It's a team sport, as everybody has pointed out, and as I agree. You want to believe that there's nothing different between a QB who wins championships and one who doesn't. Fine. You can do that, as an American.
For me, I'll take that if the game's close in the 4th quarter, that the teams themselves are about evenly matched. That means the 4th quarter is about who's got the better QB. And when Brady started playing in 2001, it was like somebody flipped the lightswitch from Bledsoe. Games that Bledsoe would typically lose Brady was suddenly winning. It was that stark. His teams (him included) were good enough to make the 4th quarter close; so were Bledsoe's teams; the game was still undecided when they got into the 4th quarter.
Brady won those games. Bledsoe lost. I've argued about Belichick's ego in this thread---his trading Bledsoe to a team within his own division?---that wasn't ego; that wasn't an ego mistake (as opposed to a rookie mistake)---Brady never lost to Bledsoe. Never. 'Played him twice, every season.
Never.
I'm a homer, yup. But it don't mean that what I saw didn't happen. This guy got behind center and all the sudden the Patriots were a winning team---a censored multiple SB winning team. Suddenly.
'You don't see it in the stats? 'You just see, quote-unquote, mediocrity? Please. I didn't take you for such a numbers guy. You can't see even what's happening on the field. I assume you've played the game, as I have, so it's not complete armchair QB'ing, like it would be if a lady, for instance, were weighing in on the game. Assuming you have---don't you remember what it's like to play with, or play against, or be: a winner? A championship winner. A multiple, sustained, championship winner. Surely, you've run into one or two. They aren't mythical creatures, their only limitation is the limit of their God-given talent, which every single one of them "goes all-in" on, and maximizes.
We're talking about those guys. The winners, the sustained multiple championship winners, and when a team fights a team through three quarters to a stalemate, then who wins that contest, has a better QB. And the higher the stakes, the higher the weightings on that performance. And Montana beats all. No doubt. It is a serious shame that we couldn't watch him more. But Brady is on the same liquor shelf as Montana, up there with Bradshaw. Champions.
They're champions. Brady's a champion. You say what you will about his coach, I certainly have. He is a champion. He belongs in the same conversation with Montana, though Montana is the gold standard in SB/whole season performance.
Getting cut down in the playoffs, like in 2011 . . . that's not what champions do, neither is losing to GIA after doing everything to beat them for a meaningless 16-0 when 15-1 would've been just fine. So, that's not how a champion is going to be remembered. We're going to remember the champion as a champion, like Peyton, like Seinfeld. He'll go out on top, so of course, Brady the champion was going to win at least one more. We couldn't remember him for 18-1. He had to win again, and he did. Maybe he will again. He certainly could have already won 5---both losses to GIA hinged on veritable miracle plays, and we almost lost this last one to another miracle play, but fortunately, in this game, we received a miracle play in return. Phew.
'You rather imply that Peyton's season was inferior to Brady's---what a joke. In the single game this year where he lined up against Brady, that mattered, his team won, in a tightly contested 4th quarter. Manning outplayed Brady in that game---their teams, as most anybody can tell---were evenly matched. It came down to Brady versus Manning, and Brady lost, and Manning won. Brady couldn't overcome his two interceptions. Joe Montana didn't throw a single interception in all four of his---and I do mean 'his'---SBs. So Montana made it easy for himself. He was never trying to atone for his own sins. He didn't have any. What Brady's doing is the best that a mortal can do.
Homer. Guilty as charged.
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