Tom Brady doing GOAT things, another outstanding performance as he leads TB past Brees and the Saints
Brady threw for 2 TDs and ran for another (after which he attempted to high 5 the ref). He was excellent again in a winning effort.
This makes 14 conference championship appearances!
He continues to rewrite the record books with every single appearance. Watching him feels like watching Michael Jordan or Wayne Gretzky - everyone knows they are witnessing history with each game. Brady is the antidote to Michigan football’s woes for two decades.
January 17th, 2021 at 10:05 PM ^
Great QBs make great coaches. Look who is left. Brady, Rodgers, Allen, Henne.
Belichick over rated!
January 17th, 2021 at 10:15 PM ^
No doubt Robert Kraft and Bill Belichick were together watching Brady get to another conference championship game, what a Happy Ending for all!
January 17th, 2021 at 10:17 PM ^
Kraft knows a thing or two about happy endings.
January 17th, 2021 at 10:30 PM ^
Didn't Goodell say there there was nothing to see there? Thats good enough for me. I mean really, what billionaire goes to a message parlor? Don't they order in to their penthouse suite?
January 17th, 2021 at 10:48 PM ^
Maybe he felt like slumming it that day?
January 17th, 2021 at 10:57 PM ^
And how did that turn out for him? If he can't use his wallet full of moolah to make sure his base carnal needs are taken care in a private and highly secure environment then he doesn't deserve it.
January 18th, 2021 at 9:39 AM ^
And how did that turn out for him?
Um, i think he got off .
January 18th, 2021 at 9:44 AM ^
I see what you did there....
January 17th, 2021 at 11:08 PM ^
Well Kraft is kind of old, and you know....shrinkage!
January 17th, 2021 at 10:35 PM ^
Gotta love the calzone and handy combo at a strip mall
January 17th, 2021 at 10:05 PM ^
Winston didn't throw the ball down field very far but it seemed to go way father than anything Brees could muster. Great career for Drew, bested by Tom once again.
January 17th, 2021 at 10:08 PM ^
I think Brees actually holds the lead head to head, one of the very few who can say that with more than a couple game sample size.
January 17th, 2021 at 10:15 PM ^
I think Eli Manning has the edge as well.
January 17th, 2021 at 10:18 PM ^
I can confirm that Peyton does NOT have the edge (as a colts fan, it broke my heart for two decades, but then I just chose to embrace the GOAT - and I have enjoyed the NFL a whole lot more).
To Peyton’s credit, he does have a winning record against Brady in the conference championship game.
January 17th, 2021 at 10:30 PM ^
I meant is as a call back to their time in college. Bookend Ws by Tom
January 17th, 2021 at 10:52 PM ^
October 2, 1999
Michigan 38 Purdue 12
Brady 15 of 25 for 250 yards and 2 TD
Brees 20 of 49 for 293 yards and 1 TD.
January 17th, 2021 at 10:12 PM ^
One of the QB’s looked every bit of his age. The other looked much younger.
January 17th, 2021 at 11:24 PM ^
The juice mixed with tiger blood
January 17th, 2021 at 10:21 PM ^
Great career for Drew, bested by Tom once again.
I feel like Brees, Manning, and Rodgers are all in this category of QBs that Brady has completely defied and exceeded. They have all been declared the best at some point, all have amazing stats, and all have won Super Bowls, but none could consistently win in the post-season. When you compare the three Saints v. Bucs games this year, it tells the whole story of the careers of Brees and Brady.
Hopefully Brady can do the same thing to Rodgers and play in his 10th (!) Super Bowl. When people compare Brady to Jordan they are not giving him the credit he is due. The only comparable athletes I can think of are Michael Phelps and Floyd Mayweather Jr.
January 17th, 2021 at 10:30 PM ^
Brady is a great quarterback. He has also benefitted from excellent defenses throughout his career. Football is a 22 player sport, and yes the QB is the most important.
Brees, Manning, Rodgers have all lacked consistently good defenses. They all won Super Bowls when they had a defense ranked in the top 10.
Brady's defense in his super bowl seasons (points against):
2001- 6
2003- 1
2004- 2
2014- 8
2016- 1
2018- 7
Give credit for him having a good offense by virtue of his play and giving the defense a rest. But to ignore the importance of a good defense is crazy.
Bucs defensive ranks this season: yards against (6), points against (8). Pair that with a great QB and you win Super Bowls.
Edit- checked numbers for those seasons:
Brees:
2009- NO defense ranked 20 (points) and 25 (yards)
Manning:
2006- IND 23, 21
2015- DEN 4, 1
Rodgers:
2010- 2, 5
Actually makes Brees and Manning SBs more impressive in those seasons where the defense sucked
January 17th, 2021 at 10:49 PM ^
Give some credit where credit is due, While in NE, TB never had much of a running game to balance the offense. It's clear now he carried that team.
January 17th, 2021 at 11:03 PM ^
I'm not saying the 6 SBs aren't impressive or not giving credit. But Brady would not have 6 SBs had he been on GB, NO, or Indys teams like Manning, Rodgers, and Brees.
Football is a team sport. They are obviously not the same team without him, nowhere close. They also had 8 opt outs, many in key positions this season.
Pat Mahomes is more talented than all of these QBs though. He needs to do it for 15+ seasons to be in that conversation, but he is ridiculous.
January 18th, 2021 at 12:47 AM ^
Thank you Shannon Sharp for your opinion
January 18th, 2021 at 1:11 AM ^
That's being generous.
I was thinking that hot take was the love child of Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith. Cannot get dumber than that.
January 18th, 2021 at 9:12 AM ^
This type of "analysis" is such garbage. I guess it's to be expected, since the "it was because of Belichick" narrative was absolutely destroyed this year.
Maybe Brady made those defenses better by keeping them off the field with good offenses. Consider that TB was 29th (points allowed) and 15th (yards allowed) last year, while this year they were 8th and 6th.
BTW, NO was 5th and 4th this year, so how did Brees manage to lose that game?
And yes, Mahomes is an incredible talent, but he's got at least a decade of work to do (and about 4 SBs) before he can even be in the conversation, so let's just stop with the silly "more talented than all" nonsense.
January 18th, 2021 at 10:59 AM ^
The Saints had 4TOs. Two of those fall on Brees. That's how they managed to lose this game. Brady didn't make mistakes yesterday. The Bucs also have a great defense.
My argument was never that Brady won only bc of Belichick. My argument was never that Brady isn't an all time QB. I also acknowledged that a good offense can make a defense better by keeping them off the field for longer periods of time.
The argument was that he has benefitted in his career from a lot of things that set him up for success that other great QBs have not had (consistently great roster management by GM/coach Belichick). Put other all time great QBs with good defenses regularly and they would also win a lot of SBs.
Is Terry Bradshaw the 2nd (or tied w/ Joe Montana) best QB ever since he has 4 SBs?
January 17th, 2021 at 10:52 PM ^
Sorry but that’s lacking a lot of information.
outside of having Moss for one season and then Gronk Brady never had the weapons those guys had.
not to mention besides Rogers they played indoors.
Brady way more with less and he carried a lot of those defenses by lighting up the scoreboard. Many of those defenses in the second half of his career were Swiss cheese, bend but don’t break.
it’s funny that a guy can literally go to the other side of the league and it year one in a new system carry a team to the conference championship at 43 years old, a team that was a joke of a franchise for two decades and people will still find a way to make excuses for how he’s good but more so “lucky” lol
If Brady gets to the Super Bowl and actually wins it he’s at the top of the Mount Rushmore of sports icons.
it is what it is and those in denial of it are never satisfied.
January 17th, 2021 at 11:17 PM ^
Minus going to the other side of the league, you mean like a Peyton Manning taking the Broncos to the SB in year 1?
Tom Brady is the most successful QB ever- there is no argument. My point is that winning SBs takes far more than just an amazing QB.
Edit:
-my mistake. Was year 2
January 18th, 2021 at 12:02 AM ^
No ... Denver got a bye in Manning’s first year in Denver. Threw two picks in playoff game and lost. 2012. So, yeah Brady more impressive!
January 18th, 2021 at 9:41 AM ^
It's like you are going out of your way to state the obvious "more than just an amazing QB". That is your point? Why? Do you think the rest of us don't understand that? For whatever reason, the GOAT talk bothers you.
You can be a QB like Trent Dilfer, Brad Johnson and manage extraordinary defensive or rushing teams to a Super Bowl, maybe even win. But Brady has proven over and over again the he makes his team better, he turns unknown wide receivers into big free agent contracts.
The dude's expectations and excellence are contagious, he creates a winning attitude, he creates winners.
"Tom Brady is the most successful QB ever", yeah, I see what you did there. Tom Brady is the best QB ever, The GOAT and there's really no argument about that.
January 18th, 2021 at 11:25 AM ^
Word. People are fucking stupid.
January 18th, 2021 at 10:30 AM ^
As others have stated. Peyton threw two ints in his first playoff game with Denver and lost to the Ravens. Peyton then took the Broncos to the super bowl in year two and the result was this:
280 yards on 49 attempts 1 touchdown and 2 interceptions. In case you didn’t know his team got throttled 43-8. Then the year he won with them: 141 yards no touchdowns and 1 interception. His defense carried him. I would like to see an example of when Toms defense ever carried him.
The year they won the super bowl he was below 60% completion and barely eclipsed 2000 yards.
January 17th, 2021 at 10:53 PM ^
Points against is a poor way to judge a defense
January 17th, 2021 at 11:02 PM ^
What would your metric be for judging a defense? FGs vs TDs is what separates winners and losers in the NFL. Give up FGs instead of TD drives and you aren't going to lose many games.
Yards against for those same Pats defenses: 21 (2018), 8, 13, 9, 7, 24 (2001).
January 18th, 2021 at 2:23 AM ^
Honker Burger...you are completely right. You're just trying to convince the wrong people. I've always felt the same way. Greatest ever? Yep. Most talented? Meh. Did he play defense on his own teams? Sure as shit did not.
The world is a binary world anymore. Championships are all that matters. Ring...or no ring. Trying to discuss things in a realistic spectrum rarely works anymore.
January 18th, 2021 at 8:19 AM ^
He is not completely right and being in the minority often speaks to error in thinking when considering such topics. Contrarians are often without merit as they are just there to challenge the universal belief. Are such people overall good for society? Probably in most cases. To try to minimize what Brady has done is simply nonsense as it is unprecedented success and consistency. Now, if you are arguing Lebron vs. Jordan? That has merit to disagree as the stats are able to be compared and a case can be presented on both sides. You will get those (me) that remember how rough basketball was for Jordan's time. Go into the lane, I dare you.... But looking at the physical traits of Lebron, he would have handled that okay. Just like Jordan off the dribble could have done well in this era.
Brady vs. The World still lands on Brady. Just stop.
January 18th, 2021 at 8:39 AM ^
The one talent Brady has (arguably the most important for QBs) is pocket awareness. On this he is the best ever!!! It's counterintuitive, but I've always thought Brady's greatest strengths was... his mobility. It's not that he scrambles out of the pocket and extends plays, rather he makes subtle shifts, steps up into pressure, slides here or there, basically does whatever he must do to remain elusive all while processing the field twenty yards away simultaneously. Rogers and Mahommes will dazzle with their scrambling, extended plays (though that also usually cuts the field in half and leads to riskier throws); Brady runs a less dazzling but more efficient buzzsaw. As far as defense goes, Brady did take less money to keep those defenses good and he forced opposing offenses to rely on passing more, since they were often playing catch up (as others have mentioned). Anyway, just trying to "discuss things in a realistic spectrum." Those defenses aren't operating in a binary vacuum either: Brady made them better. Fact!
January 18th, 2021 at 10:21 AM ^
tah15, totally agree on Brady's pocket awareness. His movement within a pocket is awesome. His crypton is pressure right up the middle from dominating DT's - a rare commodity.
January 17th, 2021 at 10:54 PM ^
Brady was in a different situation with his wife making more than him, but him taking a salary for 1/2 of what he could get certainly had something to do with allowing the team to build a good defense. I always thought he might have taken less even if he wasn't married to a super model. I think he likes winning far more than the money.
January 18th, 2021 at 4:16 AM ^
Easier to play defense when the other team is down and limited to passing.
January 18th, 2021 at 8:07 AM ^
Yep. So the point was that there were other factors that influenced Brady's success (obviously true). But the point was made by citing a defensive stat not considering the fact that those defensive stats are also not independent. They are influenced by the score (as you point out Brady scoring makes it easier on the defense), the fact that NE played outside... Further not all of those NE defenses were 1985 Bears, Trent Dilfer Ravens or Broncos Manning good.
January 18th, 2021 at 8:24 AM ^
To correct your statement, none were the caliber of those defenses. None.
January 18th, 2021 at 8:27 AM ^
So, scoring 35-40 points/game has a positive affect on how well your defense plays? Who knew??
Quick - somebody tell Harbaugh the Younger!
January 18th, 2021 at 9:41 AM ^
I was going to say the same thing Honker. Brady played well and good to see him get to the conference championship again. But let’s be honest the Bucs D won that game with their play and even Brady basically said so after the game
January 18th, 2021 at 11:35 AM ^
Ok, can I get a list of QB's that won more than 2 SBs with only 1 other Hall of Famer (Gronk) on offense? I mean, Wes Welker and Julian Edelman are nice players, but the success with not great offensive weapons is remarkable. The one year with Randy Moss went pretty well until the SB.
Certainly can't make that complaint this year.
Now, if all it takes is a top 10 defense, why didn't the other 9 teams with top 10 defenses win Super Bowls each of those years?
January 17th, 2021 at 11:48 PM ^
Nick Lidstrom was as dominant as anyone, just wasn't appreciated as much by casual fans.
If you're going to include individual sports, I'd throw Simone Biles, Serena Williams, Usain Bolt, Tiger Woods, Roger Federer and Katie Ledecky. I'm not sure there has ever been an athlete who had a bigger margin of success between her and her top competitor, although the stretch when Tiger held all four major titles comes to mind.
I don't know enough about ice dancing but Charlie White and Meryl Davis were certainly dominant for a long time. Same for beach volleyball and Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh-Jennings.
Team sports, got to add Barry Bonds and Mike Trout. I know it seems early for Trout but he's already one of the best ever and he's still in his prime. Pedro, at his peak, is also up there for me.
Also not a very knowledgeable soccer fan but guys like Ronaldo, Messi, Maradona, Pele, etc come to mind.
If we just want to do college careers, Joe Burrows, Vince Young, Reggie Bush, Barry Sanders, Charles Woodson and Cam Newton bear mentioning.
January 18th, 2021 at 8:59 AM ^
Some of these names I could see and I appreciate you bringing up other sports. That said, some of these would really benefit from a graph where you can really see how far they stand out from even the others in this list.
Something like this:
I think if you did that you'd see that e.g. Lidstrom is top 5, probably top 3, but not #1, among defensemen. Though admittedly defensive stats are not going to be as pretty on a graph as an Orr. Assuming you didn't mean overall, since you have to bend the stats 5 ways to get just Lemieux in the same conversation as the great one =).
Similarly, while Reggie Bush was magical Barry's final college season was likely a standard deviation or more beyond his. Internationally you'll always hear about the cricket guy who is like twice as good as anyone else.
Overall a fun list and fun to think through the memories associated with these names so thanks for sharing it!
January 18th, 2021 at 9:27 AM ^
You may want to add Bill Russell to your list
January 18th, 2021 at 8:20 AM ^