This Tom Brady shit disgusts me.
You don't get to be automatically number 1 just because you've played in a sport under the best coach of all time and a consistently good team in a relatively weak division your whole career. Is he in the discussion of GOAT, of course. Is it locked for him? Hell no.
Brady has more championships, but it is so misleading to use that to boost up a QB. When they got their first SB against the Rams, did Brady hold that high powered offense to 17 pts and get three crucial turnovers? No, the defense did that. Did Brady shut the Falcons down in the second half of that Superbowl allowing for their lead to be erased? No, the defense did that. Did Brady get a goal line interception stopping Seattle from taking that SB? No, the defense did that. Like three of NE's Super Bowls have been won on field goals. Did Brady do that? No those were special teams points.
The point is that football is not basketball. In basketball, one player can put a team on his back and control pretty much every phase of the game. That's not possible in football. The QB plays no part whatsoever in 2 of the 3 phases of football. And even with basketball, Bill Russel is the greatest winner ever, but nobody claims he's the GOAT BBall player. People like MJ, Lebron, Kobe, and Kareem always get named before him because they have the numbers.
And even when you look at just offense, QBs are still the most dependent players on the field. They need good protection from the line to get their passes off. They need good receivers to get the ball to. They need a good running game to take the attention away from them and help them manage the clock. They need good coaching and game planning to do just about anything. So when you say QB1 is better than QB2 because of wins without actually accounting for the differences in the teams, you may be missing out on the majority of the reason why QB1 has been more successful than QB1.
Yes, I think Brees is better. When you look at the stats that are actually the QB's and the QB's alone (as much as anything can be attributed to one person in a game this team oriented), Brees beats Brady in pretty much every area. By your own admission, you can't even make an argument in Brady's favor until you factor in something that Brady only controls to a limited degree. I mean when you acknowledge the good defenses over the years, the receivers that have stepped up, the strong coordinators, the consistent special teams play, and the ever present Belicheck, how much can you even credit Brady for all those championships? Like 25% at most? Do you really think that if you stuck Brees, Peyton, Rodgers, or even someone like Phillip Rivers in that slot instead of Brady that the team still wouldn't have won multiple championships?
Stop it bruh. Let's look at the people who have thrown for 5000 yards.
Dan Marino 1984
Drew Brees 2008, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2016
Tom Brady 2011
Matthew Stafford 2011
Peyton Manning 2013
Ben Roethlisberger 2018
Patrick Mahomes 2018
That's interesting. Dan Marino did that shit and the league went like 20 years with nobody replicating that feat even with elites like Montana, Young, Elway, Aikman, Favre, Moon, etc... playing during that time, then all of a sudden in the late 00s people start coming out of the woodwork accomplishing that feat. Fucking Matthew Stafford did it and Patrick Mahomes just got to the league and he's already done it.
Now let's look at the top 10 in passing yards
Drew Brees 74,845
Peyton Manning 71,940
Tom Brady 71,923
Brett Favre 71,838
Dan Marino 61,361
Ben Roethilisberger 56,545
Eli Manning 56,537
Philip Rivers 56,121
John Elway 51,475
Warren Moon 49,325
Crazy how 7 of the top 10 passing leaders all played at some point in this current era of the NFL. Are this era's players just that good or could it be that since 2006, they made like 8 rule changes specifically to help the QB out, one of which is literally called "The Brady Rule" by a lot of people. I'm going to go with the latter.
So let's look at what you named in Brady's favor.
Rings - team accomplishment under quite possibly the greatest NFL coach ever
Perfect Season - team accomplishment marred by the fact that they didn't even win the Super Bowl.
5,000 yard season - relatively common over the past few years, and Brees has done it 5 times to Brady's 1
Will eventually become #2 in career yards - he's only passing Peyton because he's played longer and he ain't catching Brees
So let me throw a question back at you. By what metric is Brady the best?
He doesn't have the most career yards. That's Brees.
He doesn't have the most career TDs. That's Peyton. Brady is #2, but he's only passed Brees because Brees hasn't played this season.
He doesn't have the highest pass completion percentage. That's Brees too.
He doesn't have the highest career passer rating. Rodgers, Wilson, and Brees are above him there.
He doesn't have the lowest INT percentage. Rodgers and Kaepernick are above him.
So yeah, Brady is great. He's near the top in almost every QB stat, but guess who is with or above him in almost every stat, Drew Brees. So how is Drew Brees not the better than Brady? Can you make an argument that doesn't come down to "Brady's got more rings?"
I can understand the argument you trying to make & yea we can’t just use titles when it comes to the best... but come on bruh. The stats you can give that to Brees but when it comes to coming through in clutch situations year in and year out it’s Brady. Dudes been a threat for 20 years strong. Even in his first Super Browl Brady was clutch that final drive. Shit... 28-3 muthafucka. 8 Super Bowl appearances, more wins than anyone in pro football history regular season & post. You just can’t touch the body of work Brady has throughout his career. I didn’t have him as the GOAT over Montana until that Falcons Super Bowl. After that it was a wrap for me.
Yes. Very easily. Here it goes. You ready?
Brady has SIGNIFICANTLY more rings.
That's the argument. And that matters, when they are so close in pretty much every other category that matters. I'm not one of these niggas that think rings mean everything. But when two players are so evenly matched, in terms of statistics and the eye test...you HAVE to start making things like # of rings a bigger factor.
If both are in the top 5 in pretty much ever major statistical category, with not much variance in the numbers...but once niggas has SIX TIMES AS MANY RINGS AS THE OTHER...that's the argument, my nigga.
But I do understand that shit like organizational competence and stability really do make a difference and Brady got far luckier in that department than Brees. So I wouldn't ever be upset at a nigga saying that Brees is better. I wouldn't even put up much of an argument. But I got Brady.
Now let's look at the top 10 in passing yards
Drew Brees 74,845
Peyton Manning 71,940
Tom Brady 71,923
Brett Favre 71,838
Dan Marino 61,361
Ben Roethilisberger 56,545
Eli Manning 56,537
Philip Rivers 56,121
John Elway 51,475
Warren Moon 49,325
Considering Drew Brees is out for the season, barring injury, Brady will pass Brees in all time yards this year.
Brady needs 2,922 yards to catch Brees, +1 will make him the #1 passer of all time.
In all likelihood that will happen this season barring an injury.
Bruh, you're basically saying that Brady needed a whole extra season to catch up to Brees on top of already having more games on his sheet before this season even started. That basically proves that Brady is not as good an offensive player. Brees and Peyton were objectively better and Brady needed them gone to pass them.
Yes, and the Patriots have had more consistency in their teams than any other franchise. That's Belicheck and the front office not Brady. Go check out when Brady goes down. The team still wins. He was gone for a whole season, and Matt Cassell won 10 games. Cassell left the Patriots and instantly became a nobody. What does that say about Brady. The only team he's ever won with is a team that can win even if he's not there. Compare that to when Peyton went out and his team went from Championship contender to one of the worst teams in the league.
Look, Brees, Manning and a few other people are all top 5 DOA going by statistics, although like you said, there were a few rule changes that favored QBs over the past decade or so.
But with these new rules Brady has gone to the Superbowl 9 times while Brees, Manning, Rogers, Roethlisberger benefited from the same rule changes but didn't make it to the Superbowl half as many times as Brady.
It's great to put up 300-400 yards in a game, but if you can't make it past the first round of the playoffs, your total passing yards for the season is irrelevant.
I'd take a QB that passes for 4,000 yards and wins the Superbowl over a QB that passes for 5,000 yards and loses in the first round of the playoffs.
If we were simply talking about who is the most clutch, then yeah, I'd give you that. Dude has ice in his veins, but the fact that he has had to make a comeback often just goes to show you that he's never been that dominant an offensive force. And come on, how can you possibly have had your mind changed by the ATL Superbowl. The NE defense stepped up and ATL basically fell apart. Brady did his part and put numbers on the board, but if ATL hadn't completely collapsed Brady wouldn't have even had a chance to win. How could you possibly give Brady more credit for that game than the defense?
Yes, and the Patriots have had more consistency in their teams than any other franchise. That's Belicheck and the front office not Brady. Go check out when Brady goes down. The team still wins. He was gone for a whole season, and Matt Cassell won 10 games. Cassell left the Patriots and instantly became a nobody. What does that say about Brady. The only team he's ever won with is a team that can win even if he's not there. Compare that to when Peyton went out and his team went from Championship contender to one of the worst teams in the league.
Bruh, you're basically saying that Brady needed a whole extra season to catch up to Brees on top of already having more games on his sheet before this season even started. That basically proves that Brady is not as good an offensive player. Brees and Peyton were objectively better and Brady needed them gone to pass them.
Defenses don’t score points my man at least not consistently. Yes defense played a huge role in that comeback but if Brady doesn’t execute the D can have all the stops they want.. but they ain’t winning. The Falcons choking was also a huge factor but I can only think of maybe 2 or 3 QBs that could even have the will to put together those drives in that situation.
Stopping the other team from scoring is just as important as scoring. Ya'll talking about how clutch Brady is for scoring when it matters, and ignoring how important it is to stop a team. What if the defense fell apart on ATL's last drive. All ATL needed was a FG to win the game and nothing Brady did would have mattered.
I forgot what game I was watching, but the commentators said that during Brady's career, the Patriots defense has only given up leads 5 times after the offense scored in the final 2 minutes. That's a crazy stat. Now think about what his career would be like if he was on one of those teams that let the NE march down the field and score in those situations.