I grew up a fan of the San Francisco 49ers. They won five Super Bowls between 1981 and 1994. From 1981 through 1998, the only season in which they failed to win at least 10 games was 1982 (which was a nine-game schedule because of a players’ strike). They were the organization that revolutionized offense in football through the advent and success of the West Coast Offense, built by the man I still consider the ultimate genius of football, Bill Walsh.
The 49ers finished in the top five in total offense an incredible 15 years in a row and in 16 out of 17 during this run. Only once from 1981-2001 did they finish lower than eighth in total points scored. At one point they led the NFL in points scored an incredible four consecutive seasons.
Leading all of this was a triumvirate of quarterbacks: Joe Montana. Steve Young. Jeff Garcia. Montana is a Hall of Famer, in my opinion the greatest who ever lived and a four-time Super Bowl winner. Young will be in Canton once he becomes eligible, was twice the NFL’s most valuable player, and won a Super Bowl. Garcia is a three-time Pro Bowler and a star in his own right. These three have lit up the skies with their passing underneath, down the field, and in the deep middle. In fact, in order, Young, Montana and Garcia are the second, third, and fourth highest rated passers of all-time.
So it seems blasphemous for me to say what I am about to say: Tom Brady is the best quarterback in the National Football League.
What? Brady?
HE WAS ONLY THE 10TH RATED PASSER THIS YEAR! HE WAS ONLY 10TH IN TOUCHDOWN PASSES! HE ONLY FINISHED SIXTH IN YARDS!
HE DOESN’T HAVE BRETT FAVRE’S ARM! HE’S NOT AS ACCURATE AS PEYTON MANNING! HE CAN’T RUN LIKE MICHAEL VICK!
In the past, such arguments may have been valid. Not anymore. The quarterback position has changed since the days when Montana and Young were winning Super Bowls with their perfectly thrown passes.
What Brady does seems so simple. He takes short drops. He throws to open receivers, primarily on short crossing routes, rarely challenging defensive backs down the field. It seems like any number of quarterbacks should be able to do this. Yet no one does it like Brady does. And the characteristics that Brady has are more important than any number of yards Peyton Manning throws for or touchdown passes Brett Favre fires through defenders.
Football is a sport in which the statistics rarely paint even a small portion of the entire picture regarding how good a player is. In football, the only statistic that means anything to anyone, especially for a quarterback, is wins. It is not like baseball, where only the most foolish of fans would call Derek Jeter a better shortstop than Alex Rodriguez because he has four more rings. In football, it’s all about the wins, and that is especially true of quarterbacks.
And Brady wins more than any other quarterback. He is cool under pressure. He is an accurate passer. He makes quick decisions. He doesn’t make mistakes. He is a galvanizing force in the locker room, capable of uniting all 53 players. And when his team needs him to do it, he can deliver the big play. In an NFL where the best teams are not significantly more talented than the worst teams, these attributes are far more valuable in a quarterback than anything else.
Brady is not the only such quarterback. The Carolina Panthers nearly won the Super Bowl behind Jake Delhomme, an undrafted free agent out of Louisiana-Lafayette who only rarely saw the field while a member of the New Orleans Saints. Delhomme is the first true Brady prototype. He was the 14th highest rated passer in the NFL in 2003 and 12 quarterbacks passed for more yardage but Delhomme rarely makes mistakes, he has a flare about him that rallies his teammates, and he has a cool under fire that few quarterbacks possess. It is no accident that Delhomme’s Panthers won 10 games by a touchdown or less because Delhomme makes the plays when they are needed most. Just like Brady.
Recent Super Bowl quarterbacks were much the same. Brad Johnson will never be considered a superstar quarterback and he will never lead the league in passing yards or touchdowns. But at the helm of an offense with a limited amount of talent, Johnson proved himself to be a leader who did not make mistakes and could move the offense when he needed to. The Buccaneers won the Super Bowl doing this.
Trent Dilfer won the Super Bowl in much the same way. A wash out in Tampa Bay, Dilfer moved to the Ravens and galvanized his teammates despite his limited ability, convincing them he could take them to the promised land. He did not make mistakes, and in the playoffs he made one big play in every game. The Ravens offense was not great but it was effective and the steady hand of Dilfer was a large reason why.
Meanwhile, the Titans went to the Super Bowl a few years ago with Steve McNair leading the way before McNair became the player he is now. In those days, he was making safe plays and leading his teammates, but when he needed to make the big play, he made it. No one will forget McNair nearly single-handedly pulling out Super Bowl 34 on the final drive. Rich Gannon did the same for the Raiders in their Super Bowl year, although his statistics looked better than the others because he had a supporting cast capable of making far more big plays.
All of this comes back to Brady, however. He is the standard. His cool under pressure allowed him to beat out the highly-touted Drew Henson for the starting job while at Michigan, where he went 2-0 in bowl games. In the NFL, he is 7-0 in overtime, 6-0 in the playoffs, and a two-time Super Bowl MVP, both times leading his team to the winning points in the final minute of the game. Perhaps the only major blemish on his big-game record was a 1998 loss to archrival Ohio State while he was a junior and first-year starter at Michigan.
Brady will never be Manning or Favre or Daunte Culpepper. And in the new NFL, that is a good thing. In the new NFL, it may even be detrimental to have the physical tools of Manning because in the playoffs, a good defense will always find a way to shut down a high-powered through-the-air passing attack. However, with a quarterback as gifted as Manning, a coach will never realize this and will continue to try and win it on his quarterback’s arm.
Franchise’s see the wondrous skills of quarterbacks like Manning and Favre, feel like they need to cater their offense toward his strengths, invest heavily in offensive linemen and wide receivers, and don’t spend enough on the defense. The Colts lost to the Patriots because of this in the AFC Championship game. The Rams lost to the Patriots in Super Bowl 36 because of this as well. Manning and Kurt Warner combined for seven interceptions in those two games as their coaches stubbornly forced them to keep throwing the ball, trusting that these superstar quarterbacks could beat the best defenses.
But it doesn’t work that way in the NFL anymore. The best statistical quarterbacks will rarely have success against the best defenses, especially in huge games. And that makes a quarterback like Brady, so steady, so in control all the time, and able to manage with lesser skilled players around him, all the more valuable.
It is unlikely that the Patriots will ever come close to matching the offensive output of the 49ers from 1981-2001. It is unlikely that Brady will ever put up the numbers of contemporaries such as Manning, Culpepper, Matt Hasselbeck and Trent Green.
But Brady is better than all of them.
He’s not Montana. He’s not Young. But like Montana and Young at their peak, Brady is the best quarterback in the NFL.
He is the standard.
