jmt57

Two stars aligned | Boston Herald


The column points out that both Brady and Gretzky were 27 when they won their last championship. Gretzky played for 11 more seasons; Brady has now played for eight seasons since his last championship.

I.M. Fletcher

While I dont think it fair to compare Brady to Gretzky (or any athlete for that matter), I think one point that should resonate with fans of either, its that your best is celebrated in the company of others best, and rarely on your own. Its not good enough to be the greatest, its critical to your legacy to be able to share the stage.

Jackson 2

It's a snore....

fair catch fryar

IMO Gretzky is truly the "Great One" in hockey lore, but as soon as he left Edmonton and a team with Mark Messier, Jari Kurri, Grant Fuhr, Paul Coffey and co. he never won another championship. Brady never had a supporting cast like that, just a defense that knew how to make a stop or the big play when it needed to.

Ice_Ice_Brady

The way Gretzky broke records, it would be like a QB throwing 75 TDs in a season, and he did most of this before he was 25. Gretzky is the Great One, and I'd argue he is the most dominant team sport athlete ever. Brady is one of the great ones.

fair catch fryar

No argument about Gretzky being the Great One and ONE of the most dominant athletes ever, BUT don't underestimate the supporting cast that Gretzky had when he won 4 Cups. Hence the 5th Cup that Edmonton won post-Gretzky at the expense of the Bruins that year.

Nikolai

Gretzky had the Oilers, and if TFB had that kind of talent around him, I shudder to think of what might have been accomplished. Unfortunately, prolonged runs of greatness are a target and casualty of parity, with the Patriots being something of an exception.

__________________
We get what we deserve.

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“On a day when they could have had impact players David Terrell or Koren Robinson..they took Georgia defensive tackle Richard Seymour, who had 1 sacks last season in the pass-happy SEC and is too tall to play tackle at 6-6 and too slow to play defensive end. This genius move was followed by trading out of a spot where they could have gotten the last decent receiver in Robert Ferguson and settled for tackle Matt Light, who will not help any time soon.”

PatsSox363804

Funny how we always get to hear about how the Pats went 11-5 without Brady but no one really ever points out that the Oilers won the cup without Gretzky, some of those same players won with the Rangers 4 years later, and Gretzky never won again. Team > Individual in all sports.

voluntarysaftey

A QB has a lot more impact in football than any position has in hockey.
A top forward only plays 1/3 of the game.

Gretzky in his prime was way better of a scorer than anyone around him. He also did have a dominant team. So did Orr during his 2 championships. Him not winning again after leaving the oilers is due to the kings/rangers not being talented enough.

Brady not winning is not due to the team not being talented enough. It's likely a combination of bad luck and also it feels to me like he plays tighter / more conservative / and not as well in the playoffs.

Yehoodi

interesting comparison . . .

i always likened the Brady and the pats to the late 90s Yankees and Jeter . . . I have thought about this going way back to 2005/6 . . . once we lost some/reduced time of our key players in 2005-2006, Law, Phifer, McGinest, Johnson, Bruschi's stroke days after the 2004 probowl and so on, I was concern the run was over, well at a minimum it was going to be diminished . . .

at the end of the 2006 season i was more concerned and wondering if we would ever get solid players on D, and with the lost of Branch and Givens, and Dillion retiring, would we get replacements at WR and RB . . .

by the end of the 2006 AFCCG and going into 2007 our team was going to look a lot different than it did 2001-2004 . . . 2007 was a pleasent surprise and the last few years have been great with the team rebuilding . . .

but overall i still see brady like Jeter . . . a great clutch and money player that played on a team early in his career with solid role players that may not make it to the HOF, but collectively came together great and won many championships before he was in his late 20s . . . then as the role players left the team was never able to replace them and ended coming back to the pack and having a great team among the best that had a 2-3 close runs at a ring (2001, 2003, 2004 Jeter) (2006, 2007, 2012 Brady) but bad bounces and luck prevented them fromg getting another ring after their early success . . .

as the yankees won recently, hopefully the pats can break through and win a ring in the next year or two . . .

but it was a nice article and i can see the parallels to Gretzky . . . but i think Jeter might be a closer analogy . . . had great success early in his career and stated on the same team, but once some of the role players left from the championship years, the team feel back to the pack and its fan base has to endure 3-4 painful exits from the playoffs . . .