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That's a more of a product of the era as well. Outside of Peyton's 2004 season, even Peyton Manning himself didn't have gaudy stats as we like to think back then.
This is the 2003 passing leaders chart
View attachment 29625
Look at how Brady's touchdowns, interceptions, etc. are within range of Peyton Manning's, despite not having his weapons. (No Corey Dillon to alter the defensive coverage, for instance). He had Deion Branch who has good, and Troy Brown who was solid, but that was kind of it.
And he had 5 game winning drives, which was 2nd in the league. And was runner-up for MVP. (Priest holmes should have won that year though).
It was a credit to the defense that it was so awesome that in most of those five game winning drives, they put Brady in a position to win those games. Because without the defense, Brady wouldn't have been in most of those postions. Brady isn't winning a game going into overtime at 13-13 without a great defense.
And Manning played significantly better than Brady based on these stats. He isn't in range of Manning. I never said Brady was bad. He was a good QB in 2003. He just wasn't elite.
Why can't people just accept that Brady wasn't the GOAT from day one and he grew as a QB. He started out as a game manager who could make big plays and drives at times to a good QB and eventually got to be elite. It just took 4-5 years to do it.
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