The Greatest of All Time
- Thread starter Deathofthebambino
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luckiestman said:
You'd take a lot of guys over Manning? Peyton Manning? The reason he puts up those numbers is because he is one of the best. Same with Marino. Longevity and talent. Yes, they've had some let-downs in the playoffs but I think some of that is random. Marino and Manning are right up there on the ANY/A+ list. Aikman and Namath are guys I think are overrated. Namath? 41st in ANY/A+ from 1950-2014. His legend exceeds what he actually did on the field. Aikman is 35th. Aikman's peak was tremendous but his start and end were a dim flame. At the end he heard footsteps so to speak and who would blame him given how many injuries/concussions he had at that point?
By traditional or advanced stats I just don't think we can have a conversation without Manning in the top 5. To me that's mishegas.
garlan5 said:
The salary cap issue isn't that you can't have an incredible team. It's that it's hard to keep that team together for very long. I don't buy your rebuttal here.
Andrew said:
Yeah but it all equals out over the competition each year. If it's easier to build a dynasty and keep it together pre salary cap then that holds true for the competition. I don't buy it. Thats basically saying that the Patriots competition is weaker due to salary cap. I don't buy the salary cap as a point. It's a strong debate and I'm a niners fan. I'll be the first to say that Brady is probably the g.o.a.t. But the competition was tough now as it was tough then.
Except the whole point of the salary cap is to level the playing field, making it harder to be consistently good year after year.
Well, no, because really good teams tend to have more really good players and the salary cap limits the ability to keep all the really good players for a number of years. If you are talking individual players, no I dont think the salary cap matters. If you are talking a specific team being the best for a specific season, it doesnt matter quite as much, you can still build an awesome team for one year under the salary cap (especially if you have a really good under market QB). If you are talking about having a Super Bowl contender year after year, the salary cap makes it harder.
Phil Simms? Seriously?luckiestman said:
Brees's postseason game logs:
http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/B/BreeDr00/gamelog/post/
It's not the top of the roster that the salary cap hurts. It's the ability to have more than JAG at depth positions, special teams etc. The niner's could draft and develop players and not worry about losing them. I'll agree other teams had that ability and to a certain degree succeeded. It's an enormous advantage though compared to todays roster construction. Since the last NE superbowl win the only two players left are Brady and Wilfork. Ponder that. This isn't the last team that won in NE. It's 2 guys and an entire new roster. Seattle can pay the Lynch's and Sherman's the big money because Wilson is making peanuts. Lets see what happens when he get's paid like an elite QB and they have to start making tough roster decisions. The difference is BB the GM who will walk away from a player a season too soon rather than a season too late. I think not enough credit goes to BB the GM. We all see the misses in the draft and question them. We don't appreciate the tough decisions he makes like trading Mankins and shopping in the bargain barrel for skill payers that eat so much cap on other teams in order to field a team that is solid and has depth in all 3 phases of the game. Several teams have won 4+ superbowls. Only one of them has done it in the salary cap era. There is a reason for that.
garlan5 said:
So if you are Montana and you have the luxury of being in a stacked 49ers team, you have about 2 or 3 teams as stacked as yours to compete against. Without a salary cap the odds of there being a team as good as yours are much greater. Just look at the state of the AFC when Montana played, it isn't a coincidence that he never lost a Super Bowl. It was pretty much just a matter of getting there, the talent differential was that big.
Sure, he had the Giants, the Cowboys, and for a while the Bears to contend with, but he was also guaranteed to have a great team year in and year out, that's extremely helpful. Dude wasn't taking secondaries with Antwan Molden, Phillip Adams and Julian Edelman deep into the playoffs.
Monbo Jumbo said:
If you didn't think Brady was the "Best QB of all time" prior to this last game, I'm not sure your opinion would change following this Super Bowl win. TB executed a very good game plan, which consisted of a short-yardage passing game. (6.6 yards per completion; 11 Vereen completions), but he also made two extremely costly turnovers. The first was perplexing, costing the Pats at least 3 points, and the second lead to a Seattle TD drive. I'd say he played well, but he wasn't great.
Montana's SB stats are unreal. 4 games, 11 TDs, 0 interceptions, 1140 yards, and a 128 QB rating. I grew up being in awe of Marino, but those numbers can't be overlooked.
rodderick said:
Receivers weren't protected like fine china, either; defenses were able to play a lot more aggressively. The differences in the game from this generation (and others) to our current one make the "Who's the best?" QB discussion an interesting debate.
So? I assume the 49ers defenses could also play more aggressively. I'm not talking raw stats here, I don't see how the rule changes have made it easier to win in today's NFL.pdaj said:
Yeah, he wasn't great. He just put the team on his back and drove down the field twice in the 4th quarter, with no running game, to take the lead against the best defense this league has seen since the 2000 Ravens. Please point out to me which defense Montana faced in the Super Bowl that was even remotely at that level.pdaj said:
Once again with the whole "he threw the ball short, meh" line of thinking. If it were that easy, Seattle wouldn't have kicked Rodgers' and Manning's teeth in.
He had to throw the ball 50 times against a defense on a historic three year run and ended up with 4 TDs, 326 yards and an 81.1 QBR, plus an unreal 4th quarter. Hard to say that's not great given the context.
rodderick said:
TheMoralBully said:
I'm a big West Coast offense fan. I love the short passing game.
I think Brady executed a very strong game plan and had a stellar 4th quarter; but when you throw two picks in a game, the great and masterful adjectives need to be shelved. Had Seattle handed off of the ball 2-3 times to Lynch at the end of the game, the Pats probably lose by 3, and we're all asking, "What the f-ck was Brady thinking on that 1st quarter throw?" The throw was inexcusable. Never mind the second interception, which lead to the drive that put Seattle up 10.
(Let's not forget that Seattle's secondary was pretty beaten up.)
If an undrafted free agent corner doesn't make that pick, Tom Brady stays in Peyton Manning territory. But the kid makes an incredible play, and now Tom Brady is arguably better than Joe Montana.
Montana was around for 14 seasons (played 13). Brady just completed his 15th. Montana's 49ers both moved on to a better QB and won the SB with Young by this point in his career. Talk about a literal VORP problem.
Brady is still among the top two or three (at most) active QBs you would want running your team for 2015.
Brady is still among the top two or three (at most) active QBs you would want running your team for 2015.
pdaj said:
This game can easily be played in Brady's favor. If Tyree had not made a catch with his helmet, if Kearse had not caught that ball bouncing off his legs, if Welker or Hernandez pull in either of those catchable balls and if Cory Dillon could run out the clock or Asante Samuel makes the catch, we are looking at SB ring number 7.
If the luckiest play in the history of football, the Tyree catch, goes the Patriots way, and if Edelman was playing instead of Welker in 2012, Brady could be 6-0. You just can't look at it that way. Scoreboard.pdaj said:
That 4th quarter seals it for me. He's the best. Montana is the only other in the discussion.
One more Tommy. Just to break the tie.
wiffleballhero said:
Yeah, that's a fair point.. I just think It's funny what legacies turn on. Is Peyton's pick 6 as big of a deal if NO doesn't recover that onside kick?
I have a very hard time placing Aikman near the level of the top QBs. To me, he is no different than BradshawMarcSullivaFan said:
This is both the joy of football -- that a guy like Butler really can steal an entire season with one great play in the right context -- and the reason football is a game where it is almost impossible to compare players in the way we can with baseball. If baseball was like football Ted Williams would be damned to Marino-type marginalization.
While you're right that Montana's Super Bowl stats are otherworldly, I think he gets a pass from most regarding the three straight seasons from 1985-87 where the Niners went 0-3 in the playoffs and Montana failed to throw a TD. He has a 4-3 record in the conference championships compared to Brady's 6-3 record and tacked on another one-and-done in his last playoff appearance, giving him four total (vs. 2 for Brady). Brady is the king of postseason comebacks, too: his 9 GW drives are the most all time with 4 of them in the super bowl.pdaj said:
Toss in the fact Montana had but two 16 game seasons and Brady was just tacking on W after W to his resume and it's clear to me who I'd prefer (Montana's career record as a starter: 117-47; Brady's: 160-47. Seriously, if Montana were to go 16-0 three years in a row, he still wouldn't equal Brady's victory tally!)
I think that Montana best argument is nostalgia.
Brady is just on his own planet. For all of the ways Montana's four is incredible (and the numbers in those games are sort of eye popping) the other seasons have to matter.
Brady is just on his own planet. For all of the ways Montana's four is incredible (and the numbers in those games are sort of eye popping) the other seasons have to matter.
That team, to me, was all about the o-line. Larry Allen is probably the best I've seen. But I Thought Aikman played great. Manning has some problem, I dont know if he puts too much pressure on himself or what. I mean, it is the same story over and over since his days at Tennessee. He has played on good teams too. Tee Martin won a title with Tennessee right after Manning left. It is a sports mystery. The contrast between Eli, even going back to ole miss, and Peyton is interesting.wiffleballhero said:
And if Franco Harris is a little less immaculate then Bradshaw/Knolls have one less. If Everson Walls is just a bit earlier Montana doesn't even make the superbowl that year - there is no "the catch". It doesn't make sense to subtract one play or one moment in time from any QB/team/player and pretend that is equitable.pdaj said:
Often teams in the SB are closely matched. One play can turn on whether the team practised or anticipated a scenario. Garappolo said they ran that exact play/formation as a scout team and beat Butler in practise during SB prep. BB spoke to Butler and told him he needed to play it better. So dismissing it as Brady/Pats being one lucky or freak play away from a loss isn't giving credit where it is do. That is coaching and prepping a team to make a play another team may not make. That is the essense of sustained excellence (even in years they lose by that one play).
There is an amazing amount of so-called "luck" that goes into any team's Super Bowl victory, and many times the games turn on events totally out of the QB's control. Brady's stats didn't change at all during the last 90 seconds of the game, but during that time his legac as one of the greatest QB's, at least in terms of how it will be reported by the media, went from reasonably secure to teetering on the edge to finalized. That's just the nature of the sport. Put Brady in a much poorly managed and coached team does he have 4 rings to his name? Of course, the same could be said of Montana, Aikman, etc.
In any event, Brady's accomplished some feats that have been duplicated by only the absolute best QB's in NFL history, and others that none have accomplished. Numerical rankings seem arbitrary and are impossible to resolve to anyone's satisfaction. Basically, with Brady and Montana we're talking the Howe, Gretzky, and Orr of the NFL; while there may be good arguments to include other QB's in that same echelon, there are no good arguments that would exclude Brady from that group.
In any event, Brady's accomplished some feats that have been duplicated by only the absolute best QB's in NFL history, and others that none have accomplished. Numerical rankings seem arbitrary and are impossible to resolve to anyone's satisfaction. Basically, with Brady and Montana we're talking the Howe, Gretzky, and Orr of the NFL; while there may be good arguments to include other QB's in that same echelon, there are no good arguments that would exclude Brady from that group.
Ian O'Connor, who was a jerk just last week, with a Belchick reversal
http://espn.go.com/boston/story/_/id/12270179/ian-oconnor-how-bill-belichick-father-inspired-an-nfl-great
http://espn.go.com/boston/story/_/id/12270179/ian-oconnor-how-bill-belichick-father-inspired-an-nfl-great
I think if you could take one quarter back for one game or one season you can’t go wrong with any of these:
-Montana
-Young
-Manning
-Brady
-Rodgers
For a multi-year run, I’d remove Young and Montana just because of their relative fragility compared to the others.
For career, it’s obviously between Brady and Manning, with Brady probably having the advantage when all is said and done. Manning does have a quantity advantage, which Brady may close entirely if he ages better than Manning. I think Manning’s slight quality advantage (higher ANYA+, for example) is more due to Manning’s favorable offensive environment (Dome+better receivers). That said, even though I love Brady and hate Manning, I think people may overstate their clutch differences. Although now I’m arguing with myself: Manning does seem to disappear frequently for no real reason in playoff games. I can’t think of too many total Brady stink bombs in the playoffs.
Montana and Young may have better peaks, but just didn’t do it long enough. No one else matches Brady and Manning’s peak performance and longevity. And Manning can’t touch Brady’s playoff success.
Best QB career:
Brady
Manning
Montana
Young
Marino
Rogers is close to breaking the top 5 already and could very well finish #1 when he retires.
-Montana
-Young
-Manning
-Brady
-Rodgers
For a multi-year run, I’d remove Young and Montana just because of their relative fragility compared to the others.
For career, it’s obviously between Brady and Manning, with Brady probably having the advantage when all is said and done. Manning does have a quantity advantage, which Brady may close entirely if he ages better than Manning. I think Manning’s slight quality advantage (higher ANYA+, for example) is more due to Manning’s favorable offensive environment (Dome+better receivers). That said, even though I love Brady and hate Manning, I think people may overstate their clutch differences. Although now I’m arguing with myself: Manning does seem to disappear frequently for no real reason in playoff games. I can’t think of too many total Brady stink bombs in the playoffs.
Montana and Young may have better peaks, but just didn’t do it long enough. No one else matches Brady and Manning’s peak performance and longevity. And Manning can’t touch Brady’s playoff success.
Best QB career:
Brady
Manning
Montana
Young
Marino
Rogers is close to breaking the top 5 already and could very well finish #1 when he retires.
MyDaughterLovesTomGordon said:
Well, yeah. You think Brady or Giselle are going to drive around a Chevy?
pdaj said:
Just like he hit that Bengals DB in the numbers (who inexplicably dropped a gimme interception), right before throwing the game winner to Taylor? We can play that game too.