Rooting against Tom Brady or trying to pretend he was nothing but a system quarterback should have been shelved 15 years ago. Somehow it lingers on Dolphin sites due to desperation to make Dan Marino more than he ever was.
Since you decided to go here, I gotta specifically comment on it. Because IMO it shows a complete lack of understanding.
Even the late great Bill Walsh once said, “Joe Montana was the product of the system, Dan Marino was the system."
I wouldn’t call Brady a product of a system per se, but rather the product of a great team and great organization. Unlike Marino, Brady didn’t play for many super flawed teams. Teams devoid of good defense and special teams. And when the Pats were flawed, they didn’t win Super Bowls. Or even appear in them.
By all means, name one team Tom Brady carried despite a subpar defense and non-dependable kicker. Hint: it never happened.
One thing the masses fail to ever recognize or acknowledge is that football is the ultimate team sport. It’s not singles tennis or an individual olympic sport. It’s not even basketball where one or two players can make an enormous impact playing both ways.
One player can’t win by themself. Not even with 2 or 3 super star players. The entire team has to be good. On both sides of the ball and on special teams. Brady (and Montana) played on many teams that had all the above. Marino did not. Therein lies the difference.
Take prime Marino and swap him for Montana/Young on the 49ers from 1983-1994 or swap him for Brady from 2001-whenever and he’d have been a part of numerous Super Bowls as well. Exactly how many is debatable. But to actually debate that he wasn’t good enough to win with team‘s as talented as those completely impugns one’s knowledge of the game.
Some brief examples of how important teammates are:
If Adam Vinatieri doesn’t make TWO high difficulty FG’s in the 2001 AFC title game during blizzard conditions, Brady’s and the Pats number of SB appearances is down to 8.
We‘ve seen Uwe Von Schamann and Pete Stoyanovich blow playoff games for the Dolphins that could have eventually landed them in SB’s. And Jim Kelly and the Bills saw Scott Norwood cost them a SB win. Things none of those QB’s had control over, but surely suffered from.
If Malcolm Butler doesn’t make a fantastic jump on Russell Wilson’s pass or if Pete Carroll and Co. made a better play call, the Pats don’t win another of their 6 titles. Again, a play that the QB had no part of. And it decided the outcome.
If Kyle Shanahan didn’t have a complete meltdown with situational play calling after being up 28-3, or if Matt Ryan had better situational awareness and not taken silly sacks that any veteran QB — let alone an MVP — should understand not to do the Pats would have even one less title. Again, plays and circumstances that the QB on the opposing side had nothing to do with. The Pats defense took advantage and Brady, again, was a teammate that benefitted.
I get the shoulda, woulda, coulda argument. The reality is that those things ALL happened and the Pats were 6-3 in SB’s with Tom Brady as the starting QB. However, the fact that the above all happened further demonstrates how important the entire team is. Because Tom Brady didn’t make any of those things happen. And without them happening, the Pats would have made 8 SB appearances instead of 9 and they would have been 3-5 in those games rather than the eventual 6-3. (Yes, we could dig even deeper and bring up the Manning/Tyree play that took a title from Brady, but Vinatieri and the defense/st also made big plays to win other SB’s and big games too)
If we‘re talking 3-5, nobody is emphatically touting Brady as goat.
And let’s not forget to acknowledge that the first few SB’s the Pats won with Brady were largely driven by the defense and special teams. NE won their 1st SB holding one of the most prolific offenses to 17 points. They recently won another holding the Rams to 3.
You don’t think Marino or Kelly or Fouts does the same with the benefit of the same type of defense and special teams? Anyone that doesn’t is fooling themselves.
In the end, a QB is at the mercy of how good his team is. Ask John Elway who was no better a QB on the 2 SB winners he was a part of than the 3 teams he led that were annihilated in the SB. In fact, I firmly believe most knowledgeable watchers would say w/o hesitation that Elway was a much better player during the years the Broncos lost. It was only due to his greatness that they overachieved with a severely flawed team that was exposed by much better teams.
I believe Tom Brady is an all-time great. I’ve always been on record believing he is and was better than his contemporary, Peyton Manning. Even back when it was an unpopular take.
But I don’t believe he’s GOAT. Or clearly better than the likes of Montana, Elway, Marino, Fouts, or Kelly. I believe those QB’s (among others) would have accomplished the same if handed the same circumstances. And that even includes playing for 20 years. Because they didn’t get to play during an era in which they couldn’t be hit. I’m sure Montana would have benefited from that change the most. He lost years of his career due to the (now illegal) hits sustained largely against the NY Football Giants.
Funny, but the majority don’t seem to consider Bill Russell to be GOAT despite the 11 titles he had a large hand in winning. The argument against is how great and deep those Celtics teams were. Instead the likes of Jordan, Kobe, Magic, Kareem, and LBJ are largely given that monicker. So "most titles" doesn’t seem to automatically equal GOAT in that instance.
But somehow in the sport of football where one player has even less of an impact and reliance upon teammates is stratospherically higher — that’s when "most titles" seems to automatically equate GOAT?
Sorry, I’ll never buy into that.
Marino was as great as any QB that’s ever played the game. It’s not his fault that MIA never built a well-rounded team like SF, NE, and PIT did for many years. Or even his own Dolphins did a decade before he arrived on scene. Had he led those teams in the early 70’s they’d still have won. And probably won 1or 2 more. I grew up first watching Griese and Csonka. Love them dearly. But Griese was no Marino. And those 70's era teams were good enough to win with Earl Morrall. Because they had a great all-around team. And mostly because they had an elite defense. MIA never had a team from 1983-1999 good enough to win a title with any of Marino's backups.
Now convince me I’m wrong, Mr. Kuchenberg.......