by Michael Severance

Created on: March 13, 2007   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

Having been trumped in a prior article "Can Tom Brady be compared with Joe Montana," with more statistical analysis is frustrating. The only analogy I can use for this argument is a baseball analogy; Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, and Greg Maddux are all dominant pitchers from the same era. Having seen all three of these pitchers, would anyone ever compare Roger Clemens and Greg Maddux? Would anyone ever compare Randy Johnson and Greg Maddux? Of these three guys, which are most similar? Would a logical person not compare Roger Clemens and Randy Johnson (Clemens is clearly better, by the way). This was my point about how and why the first person who made the comparison based it on field demeanor, not stats.

Since everyone likes to drop stats though, I did the research and the math on some important stats and I did not skew them in my favor. It is a side by side analogy of Joe Montana 1980-1985 vs. Tom Brady 2001-2006. Joe Montana had a 7-2 playoff record, including 2 Super Bowl wins. Tom Brady is 12-2 in the playoffs with 3 Super Bowl wins. Tom Brady threw 2.22 TD's/P/Int in the playoffs while Joe Montana threw 1.88 TD's/P/Int in the playoffs. Tom Brady threw 1.42 TD's/P/G, while Joe Montana threw 1.41 TD's/P/G. I'm not making this stuff up folks, and the stats showed like that seem to swing in Brady's favor, no? BUT, that's not where I'm headed with this.

Everyone who has ever watched a football game or two and wants to point in Brady's favor brings up Jerry Rice. Yeah, that certainly helps having a 13 time pro-bowler on your team. How about having 5 additional pro-bowl receivers on your team for the majority (and prime) of their careers? They are; Dwight Clark (2), Roger Craig (4),John Taylor (2), Brent Jones (4), and Wendell Tyler (1). I'd also like to give an honorable mention to Tom Rathman, who never made the pro-bowl, but caught a heck of a lot of passes out of the backfield for the Niners.

To date, Tom Brady has thrown to 3 pro-bowlers, but it's laughable. Corey Dillon, whom most wouldn't consider much of a receiving threat. Terry Glenn, who caught an astounding 14 Tom Brady passes... oops, wait, some of those were from Bledsoe. And Larry Centers caught 19 passes, of which some may have been from Brady. Thats all folks! Couldn't be more than 50 passes thrown to a pro-bowler.

Want more evidence? How about the fact that Tom Brady is playing in a salary-cap and free-agency era. Or how bout the fact that he is playing in an era of faster, stronger defenses, and complicated defensive packages like the zone-blitz? Doesn't all this information now seem to swing HEAVILY in Tom Brady's favor? Well, forget about it. That wasn't where I was headed with all of this either.

Its not a matter of who is better or what the stats say. The question posed in that article is "Can Tom Brady be compared with Joe Montana?" Having seen both on the field for many, many games I can say that you'd have to be crazy to not see the similarities in their playing styles, and their results. Is it really so inconceivable that Tom Brady would emulate his boyhood hero? And they are both great players in their own right.

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