself. The reason every MVP isn’t a pitcher is that because of the nature of the sport, they can’t pitch every inning their team plays or even anywhere near half of them; the duties have to be split between many pitchers. A QB can take every snap in a season.
If baseball was only played once a week, all the best players would be pitchers. Guys like Clayton Kershaw would be vastly, many-times-over more valuable than the greatest hitters. A truly great pitcher could turn a bad team into a great one by himself.
Agreed. You can also make the case for a hockey goalie, who can play nearly every minute of a season. But a great goalie doesn’t initial the play like a pitcher does in baseball.
So he was not only good enough to rank 7th in goals per game, he also racked up a huge number of goals thru playing many games, and playing them well. Do I have that right?
Gretzky leads in career points (goals + assists) per game and the only guy close to him is Mario Lemieux, whose career suffered due to injury. In 20 years, Gretzky averaged 74 games per season, Lemieux averaged 54, and played fewer years.
Points per game, Gretzky 1.92, Lemieux 1.88, the next guy (Mike Bossy, who played 10 years total) 1.50.
