Brady's shot at football immortality

[stephens44]

I was pondering the opportunity here this postseason for Brady....
If the Pats run the table that gives him:

19 Playoff wins (3 ahead of the next closest QB, Montana)
6 SB appearances
4 Rings
16-0 season/50 TD season


Any debate of the greatest of all time is pretty much permamently done.

:rocker::rocker::rocker:

The fact that he would have beaten Manning again in the playoffs is just icing...

 

[RobertWeathers]

The mediots will say, 'Well, Montana and Bradshaw never lost a SB'

 

[nabwong]

The mediots will say, 'Well, Montana and Bradshaw never lost a SB'

I've never lost a superbowl either.

 

[Mack Herron]

Huge opportunity that has been sitting there for a while. Has already come within a couple of plays of this GOAT (a helmet catch and Gronk Hail Mary). Shows you how much these PO games mean to legacy.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

Brady is already a football immortal. Lots of guys have never lost a superbowl. He's got another 3-5 years or more in which to pad his totals.

 

[Lansdowne]

The mediots will say, 'Well, Montana and Bradshaw never lost a SB'

They will, but if Brady can match them SB win for SB win, it won't matter. Brady already has more SB appearances than either guy, if he were to win a 4th, I'd say 4 Lombardis + 6 conference titles > 4 Lombardis + 4 conference titles.

 

[Fencer]

Brady is already a football immortal. Lots of guys have never lost a superbowl. He's got another 3-5 years or more in which to pad his totals.

Right. The only question is WHERE he sits in the pantheon.

Brady/Montana will be very hard to settle conclusively, because of eras (Brady's is more passer-friendly) and teammates (Rice! Clark! Moss! Welker! Gronkowski! The defenses!)

 

[Palm Beach Pats Fan]

Montana is 4-0 in the SB
Montana is 4-3 in conference championship games

Brady with a ring this year would be:
4-2 in the SB
6-1 in conference championship games

Thus their 7 best seasons would be directly comparable and it would be clear to even the most dense folks (i.e. Jets and Colts fans) that it is far better, for example, to win a conference championship and advance to the Super Bowl than it is to lose a conference championship and deny yourself even an opportunity to play for a title.

Brady would have
4 SB rings
2 other conference championships
1 conference finals loss

Montana would have
4 SB rings
0 other conference championships
3 conference finals losses


4=4
2>0

 

[Brady_to_Moss]

i think montana will always be the best because of the 2 SB losses we have had. People still think manning is ahead of brady...yeah maybe in the reg season

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

Montana and Brady played in different eras.

You will never see the type of conference dominance as the 1980s produced. The SB was merely a coronation of the NFC champion. Brady has played in 5 SBs and each one has been decided by 4 points or less (5 of them decided by a field goal.)

It isn't just the Patriots, either. The last time a SB was not decided in the 4th quarter was 2002-03, when the Bucs pummeled the Raiders.

That said, the reason Montana won "all the close ones" is because only two of his SBs were contested late. If you put him in five SBs that were all up in the air in the 4th quarter, the odds say he wouldn't go 5-0, nor would any QB in the history of the league.

 

[DarrylS]

Statistics are fodder for the mediots, all that is important is a win..

 

[Palm Beach Pats Fan]

i think montana will always be the best because of the 2 SB losses we have had.

Only if you are comfortable with the idea that it is better to lose conference championship games (Montana) than it is to win a conference championship games (Brady).

That would be the sole distinction- Brady then lost in 2 games that Montana didn't even get to play, having lost already, one round sooner.


It would be like comparing an Olympian with 4 gold medals, 2 silver medals, and a 4th place finish with an Olympian with 4 gold medals and 3 fourth place finishes. No sane person would say that the second Olympian was the greater because every medal he ever won happened to be gold. He wasn't even good enough to finish second on two other occasions, when the other guy was.

 

[Dutchmaster617]

Montana threw less picks, had a 4-0 SB record.

Rule changes

Spygate

= Yes you guessed it, nothing changing outside this board, some will but most will stick to the usual, who cares? I will be happy as hell with a championship and my opinion will stick, no one else impacts that.

 

[patsfan13]

The mediots will say, 'Well, Montana and Bradshaw never lost a SB'

That will mean that Brady is 6-1 in conf championship games and Montana is 4-3 in conf championship games.

 

[Dutchmaster617]

That will mean that Brady is 6-1 in conf championship games and Montana is 4-3 in conf championship games.

In reality the SBs matter more, and there is nothing wrong with that, I love Brady but he played just as bad as Montana vs BAL and SD (11 & 07) yet pulled it out, lets not pretend its not an argument or act biased.

BTW the 1988? Bowl against CIN was amazing, clutch work by Montana and Rice.

 

[aluminum seats]

Montana is 4-0 in the SB
Montana is 4-3 in conference championship games

Brady with a ring this year would be:
4-2 in the SB
6-1 in conference championship games

Thus their 7 best seasons would be directly comparable and it would be clear to even the most dense folks (i.e. Jets and Colts fans) that it is far better, for example, to win a conference championship and advance to the Super Bowl than it is to lose a conference championship and deny yourself even an opportunity to play for a title.

Brady would have
4 SB rings
2 other conference championships
1 conference finals loss

Montana would have
4 SB rings
0 other conference championships
3 conference finals losses


4=4
2>0

Well done. Those stats aren't esoteric, but I haven't seen them laid out like that before. Makes things lean much more to Brady, IMO.

 

[aluminum seats]

In reality the SBs matter more, and there is nothing wrong with that, I love Brady but he played just as bad as Montana vs BAL and SD (11 & 07) yet pulled it out, lets not pretend its not an argument or act biased.

You're acting like players get free passes to the Super Bowl and then they start playing. It's obviously hugely to Brady's credit that he got there in the first place.

What's being laid out here is that if the Pats win it this year, Brady will have as many Super Bowl victories as Montana, with a considerable edge in the number of times he got there. As the other poster joked, he's never lost a Super Bowl either--point being, you can't lose if you don't get there.

 

[lurker1965]

Yet another fanboi trying to pump up Brady.

The best QB all time was "Slingin'" Sammy Baugh who transformed the RB who threw sometimes into the modern pass first QB we know.

And if anyone wants to discuss championships, Otto Graham is the best. (Ten year career, 10 times in the championship game winning 7 of them.)

 

[Kontradiction]

Brady is already a football immortal. Lots of guys have never lost a superbowl. He's got another 3-5 years or more in which to pad his totals.

Let's start this year. It's embarrassing that we haven't won a Super Bowl since 2004.

:bricks:

 

[Palm Beach Pats Fan]

Yet another fanboi trying to pump up Brady.

The best QB all time was "Slingin'" Sammy Baugh who transformed the RB who threw sometimes into the modern pass first QB we know.

And if anyone wants to discuss championships, Otto Graham is the best. (Ten year career, 10 times in the championship game winning 7 of them.)

Most people think it's hard to compare Brady to Montana due to changes to the game.

Trying to compare either to guys like Baugh is darn nigh impossible due to all the changes in rules, players, strategies, etc. The concept of a playbook hadn't even been invented yet, by Paul Brown!

Mind you, I'm not saying you're wrong, just that the game has changed so dramatically that the comparison, even by eyeballs of the few people who saw all eras, seems futile. I mean, Sammy B once led the league in passing yards with 94 yards per game and another year led the league in completion percentage at 47%. How can anybody make sense of such stats--it was in essence a different sport then!

Sammy Baugh NFL Football Statistics - Pro-Football-Reference.com