In case you haven’t been paying attention to the world of sports over the last 20 years, there’s been one constant: Tom Brady wins … a lot.
In fact, Brady has been to more Super Bowls (10) than every franchise in NFL history other than the New England Patriots (11), and Brady took New England to nine of those appearances. Brady has won more Super Bowls (7) than every other franchise in NFL history; the Steelers, Patriots, Cowboys and 49ers are the next closest, each with six, six, five and five Super Bowl wins, respectively.
Other Brady records include most Super Bowl MVPs (5), Joe Montana has three, most Pro Bowls (14), tied with Peyton Manning, Tony Gonzalez, Bruce Matthews and Merlin Olsen, most conference title games (14), Montana has seven, most postseason wins (34), Montana has 16, most regular season wins (230), Favre and Manning each have 186, and a plethora of other ridiculous regular season, playoff and Super Bowl records, including:
- Regular games started (299)
- Most passing yards, regular season and playoffs (91,653)
- Most passing touchdowns, regular season (581)
- Most passing touchdowns, postseason included (664)
- Most touchdowns thrown to different receivers (77)
- Game-winning drives, postseason included (62)
- Division titles (17)
- Playoff games started (45)
- Playoff touchdown passes (83)
- Playoff passing yards (12,449)
- Super Bowl touchdown passes (21)
- Super Bowl passing yards (3,039)
Hard to make a real argument here that anyone else is even remotely close to Brady’s status as the GOAT of the NFL.
But what about Jerry Rice?
Jerry Rice has long been called the GOAT, well before Brady ever took a snap for the Patriots, and his case is supported heavily by his resume and career statistics. When Brady was still in diapers running around San Mateo, Calif., all Poo Bear style in a 49ers T-shirt, just a few miles south of Candlestick, Rice was torching the NFL en route to three Super Bowl wins, a Super Bowl MVP, 13 Pro Bowls, and a bevy of his own insane records that will likely never be broken.
Rice has 208 total career touchdowns, 33 more than second place (Emmitt Smith has 175). And he also holds the record for most career games played by a position player (303), most career receiving yards (22,895), most career receptions (197), most career touchdown receptions (197), most career yards from scrimmage (23,540), most career all-purpose yards (23,546), most seasons of 1,000 or more receiving yards (14), the fastest player to reach 100 touchdown receptions, and the fastest player to reach 13,000, 14,000 and 15,000 receiving yards. WOW! It all makes sense now why Jerry launched GOAT Fuel, his very own energy drink.
Many will argue that Rice is the better athlete and therefore the true GOAT. The case being that running routes, getting tackled, dealing with Deion Sanders in man-to-man coverage, and going across the middle vs. Ken Norton Jr. are far more daunting tasks than sitting in a nice cozy pocket throwing darts to Gronk and Julian Edelman, but we don’t agree. Rice had Joe Montana and Steve Young! Has any receiver in history ever had two Hall of Fame quarterbacks like Montana and Young? Even Jeff Garcia and Steve Bono could sling it! And besides Gronk and Edelman (and Randy Moss), who exactly has Brady been throwing to all these years? Deion Branch? Danny Amendola? Troy Brown? No offense to those guys, but Brady hasn’t had a real receiving corps in his entire career until he landed in Tampa Bay with Mike Evans, Antonio Brown, Gronk, and Chris Godwin.
The Bucs were 7-9 in 2019 and had been to the Super Bowl once in franchise history. Brady arrives and they go 11-5, and beat Brees, Rodgers and Mahomes in the playoffs en route to Brady’s seventh ring! Maybe (BIG MAYBE) if Rice had won that 2003 Super Bowl with the Raiders with Rich Gannon slinging him the rock, there would be more of an argument here, but with Rice at three rings and Brady at seven, there is no debate.
Tom, GOAT Fuel is calling on Line 1!
Photo Credit: Google Creative Common Licenses, Twitter
