Tom Brady didn’t need to retire as the best quarterback in NFL history and the league’s greatest player of all time to create speculation about whether anyone can challenge him for both titles anytime soon. Everyone who participates in that exercise is wasting their time. There is only one Tom Brady and there will never be another QB who gets close to his legendary status.
Brady is set to step away from the game as he planned, given he’ll turn 45 late in the 2022 offseason. After 22 seasons, seven Super Bowl rings in nine trips with two teams and countless regular-season and playoff records, it’s impossible for anyone else to enjoy that level of team and individual success for so long ever again.
If there ever would be an NFL player enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame twice, Brady is the only worthy candidate. He had two separate 10-year stretches of greatness.
He ascended to unquestioned GOAT status before leading the Patriots to their epic comeback win over the Falcons in Super Bowl 51. That was before adding another AFC championship and another ring in New England in Super Bowl 53. Lifting Tampa Bay immediately to a ring as a wild-card team in Super Bowl 55 at age 43 was the ultimate topper.
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At age 37 almost eight years ago, Brady declared he would keep playing until he “sucks.” That day never came, all the way through his Age 44 season in 2021, when he led the league in passing yardage (5,316) and passing touchdowns (43). That was the first time he had done that since the middle of his so-called prime in 2007.
By every statistical, scouting and straight-up eye-test measurement, there’s nothing Brady left on the table during his career. As he leaves the game, many wonder whether he would have ever stopped competing for championships at a high level.
Brady came into the league when Brett Favre was prolific and when Peyton Manning and Drew Brees were just getting started with their respective greatness. Kurt Warner was Brady’s counterpart in his first Super Bowl. Not long after, Eli Manning and Ben Roethlisberger came into the NFL from the same draft. Following that, Aaron Rodgers and Russell Wilson burst onto the scene and looked like they would rack up multiple rings.
All those quarterbacks will be keeping company with Brady in Canton someday. Their accomplishments still pale vs. what Brady did. When looking at greatest-ever QB lists now, some of those Brady contemporaries are joined by Joe Montana, Dan Marino and John Elway. But looking at longevity, production, proficiency and winning, Brady has open-and-shut cases against them all.
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With Brady owning the past and present, the only possible challenge to him as the GOAT lies in the future. Brady is responsible for securing his own legacy as the primary person to usher in the modern passing boom, which gave rise to more teams figuring out QB with the most talented young passers (and runners).
Brady’s play with the Patriots and Buccaneers laughed in the face of the NFL’s desire for parity. From 2002-21, a Brady-led team was in the Super Bowl nine times, or a ridiculous 45 percent of the Super Bowls in those two decades. It’s even more ludicrous to think Brady’s lucky seven rings account for 12.7 percent of all 55 Super Bowl victories. No QB can expect to sniff that level of dominance going forward.
Patrick Mahomes is 26 and has one ring in two Super Bowl trips. It looked as if he might reign supreme for a while with the Chiefs starting a Patriots-like run of Super success. But in Mahomes’ conference post-Brady, the Bills’ Josh Allen and the Bengals’ Joe Burrow look like they will be in for some rings, too. Justin Herbert, Lamar Jackson and Mac Jones are waiting behind them. Trevor Lawrence and Tua Tagovailoa have the talent and potential to challenge for rings at some point as well.
The NFC, led by Rodgers, Wilson, Matthew Stafford and Dak Prescott post-Brady (for now), doesn’t have as many promising young guns, but it can get there in a hurry. There will be more legitimate Super Bowl contenders on the board overall, because it’s no longer only a handful QBs with Brady one can actually see lifting the Lombardi Trophy.
So a QB will not only need to win at a high rate but also do it for a long time. Remember when Montana’s four Super Bowl rings to zero losses and the way he got there seemed like the untouchable standard? Brady almost doubled that. In relation to Brady running away with a marathon, matching Montana for any QB now feels like crawling into the back end of the conversation.
Brady was just that GOAT over the years. What once was a debate graduated to a coronation. Now, he can be expected to rule the NFL forever.