sean10mm
Rotational Player and Threatening Starter's Job
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- Jul 10, 2017
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Brady has played forever, and you can divide his career up in different ways, but I was wondering what time period in general people think Brady was at his absolute peak as an individual player both mentally and physically.
For instance, 2007 was obviously his peak statistical season and his physical prime, but was he mentally as good then as he was around 2010 or 2016? When did he even start to physically taper off, anyway, and was that offset by his late-career mental dominance? Or was he already fully Tom effing Brady by say 2004?
I've kind of come to what will probably seem like an oddball conclusion, which is that Brady's all around peak was around 2014-2015. Mentally he was at the peak of his powers, but what stands out going back to videos of his highlights then is how easily he put real speed on his intermediate-range passes. I think by 2016-17 you were already seeing the earliest signs of his fastball tapering off slightly, which was offset by his mental mastery of the game and pretty good teams around him those years to the point you really have to nitpick to see it... but I do think it was there, even if it was nowhere near the decline that Peyton Manning had down the stretch. 2020 Brady was fine physically, but he's clearly not 2014-15 Brady to my eye.
For instance, 2007 was obviously his peak statistical season and his physical prime, but was he mentally as good then as he was around 2010 or 2016? When did he even start to physically taper off, anyway, and was that offset by his late-career mental dominance? Or was he already fully Tom effing Brady by say 2004?
I've kind of come to what will probably seem like an oddball conclusion, which is that Brady's all around peak was around 2014-2015. Mentally he was at the peak of his powers, but what stands out going back to videos of his highlights then is how easily he put real speed on his intermediate-range passes. I think by 2016-17 you were already seeing the earliest signs of his fastball tapering off slightly, which was offset by his mental mastery of the game and pretty good teams around him those years to the point you really have to nitpick to see it... but I do think it was there, even if it was nowhere near the decline that Peyton Manning had down the stretch. 2020 Brady was fine physically, but he's clearly not 2014-15 Brady to my eye.