For GOAT

If this truly is “for good” than it has been legendary.

If Tom Brady could catch, he may have eight Super Bowl victories.

If Eli Manning stayed a Charger, Tom Brady may have nine Super Bowl victories.

If both of the above statements were true, Tom Brady would have ten Super Bowl victories.

If this is the end, then the best player in the history of the NFL has hung up the cleats.

As it stands, Tom Brady has seven Super Bowl victories.

Let’s put that in perspective. The New England Patriots and Pittsburgh Steelers each have six Lombardi Trophies. All of New England’s championships came with Tom Brady at the helm. San Francisco and Dallas each have five. Green Bay, affectionately nicknamed “Title Town” has four.

Tom Brady has more Super Bowl wins than the Atlanta Falcons, Arizona Cardinals, Buffalo Bills, Carolina Panthers, Chicago Bears, Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, Detroit Lions, Houston Texans, Jacksonville Jaguars, Los Angeles Charges, Minnesota Vikings, New Orleans Saints, New York Jets, Philadelphia Eagles, Seattle Seahawks and Tennessee Titans combined. That’s 17 teams. There are 32 teams in the NFL. That means you can add more than half of the league together and still fall two Super Bowls shy of Tom Brady.

Tom Brady played most of his career in the AFC East and the last three seasons in the NFC South. Between the Patriots and the Buccaneers, he has one more Lombardi than his divisional rivals combined.

Brady has as many championships as Johnny Unitas and Joe Montana combined.

He has as many Super Bowl MVPs (5) as the Dallas Cowboys and San Francisco 49ers each have Super Bowls.

Brady has thrown for 649 TDs and 89,214 yards, 78 and 8,856 more, respectively, than the next closest player (Drew Brees). He’s one of four players to beat all 32 NFL teams (Brees, Peyton Manning and Favre the others). According to The Football Database, Brady has 286 career wins, 86 more than the next closest player (Peyton Manning). Brady has a .751 career win percentage in 381 starts; the only player with at least 90 career starts with a higher winning percentage is Patrick Mahomes (.796 in 93 career starts) according to The Football Database. Again, according to The Football Database, if Brett Favre—the proverbial Iron Man of quarterbacks having once started 297 straights games—came back and played roughly three and a half more seasons, not missing a start, he would tie Brady in games started (Brady at 381 and Favre at 322).

In his 23^rd season, at age 45, Tom Brady ranked third in yards with 4,694. Patrick Mahomes led the league with 5,250 and Justin Herbert had 4,739. Mahomes is 27 and Herbert 24, making them 18 and 21 years younger than Brady, respectively. In his age 45 season, 23^rd overall, Brady was top ten in completion percentage (9^th with 66.8%) and passing touchdowns (9^th with 25). Brady had 17 seasons with at least 25 passing touchdowns, including three seasons of at least 40 one of which was a then-NFL record 50 TDs in the 2007 season. The other two of 40 or more TD passes? His first two seasons in Tampa Bay at ages 43 and 44. He had 14 seasons throwing for over 4,000 yards, cracking 5,000 yards twice, including during the 2021 season at age 44.

Brady only missed the playoffs in the 2002 season, his first season as the full-time starter in the NFL and second season as a starter overall. (The Patriots missed the playoffs in 2008, but Brady had suffered a season-ending injury in week one, so nothing he could do about that). As a starter for the entire year, Brady made the playoffs in 19 straight seasons. Oh, you don’t count that streak because of 2008? Fine. He still made the playoffs in 14 straight seasons.

He's also attached to some of the most interesting controversies in NFL history. He’s been part of the Tuck Rule game, Spygate and Deflategate.

He led the Patriots to arguably the greatest upset in Super Bowl history. That St. Louis Rams team featured Hall of Famers Kurt Warner (QB), Marshall Faulk (RB), Isaac Bruce (WR), Orlando Pace (LT) and Aeneas Williams (CB). They also had WR Tory Holt who is a finalist for the 2023 Hall of Fame class, his fourth straight year as a finalist.

He orchestrated the largest comeback in Super Bowl history as the Patriots erased a 28-3 deficit against the Falcons.

After the 2020 season, Dane Beavers wrote an article on ESPN.com that made the argument that Tom Brady had at least two, if not three Hall of Fame careers: 2000-2006, 2007-2013, and 2014-2020. Add the 2021 and 2022 seasons and that argument becomes even more concrete.

There are a myriad of stats and a plethora of ways to interpret them, present them, etc.

No matter how you look at it, the G.O.A.T. argument begins and ends with Tom Brady. He won more than anyone. He dominated headlines, good and bad. Officiating changed in part because of Tom Brady.

No player has had a bigger impact, and been more dominant, than Tom Brady.

Joe Montana was phenomenal.

Johnny Unitas was revolutionary.

Peyton Manning was cerebral and methodical.

Patrick Mahomes is young enough and talented enough that he may yet make a run.

Joe Burrow has the demeanor—the confidence, ability and swagger—to make a run.

But Tom Brady is the undisputed greatest player in NFL history.

And that may well be “for good.”

 

 

(all stats from www.pro-football-reference.com unless otherwise noted)