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OT: ESPN ranks most dominant athletes in the past 20 years

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I didn't read it, won't give them the click. But for the life of me I cannot understand the politics behind why they have such a distaste for TB. Just another one of those things that i can't wrap my head around.
It's pretty simple. The disdain and contempt for the Patriots dates back to the 1970 merger. Players went out of their way to avoid coming to Foxborough, the local Boston media trumpeted every Billy Sullivan error and embarrassment to infinity, the national media followed their lead in denigrating and dismissing every on-field accomplishment by the team, which were in fact very prevalent in the 70's and 80's.

When the Sullivan financial house of cards finally, inevitably unraveled, the media jumped like sharks on anything to portray the team as the "national embarrassment" the league considered them to be, including but not limited to on-field struggles as veterans retired and rebuilding began, and a disturbed young woman who wandered into the team locker room pretending first to be a newspaper reporter, and then a victim. A St. Louis beer magnate bought the team, paid off the debts and prepared to move it back home. But a local businessman refused to be bought out from the land contract, and overpaid by $50 million to buy and keep it here himself. That man absolutely worships the league, and goes along with every and any disparagement leveled at it prior to his ownership, and attributes all the even greater subsequent mudslinging and corrupt injustice aimed directly and exclusively at his team to "jealousy and envy", which of course makes no sense at all.

The team won zero titles prior to the so-called Tuck Rule game when the planet believed there was an injustice. One week later, the team was openly accused of cheating while winning the AFC Championship in Pittsburgh, claims that remain unbridled today. BSPN has lustily gone along with and endorsed all propaganda and rhetoric aimed against the Patriots the entire time, mirroring the league's attitude and policy. BSPN and the NFL are partners. Period.

If he played for any other team, Tom Brady would be a wildly popular national hero.

Instead, Peyton Manning, basically the Joe Thornton of football who got lucky a couple times (thanks to BB for letting AV go; and for stupidly going for it twice in field goal range), is hyped by the media.
 
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ESPN knew exactly what they were doing when they made this list and ranking.

And I’d say it worked quite well.
 
Ok just read the list. Jimmy Johnson drives a car bro wtf? What’s his ****ing cone time again?

It says athletes

Left turns are hard bro.
 
All the athletes on the list are incredible. But it's insane to have Lauren Jackson on there ahead of Tom Brady. It's crazy to not have Michael Phelps on the list at all. Or Rafael Nadal. And of course it's lunacy to have Peyton Manning ahead of Tom Brady. MAYBE if you ONLY included their regular season numbers could Manning be ahead of Brady at ALL, but 17 spots? Are you kidding me?

And even then....it's entirely debatable at this point whether Manning's regular season resumé is better than Brady's. And of course, Brady may still have 2-3 more great seasons in him, at which point his regular season numbers will surpass Manning's too.
 
ESPN’s explanation about Brady/Manning
Why the heck is Peyton Manning so much higher than Tom Brady?
For one thing, today's QB stats are steadily inflating. (There were 1.72 passing touchdowns for every interception in the NFL last season, up from 1.29 20 years ago.) For another, Brady wasn't really Brady-automatic Pro Bowler and MVP candidate-until 2007. Result: Manning considerably outpaces him when measured by yardsticks that don't depend on era, like MVPs (5-3), first-team All-Pro selections (7-3) and number of seasons throwing for 4 percent or more of the league's passing TDs (12-9, adjusted for number of teams). Then there's this: In evaluating players, we considered regular-season stats only, since there's no good way to compare playoffs across sports.

———-
translation: we knew Patriots fans would be outraged by any list that puts Manning way higher and they’d give us lots and lots of clicks and buzz..and therefore we will tweak our criteria to make that happen.

Yes they knew exactly what they were doing. And it worked as planned.
 
Its a espn traffic generator, the website is dying so it's the only explanation. They are trying to ramp up views to stay relevant.
 
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Pathetic list that's been defended even more pathetically. Why are people giving ESPN the satisfaction?
 
because there seems to be no viable alternative...
 
because there seems to be no viable alternative...

You need a viable alternative for an idiotic list commemorating ESPN The Magazine?
 
me? I pay no attention these days to anything FESPN related...as far as I'm concerned it's all white noise
 
Its a espn traffic generator, the website is dying so it's the only explanation. They are trying to ramp up views to stay relevant.

Ironically, this is exactly the kind of content that's killing them.
 
But ESPN still believes the NFL weighed the balls that night in 2015.
 
i would have no problem with brady at#20 as the highest ranked football player. football is the ultimate team sport. i get phelps, serena, tiger, bolt, and etc can be ranked higher than the best football player. i don't agree with it, but i can understand the logic behind it.

how in the world manning is there at #3 . how is he more dominant than usain bolt? phelps? that doesn't make any sense. #3? it's a troll job there is no ifs and buts about it.
 
me? I pay no attention these days to anything FESPN related...as far as I'm concerned it's all white noise
Four days of posts here because the mediots at ESPN know they can get a rise out of people by "dissing" Brady by putting him at a certain number on a certain list using criteria they invent, sigh...

Editor: Nice article but not enough sizzle, move Brady to #20.
Writer: Sure, no problem
Pats Fans: [ lose their **** ]
ESPN: Just what we wanted!
 
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