Armchair Quarterback: Patriots’ QB not quite a legend yet
Is Tom Brady the next Joe Montana, or is he the NFL’s most recent attempt to create the next quarterbacking legend?
With the Patriots heading to their second Super Bowl in three years, this time as the odds-on favorite, the hype has already begun as some experts want to inaugurate Brady as the heir apparent of the likes of Montana, Elway and Unitas. The guy is even showing up at the president’s State of the Union address for goodness sake, with the only apparent difference between he and President Bush being that Brady is getting more air time as of late.
Sure, Brady has done a fine job since taking over for Drew Bledsoe two seasons ago. But trying to pencil him in with the greats is a bit too premature, especially when you consider he still has to win a game on Feb. 1 for his second ring.
And, if you’re trying to use the numbers to put him among this rare company, then that won’t work. This year he finished 10th amongst AFC quarterbacks with an 85.9 rating, throwing for 3,620 yards and 23 touchdowns. His numbers were significantly less than Peyton Manning and Steve McNair, the two players behind whom he finished in the MVP balloting.
You also cannot say his performance goes up during playoff time, since his quarterback rating actually dropped to 74.6 during the playoffs. Conversely, his counterpart on Feb. 1 — Jake Delhomme — proved to be the playoff playmaker, raising his quarterback rating from a regular season mark of 80.6 to 102.6 during the Panthers’ three-game run to the Super Bowl.
Of course, Delhomme only threw 14 passes in his team’s win over the Eagles last week. It’s hard to get into trouble throwing fewer passes than are thrown in a pee-wee football game.
Should Brady go on to win the Super Bowl next week and collect his second ring, I’ll still be among the skeptics when it comes to placing him in the ring of honor. When Montana won his big games, he did it with big time plays down the stretch like the pass to Dwight Clark (which was way overthrown) and the hit to John Taylor to close out their win against the Bengals. He also had targets like Jerry Rice and a big-time back in Roger Craig. Brady doesn’t have this because Deon Branch isn’t Jerry Rice and an aged Antowain Smith isn’t a Roger Craig.
Instead, the Patriots’ success has been a team accomplishment, spurred mostly by defense and the ingenious game planning by Coach Bill Belichick. When you consider four interceptions against Peyton Manning last week and a clutch field goal which skirted the uprights by Adam Vinatieri against the Titans, it’s safe to say the Patriots’ success has been spread out across the entire team, and not sole work of Brady.
He’s more of a field general, out there to make some plays and allow his supporting cast to win the games. Now, this is not to the degree of a Trent Dilfer, who was put in there to take up time before his defense took the field and won the game for him. Actually, Brady is somewhere between a Dilfer and a Montana, and granted, that’s a wide field.
Of course, it’s not surprising the NFL wants to bill him as the next Montana. That’s just sports. Look at how the NBA has tried to bring up the “next Jordan.” They’ve tried Tracy McGrady, Vince Carter and now Lebron James. However, none of them will ever be Jordan because each great one carves out their own niche, and try as they will, no one will be able to fill the shoes of their legendary status.
Is Brady a good quarterback? Of course. Is he amongst the greatest? No, not yet anyway. He’s still got quite a bit of career to go. Perhaps if he creates some historic highlight reels and keeps his team at the top, maybe then he’ll receive consideration, but for now, he’s still on the Dilfer end of the scale until he proves himself Feb. 1.