Brady ranked 4th Top Athlete of 1995 - 2015 by ESPN

ESPN.com marked its 20th anniversary this week not only with a website redesign but also by ranking the Top 20 athletes of 1995-2015. ESPN’s staff ranked each athlete according to how they defined "the pinnacle of sports over the last two decades." You can read the story and see the entire list here.

At #4, Tom Brady game in ahead of Peyton Manning (#7) and Brett Favre (#15) for NFL players whose careers existed or crowning achievements occurred within the last 20 years.

http://nesn.com/2015/03/tom-brady-ranked-no-4-on-espn-coms-top-20-athletes-of-past-20-years/

A fourth Super Bowl win apparently made all the difference in how ESPN feels about Tom Brady. Before the 2014 season, the network left the New England Patriots signal-caller off its Mount Rushmore of active quarterbacks and even kept him out of the top 10. But Brady cracked the top five on ESPN.com’s top 20 athletes of the past 20 years, coming in at No. 4. Brady follows only Michael Jordan, LeBron James and Tiger Woods on the list and beats out fellow QBs Peyton Manning (No. 7) and Brett Favre (No. 15). The only condition of the rankings were that the athletes’ “careers existed or their crowning achievements occurred within the last 20 years.” Though some of ESPN.com’s list is rather questionable (confirmed performance-enhancing drug user Lance Armstrong at No. 13, anyone?), Brady certainly deserves a spot at the top. In his 15-year career, Brady has four Super Bowl wins, three Super Bowl MVP titles, is fifth in career touchdowns (392) and passing yards (53,258), and is the postseason touchdown (53) and passing yards (7,345) leader. And now, it looks as though he has the respect of major sports media outlets once again.

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I'm fine with MJ ahead of Brady and MAYBE Tiger, but LeBron?? He's not there yet.

Tiger Woods, Golf and athlete should never be used in the same sentence.

Golf is a game, like pool or darts. Rafeal Nadal and Roger Federer would smack him into next year. Say what you want about Tennis, but you ain't winning anything if your a fat old John Daly or a 46 year old like Nicklaus was in '86.

Sorry, but golf is lame and takes up to much real estate for wanna-be rich people to go pretend they have athletic ability.

I hate golf, the game, the social aspect and the impact on the environment. But even I can admit that it takes balls of steel to play golf. The biggest enemy is yourself on the course.

Important thing is he is #1 at his position. Everything else is just an apples to oranges comparison.

If they are really going on who is most dominant in his or her sport, Michel Phelps should be #1 without much debate.

Ice_Ice_Brady said:

Important thing is he is #1 at his position. Everything else is just an apples to oranges comparison.

If they are really going on who is most dominant in his or her sport, Michel Phelps should be #1 without much debate.

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I don't think sports with big leagues and national attention really get enough credit. Phelps should definitely get consideration, agreed. I would probably say 1. MJ, 2. Tied: Woods & Brady, 4. Phelps.

Typical ESPN laziness. They've conveniently overlooked magnificent sport stars from all over the globe. How they call themselves an industry leader is beyond my understanding.

Was anybody else bothered by Lance Armstrong being on the list?

C'mon. Where's Kobayashi on that list?????

The fact that Michael Schumacher is not on this list shows how clueless ESPN really is.

I heard them talking about this on the radio today. Not only does ESPN's site redesign suck, so does this list. Brady should have been ahead of all 3 who finished in front of him. Phelps should probably have been above them, too.

shmessy said:

C'mon. Where's Kobayashi on that list?????

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Joey Chestnut's got 8 wins to Kobayashi's 6.

Wheelman said:

The fact that Michael Schumacher is not on this list shows how clueless ESPN really is.

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you can have a list full of soccer players.

...lebron being number 2 is a joke. but he's espn poster boy.

Deus Irae said:

Joey Chestnut's got 8 wins to Kobayashi's 6.

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He ain't no Joaquín Alcaraz Gracia. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/19/man-dies-beer-drinking-contest-spain_n_3623496.html

Now theres a man dedicated to his sport.

OhExaulted1 said:

He ain't no Joaquín Alcaraz Gracia. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/19/man-dies-beer-drinking-contest-spain_n_3623496.html

Now theres a man dedicated to his sport.

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That's 17 beers in 20 minutes, for the folks counting. He's dead because of the metric system. That's my veiw.

Barry Bonds hit 503 HR's from 1995-2007. How come he didn't make the list.

Chiuba E. Obele said:

Was anybody else bothered by Lance Armstrong being on the list?

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Not really. It was mostly a level playing field(first guy who didn't dope being ranked like 25th or something) Plus i find his story even more fascinating with the behind the scenes stuff.

Brady should be 1 or 2 with MJ both of them are fiery competitors winners and killer instincts that cannot be compared

Messi and Ronaldo should be above Lebron. I might go as far as saying maybe even Kobe should be infront of Lebron he's not there yet

Jordan and Tiger should be 1 and 2

Brady and Lebron is a close call for me at 3, but I'd go Lebron since basketball is more of a global sport. If I was growing up in a foreign country like France, Japan, or Australia, I think more people would know the best NBA player over the best NFL player. Lebron's stock still has more ceiling. Lebron wasted some valuable years in Cleveland, but took some bad teams to deep playoff runs, including an NBA finals appearance. He almost beat a stacked 2008 Celtics team in the Eastern Conference finals--that Celtics team almost won 70 games that year and it took a PJ Brown miracle shot to beat Cleveland in Game 7. It's not the titles Lebron won that impressed me, it's how he made bad teams very good. He's a combination of Magic and Jordan. He's pretty incredible to watch.

As far as Brady, that 4th ring really catapulted him into a different pantheon of greatness. From this ranking alone, he's obviously the GOAT in many people's minds---not only the greatest qb of all time, but maybe the greatest football player ever. The resume is complete. What hurts Brady I think is that the NFL has not marketed themselves enough like the NBA globally. The NBA and MLB have done a really good job of that.

I'd put Jeter higher than Peyton. Jeter is a top 5 guy I think. Peyton at 7 is an absolute joke...the guy only won 1 super bowl.

Those of you pimping Jordan need to take a look at the involved timeline.

1995-2005

There's no way in Hell Jordan deserves to be on top of the list.

Brady
Armstrong
Phelps
Tiger

All clearly above the Jordan/LeBron duo, given the time frame, IMO.