Tom Brady's NFL Superlatives
Now that Tom Brady's retirement is official, here are his most-ever-in-NFL-history superlatives:
• Most Super Bowl wins in NFL history (7)
• Most Super Bowl appearances in NFL history (10)
• Most Super Bowl MVPs in NFL history (5)
• Most Pro Bowl selections in NFL history (15)
• Most playoff wins in NFL history (35)
• Most playoff touchdowns in NFL history (86)
• Most playoff passing yards in NFL history (13,049)
• Most playoff completions in NFL history (1,165)
• Most regular-season wins in NFL history (243)
• Most touchdown passes in NFL history (624)
• Most passing yards in NFL history (84,520)
Just wow.
GREATEST OF ALL TIME indeed.
We are all going to look back one day and say to ourselves about Tom Brady's career: "Did that actually happen?!"
February 1st, 2022 at 5:16 PM ^
Pretty, pretty, pretty good.
February 1st, 2022 at 5:20 PM ^
Indisputable GOATs just don’t happen very often. What a privilege to call him our own! Starting at Michigan as a freshman in 1999 with him as ‘my’ quarterback pays more and more dividends as time goes on.
February 1st, 2022 at 5:21 PM ^
He doesn't have the most regular-season completions in history? Just another journeyman, I guess. NE wasted a draft pick on a slacker.
/s FFS
February 1st, 2022 at 5:25 PM ^
How many multi-year starting QBs have less TDs/Wins than Brady's post-season record?
February 1st, 2022 at 5:39 PM ^
Another question, piggy-backing off the fact that Brady's playoff record is 35-12, a .745 winning percentage.
How many currently active QBs, who have started a minimum of 5 games, have a regular season winning percentage that is higher than that?
Per my research, it's only 2 non-Brady folk: Pat Mahomes at .784 and Taysom Hill registers in at .778 (over 9 games). Brady's regular-season winning % was .766.
Mahomes .784 number will, of course, likely fall off simply because it almost has to (a 12-4 season means his winning percentage goes down!).
On a career basis, not even the likes of Roger Staubach (.731) or Joe Montana (.711) are approaching Brady's .745 playoff mark. The likes of Peyton Manning, Terry Bradshaw, Bob Griese, Aaron Rodgers, Big Ben and Jim McMahon are "only" in the high .600s, even further behind Brady's .745. Otto Graham does have a .812 career regular season winning percentage.
February 3rd, 2022 at 12:06 PM ^
To add to your observations, the winning percentage without context is ... meaningless. Otto Graham played in 10 post-seasons. And all but two were of 1 game each. A total of 12 games. Compare that to Brady, and his record after his first 12 play-off games was 11-1. The durability, the high level of performance, the sheer mental effort needed to keep everything humming perfectly over 20+ years... is mind boggling. I know punters and kickers have exceeded 20 year professional life spans, but as a starting QB?!? I think everything has to line up perfectly and then some for someone else to come close to Brady's achievements.
February 1st, 2022 at 5:39 PM ^
edit - double post, oops
February 1st, 2022 at 5:37 PM ^
My favorite is same number of NFC championships as Aaron Rodgers
February 1st, 2022 at 5:44 PM ^
A Michigan Man!!
February 1st, 2022 at 6:02 PM ^
And still you continue to upvote your own posts. I pointed it out a couple hours ago after the first 21 times you did it early this afternoon, and you have continued to upvote yourself another half-dozen times since.
⚠️ Next one gets you a timeout.
February 2nd, 2022 at 1:59 PM ^
You're not like the antiwork mod right?
February 1st, 2022 at 5:46 PM ^
I'm old enough to remember a Monday Night Football game where somehow the topic of Michigan QBs came up. The conversation went something like this:
"There have been 10,000 touchdown passes thrown in the NFL, and none of them have ever been thrown by a Michigan Quarterback."
That hurt.
That was in the 80's when Michigan struggled with the passing game: running it and defending it. It felt like we were dinosaurs on the verge of extinction.
But then it began to change, starting with Bo of all people. He brought in Harbaugh and let him throw the ball. He brought in Elvis, a pure throwing QB. Imagine that, Bo bringing a pure throwing QB.
Then Gary Moeller and Lloyd doubled down on the pure throwing QBs. Before long, Michigan - yes three yards and a cloud of dust Michigan - became QB U.
To see it all culminate in the greatest QB in NFL history being one of those Michigan QBs is tremendously satisfying.
"There have been thousands of touchdown passes thrown in the NFL, and no one has thrown more of them than a Michigan Quarterback."
February 1st, 2022 at 5:48 PM ^
Brady proved to be the ultimate salve for that wound
February 1st, 2022 at 5:51 PM ^
Dierdorf 100% definitely did say it. There's also an anecdote from Bo's book --- which is perhaps true and perhaps not, who knows: it is from a Mitch Albom book after all.
But per the book, Dan Dierdorf (U-M guy) said that while Bo was literally in a kid's house, with the game on in the background, trying to recruit him to play QB at U-M.
February 1st, 2022 at 6:01 PM ^
Yes, the story is that Bo and the recruit were watching that MNF game when Dierdorf said that no Michigan QB had ever thrown an NFL TD pass, and Bo turned to the recruit and said: "And I want you to be the first!"
February 1st, 2022 at 5:55 PM ^
Weirdly the other day some guy was arguing that Joe Montana was better. Who was that guy? Well, it was Joe Montana.
And ok, I made this all up.
February 1st, 2022 at 6:06 PM ^
Sometimes people will say Montana and Bradshaw are better because they never lost a Super Bowl. Well that's because they lost before they could get to the Super Bowl.
Those 3 Super Bowls that Brady lost are 3 Super Bowls that Montana and Bradshaw couldn't even get to.
There is no contest.
February 1st, 2022 at 6:40 PM ^
I saw a great photo on Twitter that divided Brady’s career into two parts: 2000-2011 and 2012-2021 and compared both to Montana’s career. They were all comparable. Brady essentially had two careers the equal of the man previously considered the greatest of all time.
February 3rd, 2022 at 12:16 PM ^
ESPN did a piece where they divided his career in three 7-year chunks. And each of them was HoF-worthy.
February 1st, 2022 at 6:08 PM ^
Wilt Chamberlain, Gerd Muller/Just Fontaine, Wayne Gretzky shit.
February 1st, 2022 at 6:17 PM ^
This is a cool read on ESPN.com:
Tom Brady's most memorable moment against all 32 NFL teams
https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/33193158/tom-brady-most-memorable-moment-all-32-nfl-teams
February 1st, 2022 at 6:39 PM ^
Greatest ever, hands down.
February 1st, 2022 at 7:10 PM ^
The most impressive ones to me are actually TEAM records or his records vs. teams, or his WIN records. His stats weren't a result of individual stat-padding or a stat-friendly system, he made entire teams better. He delivered in a way that a Marino (sorry, first name that came to mind) could never.
For an individual to transcend all that in what is a team game, it's unbelievable and that's why he won't ever be matched as the goat. The dude proved it wasn't Belichick or anything else, it was HIM and how he impacted the TEAM
February 1st, 2022 at 11:31 PM ^
I think what he did at Tampa Bay is his most impressive achievement of all.
He took a team that did not even make the playoffs the previous year, plus a few guys he personally coaxed to come in with him, and won the Super Bowl.
Just his mere presence created a Super Bowl winner out of a bunch of losers. And there was no way it was going to happen without him, and only him.
It goes way beyond just throwing the ball. He elevated every one and every thing around him just by being there. That's why he is the GOAT.