The Tom Brady Appreciation Thread

[umjewman]

Oh, and he'd need to have a decent running game, too.

Have you not seen this season? He’s got 4 games this year with more than 10 yards rushing.

[revo]

Edit 2: And also we are clearly arguing "best player" and not "best athlete" because neither Ruth nor Brady even comes close to the latter, lol. That would be Jim Thorpe? Michael Phelps? Simone Biles? Bo Jackson? Babe Didrickson? Joyner-Kersee?

Best Athlete is a whole 'nother conversation and probably much, much harder to quantify.

Edit 3: I think I mistook what you were saying - obviously Brady hasn't been playing in a segregated league. Still, if we're going to base things on limited competition we're probably going to have to pick some goddamn soccer player as our #1 since they play a bunch internationally.

There's a big difference between being good enough to play in a league, and being allowed to play in a league. If there were players exposed to the game from around the world and they were good enough, I'm sure they'd be NFLers already. We've already seen influxes of Samoans (beginning in the early 1980s) and Nigerians (starting in the 90s), and the NFL is exposing the game to Europeans, so maybe more ethnicities start to participate.

Plus, this is an American-centric discussion, as I'm sure any non-American would toss out all of our candidates from jump in favor of Pele and others, lol.

Seems pretty arbitrary to just dismiss every baseball player out of hand who played before, what, the 1960s? 70s? 1947?

For this discussion, yeah, I think they get dinged. How could they not? I probably would use the 1950s, which was when black players really started coming into MLB. I'm not discounting Ruth, Gehrig, Ted Williams or others pre-integration on their baseball accomplishments, but it's hard to say they're "the best ever in any sport" if they only faced white guys.



I also would probably look at the big four sports like this in terms of 'greats being able to dominate and win titles,' from easiest to hardest:

1 - NBA - no question it's definitely the 'easiest' for greats to dominate and win. MJ, LeBron, Wilt, Russell, Magic, Kareem, etc. One all-time great surrounded with a solid cast equal multiple titles.
2 - NHL - if a "hot goalie" can power a team to a title, that takes a little off the top. But absolutely, all-time greats can lead teams to multiple titles (Gretzky, Lemieux, etc.) with a solid surrounding cast.
3 - NFL - it typically takes multiple "all-time greats" for an NFL team to dominate across multiple years. Joe Montana had Jerry Rice & Ronnie Lott, Aikman had Emmitt & Irvin, Bradshaw had Harris, Swann and an all-time great D, etc. Brady had a great coach, but his title in TB proved it wasn't all just Belichick.
4 - MLB - It really doesn't seem to matter at all any longer in baseball if you're an all-time great or not.

[chancellor]

Easily the best baseball player (as well as the best baseball hitter) - again, not even close. And if we're punishing him for merely being miles better than his competition (a larger gap than any professional athlete in history, imo) based on the limits of his competition, then shouldn't we punish Brady for not actually playing against Latinos or Asians, too? Seems pretty arbitrary to just dismiss every baseball player out of hand who played before, what, the 1960s? 70s? 1947?.

1947, for sure. Ruth's competition level was about a 5; those in the late 40s/50s would have been about an 8-9, and by the 60s about peak. So, yeah, I look at those awesome OPS+ figures and discount them heavily.

[umjewman]

“I don't believe in damn curses. Wake up the Bambino and have me face him. Maybe I'll drill him in the ass.”

-Pedro Martinez-

[madducks]

Joe Montana is one of the greatest quarterbacks of all-time. Tom Brady has basically doubled Montana's achievements. I feel sorry for the writer who leaves Brady off of their HOF ballot just to prove a point. They will be hunted down by an angry mob lol.

Super Bowl Wins: Brady 7, Montana 4

Touchdowns: Brady 624, Montana 273

Passing Yards: Brady 84,520, Montana 40,551

Completions: Brady 7,263, Montana 3,409

[The Feral Slasher]

Joe Montana is one of the greatest quarterbacks of all-time. Tom Brady has basically doubled Montana's achievements. I feel sorry for the writer who leaves Brady off of their HOF ballot just to prove a point. They will be hunted down by an angry mob lol.

Super Bowl Wins: Brady 7, Montana 4

Touchdowns: Brady 624, Montana 273

Passing Yards: Brady 84,520, Montana 40,551

Completions: Brady 7,263, Montana 3,409

Damn, I was just coming in here to post that Tom Brady's failure today eliminates him from HOF contention.

EDIT: now watch him lead the Bucs to a comeback win

[madducks]

Somewhere, Antonio Brown is saying, "See. I told you Brady couldn't do it without me."

[madducks]

Lol.

Leonard Fournette on Tom Brady's best trash talk line: "I played against your dad. Ask your dad about me."

[revo]

Rumors are heavy that Brady will announce his retirement this week

[madducks]

Tom Brady Sr. told KRON4 news that his son is not retiring.

[madducks]

NFL Network's Ian Rapoport reports that Tom Brady does plan to retire and says the pushback is based on the timing of the news rather than the validity.

[revo]

After a week of confusion, Tom Brady officially retires

[Gregg]

After a week of confusion, Tom Brady officially retires

That is too bad. I would have liked him to go another year.

Betty didn't make me quit.

Best Regards,

George Blanda

[The Feral Slasher]

That is too bad. I would have liked him to go another year.

Betty didn't make me quit.

Best Regards,

George Blanda

I remember getting a George Blanda football card and being amazed that a grandpa could still play in the NFL

[revo]

I remember getting a George Blanda football card and being amazed that a grandpa could still play in the NFL

I had posted a few months ago on my FB page that when I was a kid, old players like Blanda looked like my grampa, but nowadays old players look like movie stars