A Case for Tom Brady as the Greatest Team Sportsman of All-Time
I’ve written a lot about the New England Patriots and their sixth Super Bowl victory in the past week and I’ll have more to come over on UpToBoston! I’m going to do a lot of championship off-season profiles and I will probably write about if Julian Edelman is a Hall of Famer or not over there, too. But for now I needed to embrace the Medium format, because it doesn’t limit me to three hundred and fifty words. I’m now ready to make the case that Tom Brady is the greatest team sportsman of all-time.
Before I write this, I need to explain what I mean. For one, I think Tom Brady is the greatest sportsman or woman to ever play any sport ever. He is the pinnacle of everything that has to do with athletics. He has topped Michael Phelps. He has topped Roger Federer and Serena Williams. He is the best who has ever competed. However, I am not intelligent enough about those other sports that are more individualized to make a compelling argument for Brady, at least not yet. That’s why I’m specifying that he’s the greatest team sportsman.
And to make this argument, one has to compare Brady to those who are considered the greatest at their respective sports. I’m excluding college sports because it would feel absurd to try to compare them to Bill Walton or Tim Tebow. Instead, I’m focusing on baseball, football, basketball, and hockey at the professional level.
For baseball, the representatives have to come from more of the modern era. It’d be impossible to compare the greats of Mickey Mantle, Babe Ruth, Cy Young, and Ted Williams to anyone like Brady. We have to tackle baseball from the post-color barrier breaking era. It’s hard to quantify pitchers so I neglected Randy Johnson or Nolan Ryan. I debated back and forth between Willie Mays, Barry Bonds, and Hank Aaron. Bonds has the steroid controversy so he’s out. Aaron slightly edged out Mays and while Mays was the better overall player, Aaron is one of baseball’s closest comparisons to Brady, sans the championships. But let’s real, Yogi Berra and Derek Jeter have a lot of rings, but they don’t come close. Hank Aaron represents the MLB.
For basketball, the championship argument would come from Bill Russell. But I firmly believe that anyone from the Larry Bird/Magic Johnson era onwards would smoke Russell in a one-on-one game. Everyone has gotten so much more physical since the days of Russell and Wilt Chamberlain. It’s no contest. The only contest is between Michael Jordan and LeBron James. Jordan fits the Brady mold of immense talents, universal GOAT recognition, and six championships. But LeBron fits the mold in terms of longevity and winning at a consistent level. LeBron isn’t quite there yet, though, and while I think he’s the better athlete when compared to Jordan, it still has to be MJ, at least for now.
For hockey, it’s Wayne Gretzky. This is the least controversial of any sport.
Now, we have to examine what each of these four athletes did to become the greatest in their respective sports. Here are their credentials:
Tom Brady
Six Super Bowl championships
(Definitely going to be a member of the) Football Hall of Fame
Four Super Bowl MVP Awards
Three NFL MVP Awards
Fourteen Pro Bowl selections
Three time NFL All-Pro First Team
Two time NFL All-Pro Second Team
Two time NFL Offensive Player of the Year
2009 Comeback Player of the Year
Three time NFL passing yards leader
Four time NFL touchdowns leader
Two time NFL passer rating leader
2007 AP Male Athlete of the Year
2005 Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year
NFL 2000s All-Decade Team
Nine AFC Championships
Only quarterback with 200 regular season wins (207 and 237 overall)
Has never had a losing season
Most wins in postseason history (30)
Eight consecutive league championship games (NFL record) and thirteen total
Most passing yards and touchdowns in a career (including playoffs) with 81,693 and 590 and counting
2,838 Super Bowl passing yards and 18 Super Bowl touchdowns
1,003 career rushing yards
Hank Aaron
1957 World Series champion
Baseball Hall of Fame
1957 National League MVP
Three Gold Glove Awards
Twenty-five All-Star selections
Two National League batting titles
Four time National League home run and RBI leader
Atlanta Braves Hall of Fame
MLB All-Century Team
2,297 career RBIs, the most ever, and 755 career home runs, second most ever
.305 career batting average and 3,771 hits over twenty-two seasons
Michael Jordan
Six NBA championships
Basketball Hall of Fame
Five MVP Awards
Six NBA Finals MVP Awards
Ten leading scorer seasons
1987 Defensive Player of the Year
1984 Rookie of the Year
Fourteen NBA All-Star selections
Three NBA All-Star Game MVP Awards
Two Slam Dunk Contest titles
Ten All-NBA First Team selections
One All-NBA Second Team selection
Nine All-NBA Defensive First Team selections
One All-NBA Rookie First Team selection
ESPN’s #1 Athlete of the 20th Century
1991 Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year
Three time AP Male Athlete of the Year
Seven Sporting News MVP Awards
Two Olympic Gold Medals
30.12 points per game in his career, an NBA record
Wayne Gretzky
Four Stanley Cup championships
Hockey Hall of Fame
Nine Hart Trophies (MVP)
1979 Rookie of the Year
Ten Art Ross Trophies (scoring champion)
1980 Humanitarian Award
Two Conn Smythe Trophies (playoff MVP)
Five Lester B. Pearson Awards (players’ choice MVP)
Five Lady Byng Memorial Trophies (sportsmanship)
Six Western Conference championships
Four Lou Marsh Trophies (Canadian athlete of the year)
Three All-Star Game MVPs
1982 Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year
1982 AP Male Athlete of the Year
Olympic Gold Medalist
Most goals, most assists, most points of any player, including playoffs (and even including All-Star games)
2,857 total points
Gretzky has more career assists than any other NHL player has career points
So now that we have that all settled, I think the only thing everyone can agree on is that all of those four athletes are just incredible winners and athletes. And by no means do I mean to say that Tom Brady is the greatest athlete of all-time. But “sportsman” means that he is not only a great athlete, but he’s also the best winner to ever play team sports. Obviously, you cannot do it without a team, but Brady has been one of two constants for the Patriots’ success, along with head coach Bill Belichick.
And it’s hard to argue against Gretzky. His accomplishments are astounding and entirely untouchable. Brady is nearing that point, as well, even now at the age of forty-one. Aaron probably has the least effectual argument. And every season seems to chip away at the records set by Jordan.
So it really seems like it’s between “The Great One,” Gretzky, and “The GOAT,” Brady. And I know I’m biased, but I have to give the edge to Brady. Gretzky’s achievements are impossible, sure, but he also played at a time where competition is slimmer and the NHL is very wide open.
Brady on the other hand has done what he has done with every season presenting different challenges to him, whether it’s smear campaigns and smear suspensions from the league or constant rule changes. On top of that, he keeps getting older. At this point, everything Brady does has defied logic. The NFL, with its salary cap and in-game rule changes (while built to help the quarterback, they’re also built to help everyone else, too), is designed to prevent careers like Brady’s from happening, in the interest of parity. So why can’t the league understand that one of the most interesting storylines they’ve ever had is still playing and he just won his sixth title?
Brady has achieved everything he has despite insurmountable odds and by being great and I think Gretzky was simply great (curse me for using “simply” to describe him). But it’s true. Brady has both of those factors compounded and he won in his first season as a starter and his most recent, which are seventeen years apart. He’s not the best athlete, but he’s the best winner. He’s the best that football has ever seen. And he’s the best that sports has ever seen.
I mean, just think about Brady’s career divided into three segments. His first period has three Super Bowl titles and many great awards. His second has one of the most dominant statistical eras of any athlete, but with no Super Bowl titles (two appearances, though). And his third has three more Super Bowl titles with countless records being broken. Each of those periods supports a Hall of Fame career. And he’s done all three of them! With a season-ending knee injury in the middle of it all!
You can look at the statistics. You can look at the honors. You can keep a tally. But all you need to do is think about the odds that were stacked against Brady as he became the winningest athlete of his sport and, comparatively, of any sport. Think about where he came from, where he is, and where he still plans to go. At the top of all sports, it’s Tom Brady. I’m sorry if it’s a little bit too praise-heavy, but it’s true. He’s done it. He has nothing left to prove.
And he’s still going.
Let’s just enjoy the ride.
