I am a little worn out reading this, and trying to determine exactly how sports fans are supposed to break through the circularity of the argument.
We posit hypotheticals: What if Peyton were playing with Caldwell and Gaffney instead of Harrison and Wayne? What if Miami's defense in Marino's day were the equivalent of NE's today? What if the talent had pooled in the AFC when Marino was throwing? What if Elway had been teamed with Terrel Davis earlier?
Every quarterback works in the system he is in.
Every quarterback is, by definition, a product of the system.
A Colts fan can say "What if 24-28 TD a year Tom Brady had been playing with Wayne and Harrison -- he would have made them worse," when in fact the Colts were built on Dallas-style "triplets," then complemented with Wayne and good tight end play. The Pats were built on another "system," a spread-the-ball-around system usually referred to as a "spread attack."
Or "what if" there were a deep threat in NE for 10 years running -- would there even be a "spread attack" when you have so much better odds of getting the ball downfield? BB is no dummy about using the talent at his disposal.
Ultimately, the system very quickly achieves a complexity of mutually inter-influencing variables that just can not be broken down by "look what happens to Brady when he has third string receivers..." or "look at how many touchdowns Peyton/Marino could heave in a season..." The stats tell us how each individual performed in given settings: Peyton and Marino in settings in which they often played from behind, in systems that emphasized the "unstoppable force" object of winning. Brady played in a system emphasizing control on both sides of the ball. You don't run time off the clock by heaving a 60-yard TD strike. The counter argument is, you don't have to; they're already 6 more behind.
But would those styles of play been different, if you swapped cog A for cog B? WE DO NOT KNOW, nor can we.
Maybe the makers of Madden can get together with Pujo's A-list of quantum physicists, and we can play an alternate-universe woulda coulda shoulda bowl to finally get Marino his ring.
But it's not our reality.
Our reality is that Tom Brady has won three super bowls. Let's be fair: the NE Patriots, in a span of 4 years, won three super bowls. Maybe on a Belichik team, with the stellar and variable talents of let's say Antowain Smith and Corey Dillon, David Givens and Deion Branch, Ty Law, Ted Washington, Richard Seymour, Lawyer Milloy... you get the picture, three "right systems" -- maybe with that set-up "you could say" Marino would win the big one.
But Dan Marino never did it, in reality.
Marino failed, ultimately. A great talent, who ultimately could not win the big one.
Good for Elway, sticking in the game until people couldn't say that anymore. Good for Brady, sticking around until he got the toys he has always longed for (as has Belichick, to hear how he talked about Moss previously.) Good for the whole vertical organization, for keeping BB, Pioli, Brady, and some core players under one roof for long enough to make that first four-year run, as well as the one that's coming.
Yeah, I call what's happened here a system, a winning system. A synergistic integration of various parts working together to produce an intended effect. This does not prove that any part of the system can be replaced with no consequences; it is telling that BB chose Brady over Bledsoe, when the latter became available again. Drew was not a winner at the level Tom is, precisely because he had more of the "gunslinger" mindset, whether or not it was warranted.
All Tom does is win Super Bowls. Nah, he isn't anything special.
It's just tedious. You can not compare an interesting statistical oddity like a Marino to the greats like Brady and Montana. Otherwise I can just measure the arc and velocity of a football thrown, decide what the ultimate perfect release point is, computer-model the mechanics, and extrapolate from an individual's deviation from that model, and declare Jeff George the best quarterback ever to play the game.
48 touchdowns in a losing season is still failure -- It don't mean a thing if you ain't got that bling.
PFnV
