Tom Brady Retires After Turbulent Final Season

Tom Brady announced that he has thrown his last NFL pass, and this time there does not seem to be any hesitation or doubt on his part. I placed Brady's career in historical context the first time that he retired, and I wrote about his first game back after his brief retirement, so this article will focus on Brady's final season. Brady did not play poorly in 2022, but his performance dropped off significantly from his 2021 campaign when he finished second in AP NFL MVP voting after leading the league in passing yards (a career-high 5316), passing touchdowns (43), completions (485) and attempts (719). In 2022, Brady again led the league in completions (490) and attempts (733)--setting single season league records in both categories--but his yardage plummeted to 4694, and he threw for a modest (in this passing friendly era) 25 touchdowns. He received no MVP votes, and he was not selected to the Pro Bowl.

Most significantly, Brady's team posted a losing record (8-9) for the first time in his 22 seasons as an NFL starting quarterback (the New England Patriots went 5-11 in Brady's rookie season, but he only appeared briefly in one game during the 2000 season). Brady won a Super Bowl in his first season in Tampa Bay after the team went 11-5 during the regular season, and the Buccaneers improved to 13-4 in 2021 before losing to the eventual Super Bowl champion L.A. Rams in the Divisional Round of the playoffs, but the 2022 Buccaneers were flawed and limited in ways that even prime Tom Brady may not have been able to overcome--and the very good but not consistently great 45 year old Tom Brady was not able to lift this team above .500, though the Buccaneers snuck into the playoffs thanks to winning the divisional title in the league's weakest division.

Did the 2022 season tarnish Brady's legacy? No, not any more than Brady winning a Super Bowl in 2020 tarnished Bill Belichick's legacy. By definition, legacy includes a person's entire body of work viewed in the largest possible context, not one slice of that body of work viewed in a narrow, distorted context. Brady was a brilliant and durable performer for over two decades, and he generally played his best in the games that meant the most, resulting in seven Super Bowl titles--an individual record for NFL titles that not only figures to stand for a long time, but that outpaces the lifetime totals of all NFL franchises except for Green Bay, Chicago, and the New York Giants. Brady's legacy is that he consistently performed at a high level individually while also playing a major role in team success as he led the New England Patriots to six Super Bowl wins and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to one Super Bowl win. Similarly, Belichick's legacy as a championship-winning coach and as a mentor to other highly successful coaches--including, most notably, Nick Saban, one of Belichick's assistant coaches with the Cleveland Browns in the early 1990s--is unaffected by whatever has happened or will happen in the final stages of his long career.

Brady was far from being a stumbling, ineffective player in his final season but even if he had been it would be wrong to say that he would be remembered that way. When we think of Willie Mays, Johnny Unitas, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and other legends who played well past their prime years, we may be aware to some extent that they were not at their best in those last seasons but it would not be true to say that their careers are defined by those seasons: Johnny Unitas as a San Diego Charger is a footnote in the book of his career, not a chapter heading.

Only Brady knows what effect his final season had on his personal life, and only he knows whether or not he regrets not retiring as a champion in 2020, but his football legacy was not impacted in any way by the turbulent waters that he and the Buccaneers navigated in 2022.

He's Back: Tom Brady Returns in Style

Before Sunday night's Tampa Bay-Dallas game, NBC played a video of Michael Jordan talking about how he took almost two years off before coming back but Tom Brady's retirement did not last even two months. Jordan described the deep attachment that he and Brady feel for their respective sports, and he urged everyone to enjoy watching Brady because such greatness is rarely seen. Few people would understand Brady's retirement and return better than Jordan. Jordan did not win his first game back, but he did lead the Chicago Bulls to three consecutive NBA titles before retiring again (and coming back one more time, with less success).

In his first game back from his retirement--and is it really a retirement if you did not miss any regular season games?--Brady led the Buccaneers to a 19-3 win over the Cowboys, lifting his personal record against Dallas to 7-0. Brady became the oldest starting quarterback in NFL history (45 years old), and a video montage shown during the game proved that his release time and throwing motion now are indistinguishable from his release time and throwing motion from early in his career and from the middle of his career. Brady's numbers were solid but not great by his lofty standards--18-27, 212 yards, one touchdown, one interception, 87.3 passer rating--but he made the throws that needed to be made, he mixed the pass with the run very well, and he limited his mistakes to one bad throw, the interception that he freely admitted was his fault.

During his postgame interview with NBC's Melissa Stark, Brady said, "I always play the game for my team, my teammates and the organization. Just being around them is something I always enjoy. It keeps me very grounded, very humble. I feel like just one of the guys. Not many places where I can go where I feel like just one of the guys, but the locker room's definitely one of those places."

Last season, Brady led the NFL with a career-high 5316 passing yards plus 43 passing TDs (the second highest total of his career, topped only by his 50 TDs in 2007 for the 16-0 New England Patriots). From the standpoints of physical skill set and motivation level, it would seem that Brady can be an elite quarterback for the foreseeable future--but football is a violent game in which a season or career can come to a crashing halt after just one play. Brady has been incredibly durable save for the 2008 season when he missed 15 games after tearing his ACL in the opener, but Sunday night provided a reminder of how tenuous NFL life can be: late in the game, Dallas quarterback Dak Prescott's right hand crashed into the hands of a pass rusher on two consecutive plays, resulting in a hand injury that apparently will require surgery and cause him to miss several weeks (the exact diagnosis will not be official until further examination is done, but Prescott and Dallas owner Jerry Jones both stated the expectation that Prescott will be out for an extended period).

Brady may ride off into the sunset as a Super Bowl champion, but he already had that opportunity after the 2020 season and instead he returned in 2021. Jordan kept coming back until his balky, swollen knees forced him to accept that the end had arrived. I once compared the end of Jordan's career to the end of Jerry Rice's career: 

There is a beauty and a sadness to the way that Jordan and Rice's careers ended. There is great beauty in loving the game so much that you continue to play even though you have nothing left to prove and you risk being mocked by cynical writers, young fans who don't remember your greatness and jealous rivals who couldn't touch you in your prime but salivate at the chance to embarrass you now. Yet, there is sadness when one watches a singular performer unable to dominate the game in his usual manner. Ray Lewis can be heard on NFL Films saying, "The same thing that will make you laugh will make you cry." Watching the end of Air Jordan's career and the conclusion of Flash 80's run, I understand that statement perfectly. I take two memories from Jordan's Wizards career: first, his soaring, two handed block of Ron Mercer, pinning the ball to the glass to preserve a win against Jordan's old team, the Chicago Bulls. That clip was later shown in a Nike commercial, with a Jordan voiceover intoning "Love is playing every game like it's your last." I'm not ashamed to say that I got goose bumps every time that spot ran; second, the image of Jordan dragging his bad leg up and down the court, trying to act like everything was fine—his heart and determination made you smile and the intimations of his (and our) mortality made you cry. For Rice, my two memories of his dénouement are the aforementioned Monday night comeback from the ACL injury and the fact that last year, on a Seattle team with wide receivers who drop so many passes they should change their names to Edward Scissorhands, Seattle did not even attempt to utilize him at the end of a 27-20 playoff loss to the St. Louis Rams.

Jerry Rice's retirement leaves me feeling the same way that I did after Michael Jordan’s last season with the Wizards: I am sad that Jerry Rice will no longer play in the NFL—and yet I am glad that he left now rather than spend a season sitting on the bench. Yes, the same thing that will make you laugh will make you cry.

Kobe Bryant once vowed to play until the wheels fell off, and he pretty much accomplished that, summoning up the requisite energy to drop 60 points in his career finale after being hobbled by multiple injuries that limited him to just 107 out of a possible 246 games in his final three seasons. 

Will Brady leave on top, or will he ride it out until the wheels fall off? Jordan is right that we should savor Brady's greatness--not only because such greatness is rare, but because it could end suddenly and unexpectedly.

Tom Brady Ends an Unprecedented Career on His Terms

Tom Brady, who just announced his retirement from the NFL after 22 seasons, won more Super Bowls (seven) than any single NFL franchise. If NFL titles from the pre-Super Bowl era are counted--and they should be--there are still only three franchises that won more championships than Brady: Green Bay Packers (13), Chicago Bears (nine), and New York Giants (eight). If AAFC titles are included--and they should be--then the Cleveland Browns are tied with the Giants. 

Speaking of the Browns, Brady is often described as the greatest quarterback ever based on how many championships his teams won, but Browns quarterback Otto Graham played 10 seasons (four in the AAFC followed by six in the NFL) and his teams appeared in the championship game 10 times, winning seven titles. Graham passed for 174 touchdowns, and he scored 44 rushing touchdowns; he led the league in passer rating (retroactively calculated, as passer ratings had not been created yet) five times, and his 112.1 passer rating in 1946 stood as the single season professional record until Joe Montana broke the mark in 1989. Graham ranked first in career passer rating for over 40 years until Montana surpassed him. I do not put much stock in passer ratings, but it is notable that Graham's passer ratings were so high that it took decades before anyone broke his single season and career records.

The rules, playing styles, and playing conditions of the 1940s and 1950s are so different from the rules, playing styles, and playing conditions of the 2000s that it is not meaningful to compare Graham's individual statistics with Brady's individual statistics, but to the extent that winning championships is an important metric for quarterbacks Brady and Graham are on equal footing. To the extent that being an efficient passer is an important metric for quarterbacks, Graham stood further ahead of his peers (and even succeeding generations of quarterbacks) than Brady.

Brady spent the first 20 years of his career in New England, leading the Patriots to six Super Bowl wins in nine appearances, including the 2001, 2003 and 2004 seasons as the Patriots captured three Super Bowl titles in a four year span, a feat matched by only the Dallas Cowboys in the 1992-93 and 1995 seasons. The 2007 Patriots became the first (and still only) NFL team to go 16-0 in the regular season, but their bid for a perfect season fell short due to a Super Bowl loss to the New York Giants.

Other than an ACL injury that forced Brady to miss almost the entire 2008 season, he was remarkably durable, and he rarely sat out a play. Brady was not fast, but he had an uncanny ability to shift around in the pocket so that he avoided absorbing big hits. The only other quarterback that I have seen who was not fast but had a similar pocket agility was Dan Marino (prior to the Achilles injury that he suffered late in his career); Marino rarely scrambled, but he would move away from pressure to avoid the big hit and get rid of the ball. 

The final act of Brady's career took place in Tampa Bay, where he continued to play at a high level and set records while leading the Buccaneers to the second Super Bowl title in franchise history. Brady is not the first Super Bowl-winning quarterback to win a title with a second team--Peyton Manning won one Super Bowl with Indianapolis and one Super Bowl with Denver--but Brady won a Super Bowl in his first year with his new team, and Brady played at an elite level throughout the season and the playoff run, while Manning won in his fourth season in Denver as a caretaker quarterback who threw more interceptions than touchdowns during the regular season.

Brady was remarkably effective in high pressure situations throughout his career, conducting numerous game-winning drives. In his last game, he almost led Tampa Bay to victory after trailing 27-3 in the Divisional Playoff game versus the L.A. Rams, who survived and will now represent the NFC in the Super Bowl after defeating the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship.

It is unfortunate that instead of appreciating the greatness that Brady displayed in Tampa Bay there are many commentators who feel obligated to treat the Buccaneers' title run as some kind of indictment not just of New England not making sure that Brady finished his career with the Patriots but of Bill Belichick's entire coaching career. Brady winning a Super Bowl in Tampa Bay has no connection with Belichick's legacy; Belichick was a great defensive coordinator for two New York Giants Super Bowl teams, in his first head coaching job he led the Cleveland Browns to their only playoff victory in the 1990-2019 time period, and in his second head coaching job he guided the New England Patriots to a record-setting six Super Bowl titles. Belichick's record more than speaks for itself, and he is not required to "validate" his Super Bowl wins by winning a Super Bowl with a different quarterback. Think about how foolish it would sound to say that Chuck Noll had to "validate" his four Super Bowl wins by winning a Super Bowl without Terry Bradshaw. No one says that because it is nonsense, so commentators should stop saying nonsense about Belichick; their resentment at his brief press conference answers to their ridiculous questions should not impact how they describe his legacy.

Is Brady the greatest quarterback of all-time? Brady has to be on the short list of greatest quarterbacks. He holds all of the important "counting" records, from Super Bowl titles (seven) to career playoff wins (35) to career playoff passing yards (13,049) to career playoff touchdowns (86) to career regular season wins (243) to career regular season passing yards (84,250) to career regular season passing touchdowns (624). He excelled in the biggest moments, he was incredibly durable, and he won big even when he did not have big name players at the "skill" positions. 

Graham's name is too often left out of this conversation, probably because he played so long ago and because he played the first four years of his career in the AAFC, but he led the Cleveland Browns to the NFL title in his first NFL season (1950), disproving any notion that the Browns' four consecutive AAFC championships were less valuable than NFL championships. Graham won three NFL championships in just six NFL seasons, and he was a big threat not only as a passer but also as a runner. He and Peyton Manning share the quarterback record for most All-Pro First Team selections (seven; four of Graham's selections were in the AAFC, but those four are included in ProFootballReference.com's list, as they should be). Brady earned three All-Pro First Team selections in his 22 season career. The quarterback position is often stacked with a lot of talent, so it is unusual for a quarterback to earn more than three All-Pro First Team selections. Dan Marino, Joe Montana, Steve Young, and Brett Favre join Brady on the list of quarterbacks who received the honor three times.

Graham is the all-time leader in winning percentage among starting quarterbacks, and he is the all-time leader in yards per attempt, which is remarkable considering that he played in an era when the rules did not favor the passing game. Brady ranks second in winning percentage, but he barely cracks the top 30 in yards per attempt; in general, Brady ranks number one in almost every "total" statistic, but he is not at or sometimes even near the top in percentage statistics. Brady deserves credit for playing such a long time at a very high level, but his peak value in a given season or game may not have been the highest ever.

Johnny Unitas held the records for career passing yards and career passing touchdowns when he retired. He earned All-Pro First Team honors five times, trailing only Graham and Manning at the quarterback position. Unitas' Baltimore Colts won three NFL titles in the pre-Super Bowl era, and they added a fourth title in Super Bowl V. In 2004, The Sporting News ranked Unitas as the greatest NFL quarterback of all-time, ahead of Joe Montana.

Montana tied Bradshaw's record by winning four Super Bowls, a mark that stood until Brady broke it. Montana was the modern day Graham, an efficient passer who also had mobility that enabled him to be a threat to roll out and either pass or run depending on how the defense reacted.

Unitas and Montana were probably the consensus choices as the two greatest quarterbacks of all-time prior to Brady's emergence, although there is no objective reason for Graham to be ranked below them. It is fair to say that Graham was the best quarterback of the 1940s/1950s, Unitas was the best quarterback of the 1960s, Montana was the best quarterback of the 1980s, and Brady was the best quarterback of the 2000s. The 1970s and 1990s are more difficult to assess. Bradshaw won the most championships in the 1970s, but Roger Staubach was a more efficient passer and better runner than Bradshaw while winning two Super Bowls. Dan Fouts was the most prolific passer of the late 1970s/early 1980s, but he never played in a Super Bowl. Dan Marino was the most prolific passer of the mid-1980s/early 1990s, but he only played in one Super Bowl, losing to Montana. Troy Aikman won three Super Bowls in the 1990s, but he was not individually productive enough to be ranked among the very best. Brett Favre set many career passing records during the 1990s, but he was not as efficient as several of his predecessors, and he only won one Super Bowl.

If championships matter the most, why would Brady's seven in 22 years rank higher than Graham's seven in 10 years? If Graham had played an 11th season and won his eighth title would he be considered hands down the greatest quarterback of all-time? If not, why not?

However, if durability while maintaining a high level of play is the tiebreaker/decisive factor, then Brady lapped the field: no quarterback has played so well for so long, even if there may be a few quarterbacks who played better over shorter time periods.

Passer ratings are so skewed by the rules changes from the past 40 years or so (and other factors beyond the scope of this article) that they do not impact my rankings (they are only useful for comparing players who competed in the same era, but they are worthless for comparisons across eras). For the record, Brady's career passer rating is eighth all-time on the all-time list, just ahead of Tony Romo and just behind Kirk Cousins. With all due respect to Romo and Cousins, they do not belong in the greatest quarterback of all-time conversation--and passer ratings do not belong in the conversation, either.

The case for calling Brady the greatest quarterback of all-time is strong, but not definitive. However, it should be clear that--contrary to assertions by Dan Shaughnessy--Brady is not the greatest athlete in Boston history. Shaughnessy, who covered the Boston Celtics in the 1980s, should know better. As great as Brady was, he did not come close to matching what Bill Russell accomplished: Russell led the Boston Celtics to 11 championships in 13 seasons, including a run of eight championships in a row. A football team has 11 players on the field at a time, and it has been decades since players regularly played offense and defense (Deion Sanders being the notable exception), but a basketball team has just five players on the court at a time, and all five players play both offense and defense. Russell's direct impact on team success was greater than Brady's; that is not a shot at Brady, but just a statement of fact recognizing the difference between being a great basketball player and being a great football player. Bill Russell is the greatest winner/champion in the history of major North American team sports, and he is without question the greatest athlete in Boston history.

Brady's career is unprecedented in many ways: he went from being the 199th pick in the draft to being the NFL's greatest winner during the Super Bowl era, and he played at a high level for 22 years. It was  a treat to watch him play, and it will be interesting to see what he does now that his playing days are over.

Placing Tom Brady's Greatness in Historical Context

Tom Brady entered uncharted territory by capturing his seventh Super Bowl title and his fifth Super Bowl MVP after leading the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to a 31-9 victory over the reigning champion Kansas City Chiefs. Brady put up efficient, if not gaudy, numbers, completing 21 of 29 passes for 201 yards, three touchdowns, and no interceptions. He joins Peyton Manning as the only two quarterbacks to win at least one Super Bowl with two different franchises. Brady extended his lead over Charles Haley for most Super Bowls won by a player at any position (Haley won five Super Bowl rings), and he is now three ahead of Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana among quarterbacks. Bradshaw's standard of four Super Bowl titles seemed daunting when he set it, and Montana was often described as the greatest quarterback of all-time after he matched Bradshaw's record while compiling superior individual statistics.

The Chiefs had won 25 of their previous 27 games, including a 27-24 victory against Tampa Bay this season, but they had no answers for a Buccaneers team that did not lose again after that Kansas City defeat dropped them to 7-5. The Buccaneers won their last four regular season games, they won three road playoff games before becoming the first team to play a Super Bowl in their home stadium, and they became the first team to beat three former Super Bowl MVPs (Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers, Patrick Mahomes) during one playoff run.

Many analysts considered Brady to be the greatest quarterback of all-time prior to yesterday, and now Brady has added another amazing chapter to his already impressive career. 

The other narrative swirling around Brady involves comparing his legacy to the legacy of Coach Bill Belichick. Belichick and Brady teamed up to win six Super Bowls together--setting the record for a coach-quarterback duo--and media members have often speculated about who was most responsible for the New England Patriots' sustained success. It is not surprising that the media narrative veered in Brady's favor as Tampa Bay advanced through the 2020 playoffs while the Patriots failed to qualify for postseason play. Tampa Bay's victory closes the book on this narrative for many media members, who now gleefully proclaim that Brady had more to do with New England's success than Belichick did.

Narratives are easy to construct, and they are often based more on emotion and selective recall/understanding of history than on objective reality.

For example, a popular narrative ranks LeBron James as the greatest basketball player of all-time, but objective analysis reveals that this assertion overlooks the accomplishments of not only some of James' predecessors but even those of his contemporaries, including Kobe Bryant. After James won his fourth NBA title and fourth NBA Finals MVP last season, the narrative uplifting James became even more prominent, but based on MVPs and championships won (two of the criteria often used to support elevating James), James has not surpassed Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, or Michael Jordan.

There is no doubt that James belongs in the greatest basketball player of all-time conversation, just as there is no doubt that Brady belongs in the greatest quarterback of all-time conversation, but the reality is that it is difficult, if not impossible, to objectively select one individual as the greatest performer in a team sport; even in an individual sport such as tennis there is not a clear choice, though that sport also has a media-driven narrative favoring one person (Roger Federer).

Championships won is the simple number often cited to buttress popular narratives, but it is interesting to see which championships "count" when narratives are told. It has become common practice to suggest that Michael Jordan holds some kind of record with six NBA titles, because that is often depicted as the number that Kobe Bryant was chasing (Bryant finished his career with five titles), and it is often depicted as the number LeBron James is chasing now--but Bill Russell won 11 NBA titles in 13 seasons, in addition to leading his teams to two NCAA titles plus an Olympic gold medal. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar won six NBA titles but for some reason his titles do not "count" when basketball greatness is being discussed. 

Similarly, much was made of Roger Federer's Grand Slam singles titles, but the talk of the significance of Grand Slam titles became much quieter after Rafael Nadal tied Federer with 20. Narrative creators feel free to change the stories and change the rules as opposed to changing the narrative: once Roger Federer or Tom Brady or LeBron James becomes the favored son, it takes a lot to convince media members to anoint someone else.

There is no disputing the greatness of Federer or James or Brady. Brady has not only won more Super Bowls (seven wins in 10 appearances) than any other player, but he has more Super Bowl wins than any other franchise! He would likely make the Hall of Fame just on the basis of what he has accomplished since the age of 37, including three Super Bowl wins plus earning a regular season MVP award. In that sense, he is similar to Abdul-Jabbar, whose accomplishments past the age of 35 (four NBA titles, one NBA Finals MVP, four All-NBA First Team selections, and eight All-Star selections) exceed what many Hall of Famers accomplished during their entire careers.

However, if championships are the touchstone and measuring stick of professional football greatness in general and/or the greatness of a quarterback in particular, then it must be remembered that Otto Graham made 10 championship game appearances in 10 professional seasons, leading the Cleveland Browns to seven titles. He went four for four in his All-America Football Conference championship game appearances, and then he followed that by winning three titles in six NFL seasons, including leading the Browns to a 30-28 win over the favored L.A. Rams in the 1950 NFL championship game. Against the Rams, Graham completed 22 of 33 passes for 298 yards, four touchdowns, and one interception, while also running 12 times for 99 yards. That victory happened in the first season after the NFL and AAFC merged, and it demonstrated that the Browns' AAFC titles deserved full recognition. 

It is not at all clear why NFL titles are not given equal weight with Super Bowl titles; an NFL championship is an NFL championship, regardless of what it was called in 1950 or what it is called now. AAFC titles should "count" just as much as AFL titles and pre-Super Bowl NFL titles. 

If the argument against doing so is that the rules and style of play were vastly different during Otto Graham's time and Bill Russell's time than they are in Tom Brady's time and LeBron James' time then the correct response is not to discount or ignore Graham and Russell but rather to candidly acknowledge the difficulty of making intergenerational comparisons. Perhaps there is no such thing as "the" greatest player of all-time. Maybe Graham was the greatest of his time, and now Brady is the greatest of his time (which is not to discount the possibility that other players from either era deserve consideration). 

The greatest quarterback of all-time narrative favored John Unitas for quite some time (and there is no doubt a vocal minority of observers who would still rank Unitas as the best). Unitas set career records for passing yards (40,239) and touchdowns (290) that far exceeded the marks that he broke. He won two NFL titles in the pre-Super Bowl era, plus an NFL title in the Super Bowl era (but that season ended in a famous loss to the AFL champion New York Jets in Super Bowl III). Unitas threw a touchdown in Super Bowl V before leaving the game due to injury, and his Colts won that contest on a last second field goal after Unitas' backup Earl Morrall replaced Unitas. Unitas is considered the prototype drop back passer.

It is interesting that the player who broke Unitas' records, Fran Tarkenton, was not often mentioned as the greatest quarterback of all-time; I cannot recall ever seeing or hearing a commentator rank Tarkenton as the best. Yet, Tarkenton held the career passing yardage record (47,003) for longer than any other quarterback (19 years), and he also held the career passing touchdowns record (342) for longer than any other quarterback (20 years), but Tarkenton never won a Super Bowl.

Terry Bradshaw won four Super Bowls, but his individual numbers are not as gaudy as Unitas' or Tarkenton's, nor are they efficient when compared to the statistics compiled by the passers who came after him and who benefited from rules changes that opened up the passing game.

Dan Marino at one time held the career records for passing yardage and for touchdowns, but he only made it to one Super Bowl and he never won a championship. Early in his career he was touted as someone who could become the greatest quarterback ever, but as Marino set records while Montana won Super Bowls the notion that Marino might be the greatest faded from consideration, and Marino became the Tarkenton of his era (albeit with a much different playing style, as Tarkenton was a scrambler while Marino was a pure pocket passer).

Joe Montana matched Bradshaw by winning four Super Bowls, and by the end of his career he was often touted as the greatest quarterback of all-time, a notion that went largely unchallenged until the emergence of Brady.

At some point after Brady matched Montana and Bradshaw with four Super Bowl wins while also accumulating MVP awards and posting gaudy statistics, the narrative shifted from Montana to Brady. Brett Favre--who held the career passing touchdowns record for seven years--and Peyton Manning--who held the career passing touchdowns record for five years--received some consideration prior to Brady's ascension, but Favre only won one Super Bowl and Manning only won two Super Bowls so after Brady surpassed their individual records his superior ring count took both of them out of the conversation. 

Drew Brees and Tom Brady have been trading the career passing touchdowns record recently, but Brees won just one Super Bowl, and he did not win that Super Bowl until after Brady had already been ranked ahead of Favre and Manning, so Brees has never been part of the greatest quarterback of all-time narrative.

If you believe that quarterback is the most important position in football--if not in all team sports--and if you believe that a quarterback's greatness is best measured by championships, then your choices are Otto Graham or Tom Brady. If you place more value on individual numbers, then you have to decide if it matters more to dominate your own era by a wide margin--in which case, you would probably choose Unitas--or if it matters more to dominate in recent times, in which case you could choose any one of several quarterbacks depending on which statistics you deem to be the best measure of greatness.

The larger point is that, without clearly defining the standard of greatness, the narrative elevating Brady (or anyone else) is so devoid of context as to be rendered meaningless. Was it more difficult to play in earlier eras under different rules and conditions, or are today's athletes so superior to the athletes from decades past that the athletes from previous eras would not excel today? 

Most commentators and analysts do not embrace the challenge of researching such matters and using that research as a basis to form intelligent opinions; instead, we are fed simplistic narratives about "rings" and "Who is the GOAT?" that do a disservice to the history of the game and the accomplishments of the game's greatest players.

Regarding the Belichick and Brady narrative, it is not necessary or accurate to diminish what Belichick achieved in order to give Brady the praise that he deserves. Bill Belichick's Super Bowl XX game plan as the New York Giants' defensive coordinator was so brilliant that it is on display at the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Belichick's offensive and defensive game plans as the Patriots' head coach are indisputably great, and those schemes played a crucial role in the franchise's unparalleled success.

It is fascinating to watch how the media creates and manipulates narratives. Brady is almost universally popular, with perhaps the only exception being the fans of teams who he has beaten in Super Bowls--but Belichick is regularly mocked for his press conference demeanor. Many media members would love to bring Belichick down a notch--or six notches, by finding any excuse to discount his Super Bowl titles. Of course, the same narrative game that they are now playing with Belichick and Brady could easily be applied to Belichick and Bill Parcells--and there would be more substance to the latter, as Belichick and Parcells are both coaches and have actually gone head to head against each other in that role.

Parcells won two Super Bowl titles as a head coach, with Belichick running the defense for both squads. Parcells has never won a playoff game--let alone a Super Bowl--without having Belichick on his staff. In fact, Parcells has a losing record overall without Belichick by his side. Parcells supposedly taught Belichick how to win, which is a difficult notion to accept when you look at the won-loss records of both coaches. 

After Belichick left the New York Giants, he took over a horrible Cleveland Browns team (3-13 in 1990) and led the Browns to the playoffs in 1994. That Browns team, which went 11-5, defeated Parcells' New England Patriots in the playoffs, which was the Browns' last playoff win until this season's squad beat the Pittsburgh Steelers. There is some history and context that can be referenced to defend Parcells, but a head to head comparison of coaches who competed with and against each other over an extended period of time makes more sense than trying to define the careers of a coach and a quarterback based on their one season apart after they forged a two decade partnership filled with unequaled success.

Of course, Bill Parcells is beloved as "The Big Tuna." The media is not going to construct a narrative that elevates Belichick over Parcells.

One of the many problems with comparing a football coach's impact with a quarterback's impact is that the coach directs how the entire team plays, while the quarterback's impact is strictly limited to offense, which is less than half of the game (if you factor in that many plays involve neither offense nor defense but rather special teams). 

As a brief side note, it is a true exercise in folly to compare Tom Brady to LeBron James. A star basketball player participates in most of the game (usually at least 38-40 out of 48 minutes) and he has an impact on both offense and defense as one of five teammates on the court, while a quarterback is one of 11 teammates on the field, and his impact is restricted to offense.

Brady's impact on a team is undeniable. He is a great and charismatic leader. His quarterback skill set is impeccable. 

All of that being said and acknowledged, the notion that there is some valid way to parse out Brady's impact on the Patriots from Belichick's impact on the Patriots is absurd. You may counter, "But what if Belichick never makes the playoffs again?" Belichick is 68 years old, and he already is one of the oldest coaches to win a Super Bowl. He is undoubtedly past his prime, and he is closer to the end of his coaching career than he is to the beginning. Do you judge Chuck Noll, Tom Landry, and Don Shula by what they did in the last 5-10 years of their coaching careers, or do you judge them by their overall body of work, with a focus on their primes? 

What if Belichick grooms a young quarterback and wins one more Super Bowl before retiring? That would add to Belichick's legacy, just like yesterday's Super Bowl win added to Brady's legacy, but that would not tell us whether Belichick or Brady had more to do with the Patriots' success.

The truth is that we will never know, but that honest narrative will not move the ratings needle or generate clicks for online articles, so brace yourself for all of the "Brady Owns Belichick" stories.

It is interesting to watch the Patrick Mahomes narrative evolve in the midst of these other narratives. Mahomes has already led the Chiefs to back to back Super Bowl appearances, and one Super Bowl title. It is logical to assume that he will have many more opportunities, but--as noted above--Dan Marino made one Super Bowl appearance early in his career and then never made it back, and Brett Favre made two Super Bowl appearances (with one win) in his 20 year career. It cannot be emphasized enough that the quarterback is a very important player, but he does not play on defense or special teams, and he is rendered helpless if his teammates are ineffective--just look at what happened to Mahomes in Super Bowl LV when the Buccaneers' defense overwhelmed Kansas City's offensive line. 

The truth is that the Mahomes story is incomplete. If he finishes his career with one Super Bowl win plus some gaudy individual numbers then he will not merit being ranked alongside the absolute greatest. On the other hand, yesterday's loss does not diminish what he has already accomplished, and to suggest otherwise is as incorrect as suggesting that Brady's win somehow diminishes what Belichick has already accomplished.

What can we determine using a reasonable, objective approach? 

1) There is a strong argument that Tom Brady is the greatest quarterback of his time. He may be the greatest quarterback of all-time, but to make that assessment we must first decide how to validly compare statistics and team accomplishments from the 1940s-1990s with statistics and team accomplishments from 2000-present (Brady's era).

2) There is a strong argument that Bill Belichick is the greatest NFL coach of his time. He may be the greatest NFL coach of all-time, but to make that assessment we must first decide how to validly compare statistics and team accomplishments from prior eras to the statistics and team accomplishments from Belichick's era (1980s-present).

3) Under Bill Belichick's guidance, Tom Brady developed from being a sixth round draft pick into being arguably the greatest quarterback of his time, and possibly the greatest quarterback of all-time. We do not have a large enough sample size of data to determine what development path Brady would have followed without Belichick's influence. 

4) With Tom Brady as his starting quarterback, Bill Belichick has won six Super Bowls as a head coach. During that time, Belichick played a role in both player development and game plan creation. Prior to that time, in his first stint as a head coach, Belichick built the Cleveland Browns from a last place team into a playoff team; prior to coaching the Browns, Belichick's defensive game plans played a major, if not decisive, role as the New York Giants won two Super Bowls. We have a large enough sample size of data to determine that Belichick is an outstanding, versatile coach even without Brady. We do not have a large enough sample size of data to prove how many Super Bowls that Belichick's Patriots would have won without Brady.

The bottom line is that winning a championship involves many variables that cannot be controlled by either the coach or the quarterback. If the Buccaneers had not been able to shut down Patrick Mahomes, resulting in Kansas City winning a 34-31 shootout with Brady posting exactly the same numbers that he posted yesterday would that somehow diminish Brady's greatness? Would it increase Belichick's greatness by "proving" that Brady cannot win a Super Bowl without Belichick?

Framing the conversation in those terms, it should be obvious that many of the media-driven narratives are nonsense.

Monday Night Football Quick Hits: Panthers Run Over Buccaneers, 38-23

The Carolina Panthers bludgeoned the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with a powerful and speedy running game, chewing up 299 yards on the ground in a 38-23 win. DeAngelo Williams gained a franchise single-game record 186 yards on 19 carries and Jonathan Stewart added 115 yards on 15 carries; each running back also scored two touchdowns. They are the first teammates to gain 100 yards in the same game while each scoring at least two touchdowns and each averaging at least seven yards per attempt. Although Jake Delhomme did not have a great performance (two interceptions, 73.5 passer rating), Steve Smith caught nine passes for 117 yards and one touchdown, his 23rd 100 yard game since 2005, the most by any NFL player during that period. The Panthers deserve a lot of credit for their game plan, their blocking and their running but this is a shocking setback for a Tampa Bay defense that held them to 40 yards rushing in a 27-3 Buccaneers rout in week six.

Carolina's stunning success on the ground overshadowed a brilliant aerial performance by Tampa Bay's Jeff Garcia and Antonio Bryant. Garcia completed 24 of 38 passes for 321 yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions and a 107.5 passer rating, while Bryant caught nine passes for 200 yards and two touchdowns. Garcia and Bryant were teammates on the 2004 Cleveland Browns. Isn't it interesting how many players have success before and/or after being Browns but don't reach their full potential in Cleveland--or play well in Cleveland (as Bryant did, catching 69 passes for 1009 yards in 2005) only to end up on other teams? This is an indictment of how badly the team has been mismanaged and how poorly it has been coached, not just by the current Phil Savage-Romeo Crennel regime but dating all the way back to when the Browns rejoined the NFL in 1999.

Most of the Super Bowl talk this season has been about the New York Giants and Tennessee Titans but if the 10-3 Panthers win their final three regular season games--including a showdown with the Giants--then they will be the number one seed in the NFC playoffs. Meanwhile, the 9-4 Buccaneers have a one game lead over the contenders for the first Wild Card spot and could still claim the NFC South title if they win out and the Panthers stumble.

Here are some notes/comments about Sunday's action:

*It is not much fun to be a Cleveland Browns fan right now; not only will many ex-Browns players, coaches and executives be participating in the playoffs while the Browns will be home again in January but the team is lousy and is getting worse as the season goes along. After a Kerry Collins interception set the Browns up at Tennessee's 25 yard line in the first quarter, Cleveland had a four play, two yard "drive" for a field goal in their 28-9 loss to the Titans. That's not a drive. That's not even a Sunday stroll. That's just...pathetic. Other Cleveland "drives" in that game included three plays for two yards (punt), four plays for nine yards (punt), four plays for zero yards (punt) and, my personal "favorite," three plays for negative four yards (interception). I wonder if all the morons who cheered as Derek Anderson writhed in pain last week after suffering a season-ending injury enjoyed watching third stringer Ken Dorsey struggle to throw the ball farther than 10 yards--not that their classlessness would be justified if Dorsey could actually play but being happy about Anderson's injury is not only cruel but does not even make sense at any level when you know that his replacement simply does not have the arm strength to be an NFL quarterback. I will never understand what Anderson did to become the object of such hatred; last season he became the Browns' first Pro Bowl quarterback in two decades and, based on how this team is managed and coached, it might be two decades before another Browns quarterback plays in the Pro Bowl. The fans have all but run Anderson out of town; it would not surprise me at all if he became a Jim Plunkett-type, achieving success with another team. He is tough and has a strong arm and it would be interesting to see what he could accomplish on a team that has a good coach and a supportive, championship-level environment.

ESPN's Chris Mortensen reported that the Browns are considering the idea of bringing back Marty Schottenheimer as a replacement for Romeo Crennel. People may mock Schottenheimer for his less than stellar postseason record but at least his teams actually qualify for the playoffs; he sure has gotten a lot closer to the Super Bowl than the Browns have since they fired him 20 years ago. I'd much rather hear him say "There's a gleam" than hear Browns coaches talk about guys who played really hard--and then got their heads kicked in by the Steelers and pretty much everyone else on the schedule. One Cleveland columnist has already bashed the idea of hiring Schottenheimer, saying that the Browns need a long term solution, not a 65 year old retread. Yeah, why would the Browns want to hire a respected, successful coach? Ever heard of Dick Vermeil, who never won the "big one," left the NFL as the poster child for "burnout" and then came back from a long stint as a broadcaster to lead St. Louis to a Super Bowl victory?

Of course, it is important to remember that the football writing "experts" in Cleveland played a role in running off Schottenheimer--and later Bill Belichick--in the first place.

*"Bretty and the Jets," as Chris Berman refers to them, may be in the process of crashing to Earth and finishing with pretty much the record that I originally predicted that they would have. We all know that 99% of the members of the media love Brett Favre and after the Jets beat Tennessee and New England in consecutive games you would have thought that a lot of those writers and broadcasters had died and gone to heaven--but now the Jets have lost two straight games, including this week's 24-14 defeat at lowly San Francisco. Brett Favre went 20-31 for 127 yards, no touchdowns, one interception and a 60.8 passer rating versus the 49ers; Favre had a 60.9 passer rating last week in the Jets' 34-17 loss to Denver and did not have a touchdown pass in that game either.

Favre currently ranks 13th in the NFL in passer rating (88.2), trailing both the quarterback the Jets traded to Miami to make room for him (Chad Pennington, 93.7 rating, fifth in the NFL) and the quarterback who replaced him in Green Bay (Aaron Rodgers, 92.1 rating, eighth in the NFL). Favre is tied with Gus Frerotte with a league-high 15 interceptions, already matching his total from last year with three games to go.

*Meanwhile, "high school quarterback" (as Cris Carter called him) Matt Cassel and the New England Patriots are tied for first place (with the Jets and the Dolphins) in the AFC East with three games left in the season. Cassel bounced back from a tough game against Pittsburgh to complete 26 of 44 passes for 268 yards, one touchdown, no interceptions and a solid 84.3 passer rating in New England's 24-21 win at Seattle. The Patriots have had to overcome not only Tom Brady's season-ending week one injury but also a season-ending injury to starting running back Laurence Maroney and a string of injuries to defensive starters.

*It was a bizarre Sunday for the Dallas Cowboys. They blew a 13-3 fourth quarter lead at Pittsburgh to lose 20-13--but still moved up into the second Wild Card slot because the Atlanta Falcons (who are 8-5, just like the Cowboys) lost to the New Orleans Saints and thus have a worse NFC record than Dallas does.

In most sports when a team has a Hall of Fame a caliber player he is the central focus of their attack. Looking at the Cowboys, Terrell Owens is the only offensive player who I'm sure will be a Hall of Famer--and even though he turned 35 on Sunday it's not like he's lost a step: he is averaging 15.4 yards per reception this season (a half yard better than his stout career average) and he is tied for second in the league with nine touchdown receptions, including the Cowboys' only TD versus Pittsburgh. Owens caught three passes for 32 yards in the Pittsburgh game and it is befuddling that Dallas does not utilize him more frequently.

Usually, the Monday Night Countdown crew is pretty hard on Owens but even they realize that Owens should be a bigger part of Dallas' offense. Cris Carter noted that for years Owens has been a player who makes big plays and that it is vitally important to produce points out of the passing game. Point blank, Carter said, "You have to get him the football...When Santa Claus is coming around (i.e, in December games), Tony Romo is passing out losses and turnovers." Tom Jackson, normally one of Owens' harshest critics, said that Owens will likely finish second on the career list in all of the important receiving categories so it is strange that Tony Romo seems to go away from Owens at the end of games. Keyshawn Johnson offered a slightly different perspective, saying, "I don't think that Tony Romo has as much trust in Terrell Owens as in Jason Witten in those situations." He added that Romo and Witten are roommates on the road, while Owens has sometimes taken public shots at Romo (I don't remember that; it seems to me that Owens has defended Romo in public, including the famous time that Owens cried after a playoff game and pleaded with the media to not blame the loss on Romo). If Romo is truly making decisions about who to throw the ball to based on being his buddy--and not based on football skills--then the Cowboys are in serious trouble, but I'm not convinced that Johnson's analysis is correct.

Johnson also said that quarterbacks are "selfish" in the sense that they want to throw to guys who make plays for them; Romo's first two interceptions in the Pittsburgh game were thrown in Owens' direction, so Johnson believes that Romo was hesitant to throw to Owens after those plays. That does not really wash, because Owens made both his touchdown reception and a first down catch on a drive that led to a Dallas field goal after those interceptions happened. Also, if Romo and Witten have such a "bond," as Johnson claimed, then why were they so out of sync at the end of the game? Pittsburgh scored the game-winning touchdown on Deshea Townsend's interception return after Romo threw a pass in Witten's direction. Dallas' final offensive play wa a Romo pass to Witten that fell incomplete as Witten did not even turn around to try to catch the ball; if Owens had done that you can bet that his gaffe would be headline news. ESPN's Trent Dilfer said that reviewing the tapes of those plays, he concluded that Romo bears some responsibility but that protection breakdowns up front caused Romo to rush the throw that was intercepted and to "freelance" on the incompletion, a play that was designed to go to Patrick Crayton, who was open.

This just should not be that complicated: when Owens is single covered, the ball should be thrown his way; when Owens is double covered, he should take his defenders deep and thus leave a hole in the middle of the defense in which Romo can make an easy completion to someone else.

2008 NFL Preview

The introduction to my 2007 NFL Preview so precisely summarizes the perils of NFL prognosticating that I am simply going to reproduce it here word for word:

There are several reasons that it is not uncommon to see NFL teams go from worst to first (or first to worst) in one season: (1) football is a violent game and one injury to a key player (particularly a star quarterback) can change the balance of power in a division; (2) the season is very short, so one NFL game carries the same impact in the standings as five NBA games or 10 MLB games; (3) games frequently come down to the last two minutes, so the difference between being 10-6 and 6-10 may literally be a few plays spread out over four games. The foregoing explains why Las Vegas has enough money to build bigger and bigger casinos and why it is silly to pretend to predict the exact records that each NFL team will compile during a season--it is tough enough just to figure out who will make the playoffs.

Last year I correctly picked six of the eight division champions. On the other hand, all four of my Wild Card predictions were wrong.

Without further ado, here are my 2008 NFL predictions.

AFC East

1) New England
2) Buffalo
3) New York Jets
4) Miami

Quick Hits:

* You may have heard that the Jets have a new quarterback--some guy named Favre. What no one seems to be paying much attention to is that the Dolphins also have a new quarterback--Chad Pennington, who used to be the Jets' quarterback. A lot of people rag on Pennington's arm strength but he is the NFL's career completion percentage leader and just two years ago he started all 16 games as the Jets went 10-6 and made it to the playoffs. Won't ESPN and the rest of the mainstream media circus have a fit if Pennington has a better season than Favre? If Pennington stays healthy--granted, a big if--don't be surprised if he does just that.

* New England fans have every right to be concerned about Tom Brady's health but assuming that he is functional by the time the regular season starts the Patriots will once again win the division title and be a legit Super Bowl contender. Their overall winning streak was stopped by the Giants in Super Bowl XLII but the Patriots have won 19 consecutive regular season games dating back to 2006 and they have won 22 of their last 23 regular season games. They open the 2008 regular season with games versus the Chiefs, Jets and Dolphins, a bye week, a trip to San Francisco and then a visit to San Diego.

* It's put up or shut up time for the Dick Jauron regime in Buffalo after a pair of 7-9 seasons. The Bills have not made the playoffs since 1999. Call it the Doug Flutie curse: in 1999, Flutie led the Bills to a 10-5 record, Wade Phillips "rested" him in favor of Rob Johnson in game 16 and then Phillips started Johnson in the playoff game versus the Titans. Johnson went 10-22 for 131 yards, Tennessee won courtesy of "The Music City Miracle" and the Bills have never been the same.

AFC West

1) San Diego
2) Denver
3) Kansas City
4) Oakland

Quick Hits:

* The Chargers are the class of this division but it remains to be seen how much Shawne Merriman's knee injury will hamper his performance.

* The Broncos have not won a Super Bowl since John Elway retired but Mike Shanahan's teams are usually in the playoff hunt; Denver had a down season last year but figures to contend for a Wild Card berth in 2008.

AFC North

1) Pittsburgh
2) Cleveland
3) Baltimore
4) Cincinnati

Quick Hits:

* Year in and year out the Steelers are the most stable organization in this division on and off the field.

* High hopes in Cleveland have been tempered a bit by a rash of injuries and the reality that the Browns face a very tough schedule loaded with nationally televised games.

* The Ravens are still trying to develop a quality starting quarterback.

* The Bengals are an organization that is in disarray on and off the field.

AFC South

1) Jacksonville
2) Indianapolis (Wild Card)
3) Tennessee (Wild Card)
4) Houston

Quick Hits:

* Peyton Manning will not likely be completely healthy by the start of the season and 36 year old Marvin Harrison is coming off of an injury-riddled campaign, so look for the Jaguars to finally break through and win the division title. That said, if the Colts get completely healthy by playoff time they could very well go farther in the postseason than the Jaguars do.

* The Texans are improving but they are in a killer division, so it will be very difficult for them to make the playoffs unless injuries take down at least one of the teams in front of them.

AFC Championship:

New England will not go 16-0 again--14-2 sounds about right--but the Patriots will host the AFC Championship Game and beat the San Diego Chargers.

NFC East

1) Dallas
2) Philadelphia (Wild Card)
3) New York Giants (Wild Card)
4) Washington

Quick Hits:

* No Osi Umenyiora and no Michael Strahan means no Super Bowl repeat for the Giants. They were a Wild Card team in 2007 and they will struggle to earn a Wild Card in 2008.

* Some teams have to go through a bit of heartbreak before they reach the top. The Cowboys are very talented and after a great 2007 regular season they came up just short against the eventual Super Bowl champions.

* If Donovan McNabb stays healthy then the Eagles should be good enough to challenge for the division title.

* The Redskins will probably have a solid record but it is their misfortune to be in such a highly competitive division.

NFC West

1) Seattle
2) Arizona
3) San Francisco
4) St. Louis

Quick Hits:

* In recent years this division has emerged as the poster child for mediocrity. That said, Seattle has been the one bright spot and the Seahawks have enough weapons to be a Super Bowl contender.

* If Kurt Warner stays healthy then the Cardinals could challenge for a Wild Card berth.

NFC North

1) Green Bay
2) Minnesota
3) Detroit
4) Chicago

Quick Hits:

* The race between Green Bay and Minnesota for the division title will be fierce, because the second place team may not make the playoffs.

* If Detroit's defense improves then the Lions could be a dark horse contender for the division title.


NFC South:

1) Tampa Bay
2) New Orleans
3) Carolina
4) Atlanta

Quick Hits:

* Jeff Garcia is a perennially underrated quarterback and the Buccaneers are putting together a good defense, so look for Tampa Bay to have a strong season.

* New Orleans and Carolina will bounce back from their disappointing 2007 seasons but they will not quite be good enough to keep up with Tampa Bay.

NFC Championship:

Dallas will defeat Tampa Bay.

Super Bowl:

New England will defeat Dallas.

Jets Acquire Favre, Maybe He Will Even Play for Them

Jay Glazer of Fox Sports reports that the Green Bay Packers have traded Brett Favre to the New York Jets. Terms of the deal have not been officially confirmed but Glazer indicates that Green Bay will receive a conditional draft pick, the value of which will be determined by Favre's performance.

Neil Everett and Stuart Scott were hosting FavreCenter when the story broke, so naturally all other sports news immediately went down the memory hole as viewers were treated to Favreapalooza 2008--highlights from his best games, plus reports from every single ESPN reporter, some of whom were probably awakened from a sound sleep so that they could breathlessly inform the nation of every word that Favre spoke to them earlier in the day before the trade had even happened (in other words, Favre quotes that were already outdated). I half expected Everett and Scott to dial up Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann to get their takes and I was surprised that Kenny Mayne did not have a "Mayne Event" feature about Favre as a Jet.

Initially, ESPN acknowledged that Glazer broke the story but pretty soon we were informed that Michael Smith had confirmed it and not long after that Glazer and Fox Sports went down the memory hole as well. By the 3 a.m. FavreCenter, ESPN will be nominating itself for an Emmy, a Pulitzer Prize and a Nobel Prize for being the first to deliver this news and thus ending our long national nightmare.

Apparently, the Favre sweepstakes came down to the Jets and the Buccaneers. The Jets want Favre because they have no faith in either of their incumbent quarterbacks, while the Buccaneers want Favre because Jon Gruden's dream is to have a roster consisting entirely of quarterbacks. Gruden was an assistant coach in Green Bay and has a history with Favre, so Favre preferred to go to Tampa Bay, which is also closer to Favre's Mississippi home. Naturally, since the entire world--nay, the entire universe--revolves around Favre, before news of the trade came down several ESPN reporters speculated that Favre is "driving the train" because he would not approve of any trade other than one sending him to Tampa Bay, thus forcing the Packers' hand because they don't want to have Favre around anymore. By the way, that's quite an accomplishment--to go from iconic figure in franchise history to despised old man who everyone hopes just goes away.

So, after the announcement that the Jets acquired Favre, Everett seemed completely dumbfounded that Favre did not get his way. After all, why shouldn't Favre get every last thing to go exactly his way? Why shouldn't Favre hold every single team in the NFL hostage? Maybe Favre can get a Clemens-like deal in which he only has to play in home games.

Moments of unintentional comedy abounded in FavreCenter coverage in the moments after news of the trade broke. Everett asked Sal Paolantonio if he (Paolantonio) would have agreed to the trade if he had been in Favre's shoes or if Favre should take his ball and going home to re-retire because Green Bay did not send him to Tampa Bay. Of course, this is a loaded question for Paolantonio to answer since he is not an NFL analyst but rather a sideline reporter who will be covering games in New York. Paolantonio called a great audible, telling Everett that he (Paolantonio) did not have such a choice in front of him and he really enjoys working for ESPN. Later, Everett asked Paolantonio how much this trade really helps the Jets. Paolantonio chuckled nervously and reminded Everett that he will be reporting from Jets' games this season (in other words, stop asking questions that I cannot answer honestly because drunken fans will be throwing beer on me if I do). Paolantonio sidestepped that land mine by saying that it is only logical to assume that the addition of Favre will improve the Jets and help them contend for a Wild Card berth, adding that otherwise it would not make sense for New York to acquire Favre.

Then Chris Mortensen joined the party and revealed that Favre really had his heart set on going to Tampa Bay. Mortensen would not rule out the possibility that Favre could decide to retire in light of this setback but then Mortensen backpedaled a bit and said that Favre saw some positives about being a Jet, too. Favre is a real piece of work. First, he grudgingly acknowledged that the Packers would probably needed to move on after he retired. Did Favre expect the franchise to simply fold after he retired or to go into suspended animation until he really, really, really retired? Now, after creating such a fuss for the past few weeks there is at least a possibility that Favre may simply stay in Mississippi, leaving the Packers, Jets and Buccaneers to clean up all of the damage caused by this turmoil.

Of course, the FavreCenter coverage would not be complete until each reporter explained how the Favre story personally impacted his life. Scott informed viewers that he had seen Favre at the ESPYs and asked how Favre was doing. Favre started to tell Scott how emotionally draining this whole ordeal has been but Scott stopped him and let Favre know that he was off duty so it was not necessary for Favre to go into such detail. Then they hugged and sang "Kumbaya" (I made that part up, though it would not surprise me if it happened). Mortensen said that it is tough covering a story that has become such a huge part of the 24 hour news cycle but that it was important because Favre is one of the greatest players ever; I half expected him to add that he got Favre's autograph at the ESPYs after Scott was done consoling Favre. Look, covering the Vietnam War was tough; covering the Iraq war is tough. Covering a diva quarterback who cannot bear being out of the spotlight is not tough.

Tampa Bay got the best deal here, because the Buccaneers escaped unscathed--Gruden deftly avoided offending any of the 25 quarterbacks on his roster and now can go back to business as usual. The Packers have had their whole offseason trashed and now every single snap that Aaron Rodgers takes will be dissected in super slow motion on FavreCenter. Good luck, kid--you're going to need it. Meanwhile, Favre's arrival in New York certainly means that Chad Pennington--who Mortensen said is a much beloved figure in the locker room--will be shipped out. I'll bet all of Pennington's friends on the team are thrilled about that. Yes, I know, this is a business and guys get traded and cut every day but the Jets are bringing in a guy who has already indicated before he even got there that he'd prefer to be in Tampa Bay. Like most older players, Favre does not want to practice and does not want to go to meetings--he just wants to play. He'll be a great example for all of the younger players on the team. The Jets were 4-12 last year and, even though they were 10-6 two years ago, it is more than a little stretch to believe that they will overtake the Patriots in the AFC East.

What happens if the Jets start 3-5--which would be a big improvement over last year--and Favre decides to really, really, really retire? Also, I don't care how many passes Favre has thrown to high school kids in the past month or two, he cannot possibly be in game shape mentally or physically. He's about to turn 39 and, believe it or not, he is not indestructible. Based on Favre's age, the amount of offseason conditioning Favre has missed and the risks of playing football when you are not fully committed to being on the field, I think that there is a good chance that he will sustain an injury that will end his remarkable consecutive games streak.

Bottom line--this will not end well for Favre or the Jets and it will be difficult for the Packers unless Rodgers plays extraordinarily well right out of the box. Congratulations, Tampa Bay--by losing the Favre sweepstakes you are in fact the big winner!