Soul_Survivor88
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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.