The following will be from a series of posts I did elsewhere on here regarding the topic of QB's and the accolades they receive. It will start off with a post about winning in general, followed up by some more in-depth looks at whether Tom Brady is the best QB playing today (never to mind ever), a Peyton vs Tom comparison, a look at Joe Montana vs Steve Young and finally a recap of the playoffs and SuperBowl.
*** I'll guarantee you'll learn at least one new thing by reading this. And yes, it is long, but if you can't read something long, then don't bother to start with.
And let me state upfront that Tom Brady is my hometown guy and I can't stand Peyton Manning (as I am a Florida Gators fan and thus pretty much hate everything that comes out of Tennessee).
People can say Tom is the best today or the best ever, but the only things that they can base that on are "wins" and "SuperBowl rings." While that is important, ask yourselves whomever you deem to be the greatest 5 QB's ever, how many SuperBowl rings would they have had if they played their entire career on Arizona or in Detroit? The answer is zero. So equating wins to greatness therefore is silly at best. The reason why the great QB's can't win on a terrible team is because the QB is merely 1/22 of the starting lineup. He needs great players around him to win.
The facts are that EVERY SINGLE QB that has won the SuperBowl would NOT have won it if they played on the worst team in the league that same year. Why? Because the team wins, not the individual.
With that said, let's begin (and I apologize in advance for any "choppiness" as I've cut and pasted and attempted to "smooth" it out as best as possible without spending a lot more time doing so):
Why Do So Many Equate Winning With INDIVIDUAL Greatness?
Seriously, I am so sick of hearing "so and so" is great because he has won "x" number of championships. In this case today, Tom Brady is the so and so.
If Tom Brady were on the Miami Dolphins, how much "winning" do you think he would be doing? How many SuperBowls would Tom have then? What about Derek Jeter... if he played for the Royals, how many Championships would he have? Exactly how many Championships has Kobe won without Shaq? How many Stanley Cups did Wayne Gretzky win without Mark Messier, Paul Coffey, et al?
If Dan Marino played on the Cowboys or 49ers and Montana and Aikman played on Miami, who do you think we would be talking about with all the Championships today? Go and look where the 49ers, Cowboys and Dolphins defenses ranked during those times if you don't believe me. How is it that Marino has zero Championships, but Trent Dilfer and Doug Williams each have one? By the reasoning that others use, then Dilfer and Williams must be better than Marino.
How is it that Steve Young was a nobody in Tampa, but a Hall of Famer once he got to San Francisco? I'm sure Jerry Rice and a top notch defense didn't help him out any. Or what about Plummer... his record sure improved when he went to Denver and got out of that losing trap that is Arizona.
Winning is because of the TEAM!!!!! Trying to say that a player is a great because he wins on a team with 21 other starters is foolish at best. Is Tom a great player, yes. Is he the best ever? No. He's not even the best QB playing in the NFL right now. Heck, he's not even the best QB in his own conference. I'm sure having one of the premier defenses in the NFL doesn't help him win.
To see how much this influences people, look no further than Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin. Both of them are in the Hall of Fame, but there are people that are far more deserving that haven't made it in because they haven't "won a championship." Take Dave Krieg for example and look where they compare all time:
Troy: Pass TD's #52, Pass Yards #23, Completions #14, TD Percentage #168
Krieg: Pass TD's #10, Pass Yards #12, Completions #11, TD Percentage #57
Or what about Irvin and Reed:
Irvin: Receiving TD's #39, Receiving Yards #16, Receptions #24
Reed: Receiving TD's #10, Receiving Yards #8, Receptions #5
And there are plenty of others on that list that are not in the Hall of Fame despite superior numbers. If Aikman played on Arizona all of those years, how would he have done? Or what about Irvin? So instead we reward them because they were 1/22 of a starting team that was outstanding and we call the individual player "great?" There are at least double-digit receivers in the NFL right now that are every bit as good if not better than Michael Irvin. TO, Moss, Holt, Harrison, etc, etc, etc... So he gets to go to the Hall of Fame just because he got to play on the same team as Emmitt Smith and Deion Sanders? What if Reed played on Dallas and Irvin on Buffalo? Maybe Reed would have multiple SuperBowls under his belt and Irvin might have zero.
To see if a player is truly great, then one should put them on the worst team in the league and see how they do. Michael Jordan would make any team significantly better. Peyton Manning would make any team significantly better. Josh Beckett would make any team significantly better. Mario Lemieux would make any team significantly better.
Take Jeter and place him on the worst team in baseball. He would still be a very good player, but his stats would have a sharp decline without all of the other players "protecting" him in the lineup. He would have ZERO championships. Jeter is a great player, but he isn't one of the greatest of all time just because he won a bunch of championships on a stacked team.
When are people going to realize that teams win and not individuals? If it was just great players that won championships, then Kobe would have a boatload without Shaq. Elway would have won without Terrell Davis. Kevin Garnett would have been winning without Ray Allen and Paul Pierce. Jaromir Jagr would have been winning without Lemieux. Greg Oden and Kevin Durant would have won the National Championship. And so on and so on and so on.
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Additionally, these "records" set by Brady are not the best seasons for those stats in my opinion.
Tom Brady: 50 TD's Peyton Manning: 49 TD's.
Sure Brady has more, but Manning did it in far fewer attempts. Brady had 50 TD's in 578 attempts. Peyton had 49 TD's in only 497 attempts. Thus, if Peyton had thrown the same number of times as Tom did, Peyton would have thrown for 57 TD's. Or if we go back to remove the additional 81 passes (578-497=81) from Tom last year, by just removing his last game, that pulls off 33 attempts and reduces his TD total by 3, thus to 47 and behind Manning. So just because Peyton threw less, he shouldn't get the short end of the stick in terms of accomplishments.
Moreover, in that year, Manning's defense ranked #19 in the NFL and Brady's ranked #1 going into the final game. That means Brady had better field position, wasn't coming from behind when other teams KNEW they had to pass, etc, etc, etc.
In fact, there have been 20 (that's right, count them 20) different times where QB's have thrown for a higher TD to attempt ratio than Tom Brady did this year. So he passed more... great.
*** If Sid Luckman threw the same number of attempts that Tom Brady did this year in 1943, then Luckman would have thrown for 80 TD's!!! That's right, 80. So whoopee... Tom threw a crapload of times and scored a bunch of TD's... who would have thought?
Before Randy Moss came, the most TD's Brady ever threw in a season was 28!!! Hardly sounds like the greatest QB ever when guys like Jeff Garcia Steve Bartkowski had multiple seasons better than that. Funny how Brady's stats go up by 22 TD this season and Randy catches 23 TD's... surely there is no correlation there.
Guys like Steve Young were multi-dimensional who could pass every bit as well as Brady, but could also run the ball effectively for big yardage. That is a far greater asset than just a guy that can throw it.
Peyton vs Tom:
There is basically nothing that points that Brady is better than Peyton other than his winning percentage, which as I've already explained is due to his TEAM.
Brady has played 7 full seasons and Manning 10 (all of these numbers are factoring out the first year that Brady played where he had only 3 attempts):
Times over 4,000 yards: Brady 2, Peyton 8.
Of the 50 greatest yardage seasons EVER, number of times on that list: Brady 1, Peyton 7.
Career Yards Per Game: Brady 235, Peyton 260.
Average Yards Passing Per Attempt: Brady 7.2, Peyton 7.7
Career Completion Percentage: Brady 63.0%, Peyton 64.2%
Times per season with passes over 20 yards: Brady 46.6 times, Peyton 51.9 times
Times per season with passes over 40 yards: Brady 8.4 times, Peyton 9.3 times
Of the 50 greatest TD passes in a season EVER, number of times on that list: Brady 1, Peyton 4 (actually 4 in the Top 38).
Number of times over 30 TD's: Brady 1, Peyton 4
Number of times over 90 for QB Rating: Brady 3, Peyton 7
Number of times over 100 for QB Rating: Brady 1, Peyton 3
Of the Top 50 greatest QB Rating seasons EVER, number of times on that list: Brady 1, Peyton 4
Career QB Rating: Brady 92.9, Peyton 94.7
What's even more amazing is that Peyton has been sacked less times for less yardage in 10 years than Brady has done in 7 years.
In fact, Tom Brady can't even hold Peyton's jock. Brady is outstanding, but he is not in the class of Peyton if all things were equal. If you put both of these guys on a crappy team, say Miami, Peyton Manning would have superior numbers because he is clearly the better QB. Give Peyton Randy Moss and see how he does. And before you start talking about how he has Marvin Harrison, he didn't have him this year and instead he turne