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.