How can people have not heard of Dareus? He had a great rookie year without Kyle Williams lining up next to him. When Williams gets back, he'll be a beast in the 4-3.
And face it - if Brady were any other QB in the league (and especially one named Sanchez or Manning), most here would agree w/ the sentiments. While all QB's & players work the officials, Brady is pretty near the top of the list, at least by the eye test.
I think you're missing the point. In New England, rookies don't talk ****. We all know who Dareus is, and many of us were hoping against hope that we might make a move for him. He's a very talented kid who has won absolutely nothing so far that would make his opinion on one of the GOAT worth a ****.
As for the second part, interesting you bring up Manning, who gets RTP calls at roughly the same rate as Brady (a bit more frequently actually). I'm sure you're equally as critical of Manning.
Brady also has some of the best protection of any QB in the league, and has for years. He isn't hit or even touched nearly as much.
Actually, I do. Brady has one of the best O-lines in the league.
No one really disputes that.
Here's where you missed the boat. While I certainly agree that the OL has a lot of talent on it, you're absolutely wrong about the hits or being touched.
This year's Patriots OL was stocked with several 1st and 2nd rounders with plenty of Pro Bowls to go around. Yet they gave up 71 QB hits, which was the 12th-fewest in the league, but nowhere near the top of the list like you seem to believe. The Bills had a terrible young OL yet gave up fewer hits (69). The Giants cut two longtime OL vets in Shaun O'Hara and Rich Seubert, struggled to gain cohesion early on, yet their line gave up exactly one more hit than the Patriots (72).
There are all sorts of factors that go into these things, from game plans to offensive systems to surrounding talent to the quarterback's ability to read defenses and get rid of the ball quickly or audible out to another play. As an example, I don't think the Colts OL had the talent of the Pats OL, but over the past few seasons with Manning running the show, they were much more effective at avoiding hits.
In looking at OLs with elite QBs over the past few years, I came up with 4: Brady, Brees, Manning, and Rodgers. I think Eli has joined the discussion but wasn't there the last few years so I'm omitting him. Peyton's numbers are pro-rated to reflect this missed season.
If you look at QB hits per team over the past few seasons, you see that Brady has been anything but sheltered, getting hit more than Manning or Brees. The number is actually much worse when you factor in that Manning has attempted 69 more pass attempts per season.
So your claim that Brady rarely gets hit is absolutely, unequivocally, 100% wrong, especially when viewed against comparable QBs.
