Please note before anyone yells at me: My comments about Brady will be primary negative but I still think of him as an all-time great who based on career value has a solid GOAT case.
If we say not good enough is one star and all-time great is 5 stars, Tom's first 20 game average is 2.05 stars, while Mahomes's average is 3.38 and Rodgers's average 3.05. In Thinking Basketball (A book I recommend to any sports fan even if you are not into basketball), the author describes winning bias as "A tendency to overrate how well an individual performed because his team won and underate how well an Indvidual performed because his team lost." If this sentence doesn't explain Brady and Rodger's postseason reputation, I don't know what does. (https://footballfilmroom.substack.com/p/aaron-rodgers-has-been-a-great-playoff).
Outcome bias is all over this. How anybody contemporary could've seen those 2001 playoffs (especially the last two games) and not thought to themselves 'this QB is really holding his team back' is beyond me. Granted, nobody thought Tom was all that great back then, but due to the winning I'm not sure they grasped how bad he truly was either.
Along the line, the poor performance in the regular season eventually stopped, but the poor performance in the playoffs kept right on going all the way up until 2010. In this way, Tom reminds me some of Tua Tagovailoa, if Tua Tagovailoa had been able to win a Super Bowl while scoring 29 offensive points in a whole postseason like Tom did in 2001.
I guarantee that's the first time you've heard that comparison.
Yeah, in terms of comparison I actually thought of Lamar Jackson. Lamar's career and Tom's career up to 2010 is eerily similar. Both have 2 MVPs including a unanimous one and another near unanimous one. Both lead two of the greatest regular seasons a team has ever had, 2019 Ravens and 2007 Patriots, both have played with the best D/ST support of their generation, and both have won more than 75% of their games. Tom has played better in the postseason more so because Lamar has greatly struggled there, but the point remains.
However, I don't quite get the Tua comparison. I know neither have high end arms and Tua has struggled in playoff settings but that seems to be the end of the similarities. Maybe I am missing something.
I was comparing Tom to Tua because both spent years at the beginning of their career struggling in the regular season before turning it around. However, the playoff success lagged behind the regular season success (for Tua, it hasn't yet come at all, but who says it never will?).
I'm not sure I love the Lamar Jackson comparison, because he has never been the regular season struggler that Tom Brady was from 2001-2003. As a comparison to 2004-2010 Tom Brady though, Lamar is a very good one.
We're grasping at straws here because it's hard to find a comparison for Tom Brady. It's just not often that a man comes into the league struggling, wins championships he doesn't deserve, but then grows into it and wins championships he does deserve. It'd be like if Mark Sanchez grew into a good player after the 2009 and 2010 Jets runs, or if Joe Flacco became the face of the league after the 2012 run. Bad QBs winning happens so rarely, and I think a bad QB winning and then growing into a QB with 12 top five finishes on my tier list (or even anything similar to this career arc) is so rare it may have never happened before or after.
It's like three careers in one. Tom Brady has been Trent Dilfer (sucking in the reg and playoffs but winning anyway). He's also been Tony Romo (elite in the reg, struggle in the playoffs), and in the next part of this series he becomes Aaron Rodgers (elite in the reg, not the best but still great in the playoffs).
Please note before anyone yells at me: My comments about Brady will be primary negative but I still think of him as an all-time great who based on career value has a solid GOAT case.
If we say not good enough is one star and all-time great is 5 stars, Tom's first 20 game average is 2.05 stars, while Mahomes's average is 3.38 and Rodgers's average 3.05. In Thinking Basketball (A book I recommend to any sports fan even if you are not into basketball), the author describes winning bias as "A tendency to overrate how well an individual performed because his team won and underate how well an Indvidual performed because his team lost." If this sentence doesn't explain Brady and Rodger's postseason reputation, I don't know what does. (https://footballfilmroom.substack.com/p/aaron-rodgers-has-been-a-great-playoff).
The concept by which you grade playoff games is, in my opinion, an upgrade/clearer version of Adam Steele's GPA style on football perspective (https://www.footballperspective.com/guest-post-quarterback-performance-vs-playoff-wins/).
All in all, I was pumped to open my inbox and see this because I love articles that dispel false narratives, and Brady is the false narrative king.
I'm glad you liked it Marc!
Outcome bias is all over this. How anybody contemporary could've seen those 2001 playoffs (especially the last two games) and not thought to themselves 'this QB is really holding his team back' is beyond me. Granted, nobody thought Tom was all that great back then, but due to the winning I'm not sure they grasped how bad he truly was either.
Along the line, the poor performance in the regular season eventually stopped, but the poor performance in the playoffs kept right on going all the way up until 2010. In this way, Tom reminds me some of Tua Tagovailoa, if Tua Tagovailoa had been able to win a Super Bowl while scoring 29 offensive points in a whole postseason like Tom did in 2001.
I guarantee that's the first time you've heard that comparison.
Yeah, in terms of comparison I actually thought of Lamar Jackson. Lamar's career and Tom's career up to 2010 is eerily similar. Both have 2 MVPs including a unanimous one and another near unanimous one. Both lead two of the greatest regular seasons a team has ever had, 2019 Ravens and 2007 Patriots, both have played with the best D/ST support of their generation, and both have won more than 75% of their games. Tom has played better in the postseason more so because Lamar has greatly struggled there, but the point remains.
However, I don't quite get the Tua comparison. I know neither have high end arms and Tua has struggled in playoff settings but that seems to be the end of the similarities. Maybe I am missing something.
I was comparing Tom to Tua because both spent years at the beginning of their career struggling in the regular season before turning it around. However, the playoff success lagged behind the regular season success (for Tua, it hasn't yet come at all, but who says it never will?).
I'm not sure I love the Lamar Jackson comparison, because he has never been the regular season struggler that Tom Brady was from 2001-2003. As a comparison to 2004-2010 Tom Brady though, Lamar is a very good one.
We're grasping at straws here because it's hard to find a comparison for Tom Brady. It's just not often that a man comes into the league struggling, wins championships he doesn't deserve, but then grows into it and wins championships he does deserve. It'd be like if Mark Sanchez grew into a good player after the 2009 and 2010 Jets runs, or if Joe Flacco became the face of the league after the 2012 run. Bad QBs winning happens so rarely, and I think a bad QB winning and then growing into a QB with 12 top five finishes on my tier list (or even anything similar to this career arc) is so rare it may have never happened before or after.
It's like three careers in one. Tom Brady has been Trent Dilfer (sucking in the reg and playoffs but winning anyway). He's also been Tony Romo (elite in the reg, struggle in the playoffs), and in the next part of this series he becomes Aaron Rodgers (elite in the reg, not the best but still great in the playoffs).