FTR, it’s Belichick, not Belichik. Not trying to scorn anyone or be a pedant, but I see a lot of misspelling of his name.
(:D)
How many Hall of Famers has Brady played with on the offensive side of the ball?
Bradshaw and Montana played with a lot more.
Also, if we are to give Belichick so much credit then sure it’s a credit to Brady that Belichick stuck with him all this time.
Let’s remember that two of Brady’s Super Bowl wins were won not by Brady but by Adam Vinatieri.
You can say that about a lot of QBs.
Somebody had to get the ball into position for Vinatieri to kick it. Nothing wrong with crediting Brady for doing his fair share in the wins.
Not Montana and his Super Bowls.
With the camera on him at the sideline and he didn’t know about it, like who hasn’t let off an F bomb or Mister Falcon here and there. Im not saying the guy isn’t passionate about winning or losing during there game, and Im not going to get into a debate about how he conducts himself off the field, but he doesn’t completely melt down under pressure during gametime or when questioned by reporters. Cool customer all the way.
His first Super Bowl’s margin of victory was less than the 6 points from field goals the 49ers got.
But I guess it doesn’t count unless it’s the last points of the game?
That’s an awfully stringent set of conditions. A QB can’t “win” a Super Bowl even if he scores 10 touchdowns as long as the winning 4th quarter drive ends in a field goal? This isn’t a knock on Montana. Football is a game played for 60 minutes and largely ignoring the 59 minutes and however many seconds leading up the last kick is bizarre.
Plenty of bad QBs have been cool under pressure and know how to conduct themselves in front of the press. I wouldn’t account that part of their greatness except as part of some mythic narrative, e.g. Joe Cool Montana. People say the same thing about Joe Flacco. And most people are pretty much “meh” about him.
I would argue that the league has pushed the rules to favor the QB’s in the NFL in a huge way in the last 15 years, Manning being but one of the beneficiaries of the changes - especially since Irsay and Polian whinged their way into getting the changes made. Yes, it did benefit Brady too - not going to deny that. But the difference is when it counts.
Comparing Brady to Manning in games when it counts - Brady wins, and wins big. Manning is going to be known as the greatest REGULAR season quarterback in history, supplanting Marino in that regard.
Brady is definitely in the conversation of greatest all time with Montana, Graham, and Unitas. I sometimes wonder why Bart Starr isn’t in that conversation, considering the Packers won 5 titles in seven years, and Starr had a great career stat-wise comparative to his time.
Still, Brady now has 4 rings in 6 attempts, amazing. If it wasn’t Brady who led them there, then it has to be Belichick who masterfully got them there, no? There is no denying that some how, some way, Brady and/or Belichick deserve to be in the conversation.
This from a staunch lifelong Cowboys fan.
The regular season doesn’t count anymore? 
As a baseball fan first, I fully believe that the playoffs are generally a crap shoot. Even more so in American football since the playoffs are of the one-and-done variety. I don’t extrapolate anything from postseason results - small sample size for one. The difficulties of separating out individual from team success for another.
In addition, if you are looking at playoff Quarterback Rating, neither Brady nor Manning make the Top 10:
(at the bottom)
Mark Sanchez on that list is funny, but I believe he was only in one postseason (small sample size again).
Heck Trent Dilfer has a 5-1 record in the postseason. Talk about a great record “when it counts”
I think Brady is a bit like Derek Jeter- he may not have the most impressive stats but he does what he needs to do to get the team to win in pressure situations.
Not a bad comparison. I’d add both are a bit overrated due to their postseason success (though in baseball hardly anyone calls Jeter the best Shortstop of all time, and no one calls him the best player of all time).
I humbly accept your paddling, but my argument stands.
Of the two quarterbacks that everyone argues may the be the greatest:
Both Manning and Brady get to the playoffs practically every year, but Brady (of the two) has more consistently gone further and won more than Manning in the playoffs, and it has been argued that Manning had the better teams throughout his career, both in Indianapolis and Denver. That has to mean something, no?
However, Manning didn’t have Belichick, who is considered one of the finest coaches of all time. I don’t think there’s any particular reason to think that the Pats wouldn’t win if they had Manning, at least not due to a deficiency in Manning’s game.
Your argument may ‘stand’, but I completely disagree with it. It’s not paddling, its removing this over-encompassing attempt to make Championships mean everything.
There is also an argument of whether Manning had better teams. In fact, I’ve seen quite the opposite - Brady has had better defenses and far better coaching.
And the argument that goes to the entire core of the argument - why should playoff results matter so much in evaluating the best players of all time? Eli Manning is arguably the best playoff QB of all time - does that completely override his regular season numbers which are above average, but not fantastic?
538 did an analysis of QBs in the playoffs:
The first chart involves Postseason QB performance compared to ELO and that was determined to not be all that useful (and Peyton Manning does look horribly in it, but Brady doesn’t look at that great either), so they did a chart lower down of Postseason QB performance compared to replacement level QB. In both charts, Eli Manning finished convincingly #1. In the 2nd chart, Montana moved to #2, Brady moves to #6 (behind Joe Flacco!) and Peyton Manning is 28th (very close to Steve Young).
Anyways, that determines performances by QBs in playoffs, but when determine the best players of all time, why solely go to postseason? Makes very little sense to me.
That is a possibility Cheesesteak…
ISiddiqui
When the argument (back in the day) between Montana and Marino being the greatest QB, why did Montana’s 4 rings to Marino’s none tip the balance to Montana’s favor, yet now, in the same comparison, Brady who has 4 rings is not considered better than Manning, who has 1?
Marino had better stats than Montana’s, yet Montana is the greatest. Peyton has (or will have) all the records, yet now is argued as the greatest, yet only won one to Brady’s four?
Montana’s win/loss in the playoffs are better than Marino’s, both had HoF coaches. Brady vs. Manning, the arguments are reversed? Why?
Why wasn’t Favre considered the greatest when he retired then, he won one?
Interesting…
Missed the edit window, sorry:
You make valid points, and I do agree with you on most, but it seems to me there is a bias (maybe not you) against Brady with some people.
Not so much solely on the playoff, but the playoff results seem to be the tipping point in most arguments, until now…Brady’s regular season stats are excellent, Manning’s better.
See my previous post - Montana is considered the greatest because of his playoff prowess on top of his regular seasons performances, not because he had the greatest stats in the regular season.
I never like comments about a Belichick ‘system’, or how Brady isn’t flashy. Just go back and look at 2007, when Welker, Moss, and Stallworth were added to the team - Brady was able to take advantage of those guys and hit a lot more long balls than he had in the past, or (mostly) would in the future.
He’s smart, and part of Belichick’s genius (and his OC’s) is building game plans around the team as it exists right then (including practically inventing a crazily effective double-tight-end, no long receiver offense), with Brady adapting to whatever those are.
Is that what people are doing? I’m not sure I agree that the comparison is ‘solely’ postseason. If anything, the discussion seems to hold both Brady and Manning in high esteem based on regular season play, but awards the ‘tiebreaker’ to Brady based on postseason success.
It is a facet, not the sole criterion.
Grantland had an interesting story about how much luck plays a part in such things. Brady’s most recent Super Bowl win, which goes very far in making him the greatest QB of all time, depended on Seattle’s stupid play call and Butler’s great play in intercepting the pass that should never have been called for.
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/lucky-and-good-how-tom-brady-became-the-greatest/
While I agree that luck plays a part in whether or not a QB get a win, I do think there is something to say about how much luck plays a role in the QB’s actual playing. Watching this most recent Super Bowl, Brady, when he played, didn’t rely much on luck. He made the short, accurate passes, and, while he certainly had some luck in how well the pass catchers did in accruing YAC, his throws weren’t luck. Compare that to Russell Wilson, who had much of his yardage on throws that required a pass catcher to go up and get the ball. Matthews was such an important part of Wilson’s success because he was able to go up and get those kinds of jump balls.
What’s weird is Wilson isn’t, usually, that kind of QB. He’s much more in the Brady mode of hitting his guys and not relying on a WR going up and getting it.
I think that’s one of the most important parts of Brady (or Peyton Manning or Montana) game, they don’t rely on great WR’s and luck with them coming down with the ball. Other QB’s, and I’d put Super Bowl winning Eli Manning and Joe Flacco in this group, seem to have many more of those “here goes! I hope my WR can go get it”. While it certainly can work short term (see Flacco’s 4 game playoff run or the Tyree catch), I think what separates Brady and the rest from others is that they aren’t so reliant on those kinds of throws.
Note: I’m not saying Brady et. al aren’t lucky, or that they don’t sometimes throw it up hoping the WR makes a catch, all QB’s do. I’m also not saying that Flacco and Eli aren’t capable of being accurate or putting the ball in spots (some of Eli’s throws are damn impressive). I’m simply saying that Brady et. al. seem to have the consistency that belies an over-reliance on luck that some other QB’s don’t.