Record Records - Part 2 NFL-II: Tom Brady

Sporting achievements that will probably never be repeated or bettered, an opinion

Scrutinising sport is a funny thing. It’s a competition of physical prowess, mental toughness, team work, preparation, all that jazz that coaches go on about. But it’s hard to put a number on mental toughness, hard to precisely define how prepared an athlete is, hard to objectively state the team work at play. But we want to know these things! The inherent nature of competition drives the desire to quantify who is competing the best, and those really invested in the culture and fabric of a sport know that winning titles and medals doesn’t always reflect this. And so we get statistics, analytics, numbers based solely on output and production by the athletes, an imperfect but inescapable surrogate for what we really want.

This series is a celebration of those in their sports that have statistical achievements so impressive I don’t think they’re likely to ever be bettered or even repeated. This is by no means supposed to fulfil some perfect list of the most impressive records and statistics across the sporting world, these are just records that are interesting and incredible in my opinion, and are therefore of course very much centred on the sports that I love or pay attention to. This series of articles is focused on sports that I am attached to, so, apologies for inevitably missing some incredible record in a field I’m ignorant of. 

This week we continue with American football and turn to the inevitable analysis of Tom Brady.

To hear the breakdown of Jerry Rice and his records, as well as more of an introduction to statistics in American football, see the first part of this series.

Tom Brady - Playoff Success

The GOAT. Image taken from ProTalk

Is there an NFL player more non-NFL fans have heard of than Brady? Tom Brady is a global household name, like LeBron James or Serena Williams, maybe not quite Michael Jordan or Muhammad Ali, but it's arguable. And there’s a reason for that. Now, readers who know me will know that I'm not usually one to sing Brady's praises, his career with New England put me off for several reasons. Firstly, he and his also legendary coach, Bill Belichick, have been caught cheating on numerous occasions. Secondly, Boston fans can be pretty toxic (though in their defense there are lots of toxic fan bases, and they are used to a lot of success). Thirdly, and certainly primarily, they just had so much damn success, and were smug about it. They had every reason to be of course, but I think Australians have a particular aversion to smugness. Not necessarily arrogance, Aussie's loved Lillee and Thompson's swagger, but when conceit is mixed in we're often rankled. Think Kyrgios, Cameron Smith, Stuart Broad, actually most English cricketers. But it’s hard to justify when the smugness is backed up by results, and boy oh boy did Tom Brady produce results. Now, right at the start, let me warn you that this is a larger piece than I meant to write, I just had a lot to write about. You’ve been warned.

It’s NFL legend now, but Tom Brady, unlike every other QB presented or torn down in the greatest of all time debate, was not an early draft pick. Let’s have a look at some comparisons. Some consensus top tier quarterbacks and their draft positions are as follows:

Retired (and in the hall of fame):

• Joe Namath - 1965, Round 1, Pick 1, 1st overall

• Joe Montana - 1979, Round 3, Pick 28, 82nd overall

• John Elway - 1983, Round 1, Pick 1, 1st overall

• Dan Marino - 1983, Round 1, Pick 27, 27th overall

• Troy Aikman - 1989, Round 1, Pick 1, 1st overall

• Brett Favre - 1991, Round 2, Pick 6, 33rd overall

• Steve Young - 1994, Round 1, Pick 1, 1st overall

• Peyton Manning - 1998, Round 1, Pick 1, 1st overall

Retired (and soon to be in the hall of fame):

• Drew Brees - 2001, Round 2, Pick 32, 64th overall

• Ben Roethlisberger - 2004, Round 1, Pick 11, 11th overall

• Philip Rivers - 2004, Round 1, Pick 4, 4th overall

• Matt Ryan - 2008, Round 1, Pick 3, 3rd overall

Still playing (but are consensus hall of fame already):

• Aaron Rodgers - 2005, Round 1, Pick 24, 24th overall

• Matthew Stafford - 2009, Round 1, Pick 1, 1st overall

• Patrick Mahommes - 2017, Round 1, Pick 17, 17th overall

The obvious trend that jumps out from that data is that top QBs tend to get drafted early, very early, many with the 1st pick of the draft. Montana stands out for going in the 3rd, but it’s the exception. That list accounts for almost every spot of the top 15 career passing touchdowns list. Two from that list not included above are Eli Manning and Carson Palmer, who were both drafted 1st overall. The glaring omission from that list of career passing touchdowns is the man atop it. Tom Brady was drafted in the 6th round, the 199th player of the 2000 draft.

Following a solid college career he was expecting to go in the 2nd or 3rd round, but after a lacklustre combine he wasn’t a very highly regarded prospect entering the draft, clearly, sliding to the 199th pick. The Patriots took him as a prospect, a rookie way down the pecking order behind their established passer, respected journeyman Drew Bledsloe. He barely played a snap that season, but through his work ethic and performances at training climbed his way up the depth-chart from 4th to 2nd-string option by the end of the 2000 season. Bledsoe was injured in the second game of 2001, and having earnt the back-up role, Brady replaced him. It was a pretty good year for his first starting, making the Pro Bowl, then winning the Super Bowl, the first in Patriots history and getting named the Super Bowl MVP in the process…

Before we continue with Brady’s illustrious career (a record setting one coincidentally) let’s take a moment to discuss quarterbacks and their statistics. As we talked about in the Jerry Rice piece, the NFL is all about the pass. The gradual dominance of this aspect of the game meant that by the 60s and 70s quarterbacks were becoming the key commodity, but the 80s and 90s was when this turned into super stardom. Montana, Elway, Marino, Esiason, Fouts, Theismann, Young, Moon, Aikman, Kelly, so many legends of the game. This set the stage for the modern era, where QBs are the face of their franchise, the leader of the team, even early in their careers. In most teams the highest paid player by some margin, and for all but the best drilled franchises the dreams of Super Bowl glory are tied to having a great QB, and keeping them healthy.

The nostalgia of those heydays of quarterback explosion means names like Montana and Marino are usually the top of most peoples QB lists, and modern contenders have to be truly dominant. Season success and Super Bowls are credentials that apply to all eras, but actual production and statistics, these have only accelerated in recent years as the league continues to squeeze every drop of passing potential out of their offence. This is to the point where a side by side comparison of a modern journeyman, a QB many teams would be happy with but no-one would even contemplate as an all time great, against a legend from the past, will massively favour the modern player in terms of raw numbers. The statistics that matter most in quarterback production are:

• Passing yards

• Passing completion percentage

• Passing touchdowns

• Interceptions

That’s pretty much it. A good quarterback is supposed to generate a lot of yards through the air to get first downs for the team, they're supposed to throw touchdowns to get the points for the team, and they're supposed to not turn the ball over to the other team via interceptions. Completion percentage is nice as it indicates a more efficient offence, but no team would mind a QB with a low percentage as long as they weren’t throwing interceptions and still put up lots of yards and scores. Though even the scores are secondary, afterall once you’re close to the endzone (and being within 20 yards of the opposition's goal area or endzone is referred to as being in the red zone) there are plenty of ways to get points, you can run it, kick it, pass it, but the scoring is the important part, not how. So passing yards is arguably the key statistic, with yards per attempt an indicator of how deep the quarterback is throwing the ball on average, where a deep throw is more valuable in terms of territory, but more risky as it gives defenders more time to get to the ball. Passing yards and touchdowns have exploded in recent decades.

But a great example of change in quarterback emphasis is the quirky statistic unique to the position: Passer Rating, or QuarterBack Rating (QBR). This was designed in the early 70s as a metric to assess how good a performance a quarterback has had. It’s quirky because it is designed around ratios, four ratios in fact, and each ratio is capped at a certain value. The combination of these ratios then gives the QBR. I would love to do a deeper dive into this metric, but I think I’ll save that for a future instalment when we explore a player with a certain record to do with QBR. But, it serves a purpose here to illustrate how much the league has changed in regards to quarterback statistics. To get a high QBR you need to do well in all four points above, you need a good completion percentage, plenty of yards per attempt, touchdowns per attempt, and very few intercepts per attempt. A rough rule of thumb is that a score of 100 indicates a very good game, with the highest possible score (thanks to those caps) being 158.3, which is called a perfect game. This metric was designed to assess a given player’s game performance, but can just as easily be applied to a player’s season, or career, or even the league as a whole, it’s just ratios after all. The league average in 1973, the first year the statistic was recorded, was 61.7, while in 2020 it had grown to 93.6. That’s more than a 50% increase! So now you have quarterbacks who many would have in the discussion for worst in the league and in danger of being benched who’s rating per game would be a top 10 player in the 80s. It makes inter-generational comparisons tricky.

Which is why this article on Brady is more about the metrics outside of his production as a quarterback, the records he owns that truly make him the greatest of all time (the GOAT). These are why I think he gets the nod over the likes of Montana, not because of his statistics as a quarterback, because as we’ve noted most modern QBs would have him beat by those standards, but because of his team achievements. So let’s get back to Brady after he won that Super Bowl, in his second year (and first starting) in the NFL, the first title the Patriots had ever won despite being an original team of the AFL-NFL merger in 1970. Well the renowned championship hangover hit the team following their first title, and they finished the 2002 season 9-7, narrowly missing the play-offs. Though Brady did lead the entire league in touchdown passes. Well the let-down season clearly didn’t deflate the now 25 year old Brady, as the team would return to the play-offs in 2003, culminating in winning Super Bowl 38, with Brady again the MVP after breaking the NFL record for completed passes in the final. The next year they wisely decided against the championship hangover (I don’t know why more teams don’t do this?), breaking the record for regular season wins for reigning champs, and winning back-to-back Super Bowls, only the 7th team to achieve the feat, and still the most recent to do so. Brady was now only the fourth player ever to win three Super Bowls as the starting quarterback (and no-one has joined the club since), and he did so before his 28th birthday, years younger than the other three guys in that exclusive club.

Victorious for the 3rd time following Super Bowl 39. Image taken from the Tampa Bay Times

At this stage he already had a hall of fame calibre career, but before it could crack on the championship hangovers came back, and though the coming years weren’t flops by any measure, they failed to make it back to the biggest stage. 2005 saw them make the playoffs but were knocked out early, though Brady had again led the league in touchdown passes. 2006 they improved on the record and again made the play-offs, but this time they got agonisingly close, knocked out in the conference championship (the semi-finals for those not familiar with NFL playoff structure) courtesy of an inspired 4th quarter come-back by Peyton Manning and the Colts. 2007 was the year though, I could summarise it but I think Wikipedia does a damn fine job:

“Brady finished the season with 4,806 passing yards, 50 touchdown passes, eight interceptions, and a career-high 117.2 passer rating. It was unanimously voted the greatest passing season of all time by ESPN in 2013. His 50:8 touchdown to interception ratio was, at the time, an NFL record. He became the first quarterback to pass for 50 touchdowns. He led the Patriots to the first undefeated regular season since the 16-game schedule was implemented in 1978. He directed an offense that scored a then-NFL record 589 points and 75 total touchdowns. The team's 50 total touchdown passes is the fourth-most ever in a season. For his efforts, Brady was named the Most Valuable Player and Offensive Player of the Year. He was also honored by the Associated Press as their Male Athlete of the Year, the first time an NFL player earned the honor since Joe Montana won the award in 1990. He was named as a First-Team All-Pro and to his fourth career Pro Bowl as a result of his historic season.”

I mean damn, good job. But it was for nought, as the perfect Patriots were unable to replicate the legendary feats of the 1972 Dolphins, the only team with a true perfect season, undefeated in the regular season and Super Bowl champions. Brady dominated the play-offs, but, in now famous scenes, lost to the New York Giants in one of the greatest upsets in sports.

So since going back-to-back, the Patriots had enjoyed by every other team’s standards three excellent years, with a combined record of 38-10 (regular season), making the playoffs every year, and the Super Bowl in one of them. But they hadn’t added to the trophy case. To cap it off Brady injured his knee in the first game of the 2008 season, and missed the rest of the year. It would be the only time he ever missed a game due to injury throughout his incredible career. Coming back from injury Brady and the Patriots picked up right where they left off, dominating the regular season, putting up incredible statistics, but missing out on titles. They suffered their first home playoff loss in 30 years to be knocked out in 2009, then decided to do the same again in 2010 despite Brady coming off his second MVP award, then in 2011 they made it back to the Super Bowl only to again face the New York Giants, and again lose in an historic upset (the Giants had scraped into the play-offs with an 9-7 regular season record). 2012 and 2013 were two more seasons with incredible results most of the year only to be knocked out in the playoffs before reaching the Super Bowl.

Let’s go over that again, 3 titles in his first 4 years as starting QB, then in the next 8 years would lose two Super Bowls, and miss a year due to injury. But they were still great years, in the 12 completed seasons as a starter the team had made the playoffs all but once, including winning the division the other 11 times, equalling the record for any QB before that (Montana). In those 12 seasons he had been to 5 Super Bowls and already had the record for most playoff appearances for a QB! Sure he lost 2 finals to the lousy Giants, but still, had this been the end of the success it would still be an all time great career. But of course, there was much more to come.

Not enjoying the Giant’s celebration. Image taken from Essentially Sports

In 2014, Brady’s 13th season starting, they once again clinched the division (now breaking the record) before finally returning to Super Bowl glory, beating the Seahawks in Super Bowl 49, and becoming only the second starting QB to win 4 titles. In 2015 they narrowly missed the final, again losing to Peyton Manning in the semi-final (this time with the Broncos). In 2016 however they were back to it, winning Super Bowl 51 over the Atlanta Falcons (the less said of the game the better thank you very much) to become the first starting QB to win 5 rings. 2017 they again made the Super Bowl, though this time lost in a stunning upset to the Philadelphia Eagles. 2018 and you guessed it, they made the Super Bowl again, for the third consecutive year, and the fourth time in 5 years, this time victorious over the Los Angeles Rams, as Brady broke the record for most Super Bowl wins by any player, as well as bringing the Patriots equal with the Steelers for franchises with the most championships.

So yeah, 2014-2018 was a pretty good stretch…

2019 however saw the relationship between Brady and the Patriots begin to crack, he indicated a desire to stay on, but was only signed for two years with the option to go into free-agency early. He and Belichick had public spats and while they started the season 8-0 there was discontent within the organisation. The second half of the season went downhill, finishing 12-4 and being knocked out in the first round of the play-offs. In the off-season, on the day before his contract expired, he announced the end of a 20 year career with the New England Patriots.

Wow, what a career. 9 Super Bowl appearances, 6 of them wins, the most playoff appearances by a QB, the 2nd most career passing yards and touchdowns, record levels of division titles and conference championship appearances, just incredible, hall of fame without a doubt. Wait, *checks notes* there’s more? Because you see Brady didn’t announce his retirement that day, just the end of his time with New England. He signed a deal with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and in his first season with them, aged 43, he took his new team to their first Super Bowl in 18 years, and defeated the reigning champion Chiefs in Super Bowl 55. Again, Wikipedia does a better job than I could summarising how insane this was:

“Brady was awarded Super Bowl MVP for the game. His two touchdown passes to tight end Rob Gronkowski set a record for most postseason touchdown passes for a passer-receiver duo, with 14, breaking the mark previously held by Joe Montana and Jerry Rice. Brady extended his record for most Super Bowl wins by a player with his seventh and extended his record for Super Bowl MVP awards, with five. Brady became the second quarterback, joining Peyton Manning, to lead two different teams to Super Bowl wins, but the first to win Super Bowl MVP with two different teams. He was also the first quarterback to win the Super Bowl with teams from different conferences…With the win, Brady became the oldest quarterback in Super Bowl history to start, play, win, and receive the MVP award.”

Goddamn it Brady, just stop it. 

He made the playoffs again in the 2021 season but was knocked out by eventual champions Los Angeles. He announced his retirement after that season. But of course that wasn’t the end, he came back for 2022 despite the retirement and played another full season for the Buccaneers. He made the playoffs again (because of course) though it was only because the division was so weak, as he suffered his first ever season with a losing record as a starter. They were knocked out in the first round of the playoffs, and he retired for the second and (so far) final time.

Phew, okay, my apologies for what was a lot more bio than I initially intended, I just couldn’t stop myself, it was too damn interesting. I’ve always begrudgingly respected Brady, but researching this piece I just found myself more and more impressed, and now I think I’ll be joining the camp of arguing his place as the GOAT, not just of quarterbacks, but all NFL players.

But let’s look at the stats first.

By playing those last few years with Tampa Bay, Tom Brady ended up with the following records (for first analysis):

• Most career completed passes

• Most career passing yards

• Most career passing touchdowns

That’s the all-time passing crown for all three key quarterback statistics (in the following plots an * indicates a player is still active in the NFL):

But as with Rice, these records can mostly be attributed to longevity, and the impressive feat of maintaining high quality over such longevity. Look what happens to those plots when we change it from career totals to per game:

As we can see, players still in the NFL have higher numbers on the whole, because they’ve yet to have the final few less productive years most players suffer. The other thing of note is how impressive Brees, Manning, and Rodgers are. Though remember, these numbers are just the per game stats for those who are also in the upper echelons of career numbers. The best per game stats exceed these even more (though they are on the whole players early/mid in their careers so not comparable statistics). This is not to dismiss Brady, not at all, I mean even in these adjusted plots he’s right up there in each category, just not as dominant as the career totals. This exercise is instead to illustrate that his career totals are not the impressive records he owns, and they also go some of the way to showing that he is probably not the best quarterback of all time. But, as we’re about to explore, he’s absolutely the GOAT, but it’s the greatest player of all time (GPOAT?), not the best QB.

But Jacob, aren’t QBs the most important player? How can he be the best player of all time and not the best QB? Well reader, that’s a good point, but what I mean by best QB is the person who is, in isolation, the best at their job, while the best player is the one who most impacts a team’s likelihood of winning. Now, this is a tricky thing to quantify, afterall great teams usually have lots of great players, great coaching, great atmosphere etc. So we’re not getting into that right now. Instead I’m just going to use stats to sell my case (which is of course the whole point of these pieces). Let’s look at the most wins by any player in the history of the NFL in regular season starts:

But, most of those guys are kickers, who play forever and pile up crazy longevity numbers (though still not as many wins as the GPOAT). So, let’s just look at QBs, the leaders of the teams, to get a sense of what we’re talking about here:

Alright, now we’re talking, that’s an insane margin Brady has on the rest. Now what about playoffs, Brady made the playoffs a record number of times, and so of course we expect similar dominance there:

Oof. And the only other QB on that list is right at the end, Montana. Check out the same data for just QBs:

I mean, it’s mental right? Brady is (to use an American word that’s never sat right on my tongue) the winningest player (of any position) in the history of the NFL, both in regular season games and the play-offs. When we look at percentages though, we see the impact of all those years Brady took the Patriots to the play-offs but didn’t make the Super Bowl (though of course he did make a record number of Super Bowls, so a little harsh of me here):

As we can see his regular season winning % amongst QBs is incredible, all the more so considering how long he played for. I mean, how do you play long enough to get the most wins of all time, but still have the best winning percentage? It boggles the mind. His playoff record is pretty great too, though here the law of averages finally caught up, with some of the players with vastly fewer playoff runs having better averages.

Here are all the major records Brady has to boast (I pruned a few overly specific ones):

• Most games won by a player: 251

• Most games played by a non-kicker: 335

• Most division titles: 19 (17 with New England, 2 with Tampa Bay)

• Oldest player to win NFL MVP: 40

• Most career passing yards: 89,214

• Most career pass completions: 7,753

• Most career touchdown passes: 649

• Most Pro Bowl selections: 15

• Most seasons as passing touchdowns leader: 5

• Most 4th quarter comebacks: 46

• Most consecutive seasons in the NFL playoffs by a team, player or head coach: 14

• Most playoff games started: 48

• Most playoff games won by a starting quarterback: 35

• Most playoff touchdown passes: 88

• Most playoff passing yards: 13,400

• Most playoff passes completed: 1,200[86]

• Most NFL conference championship appearances by a starting quarterback: 14

• Most NFL championships by a team, player or head coach: 7

• The only starting quarterback to win the Super Bowl for both the AFC and NFC

• Most Super Bowl MVPs: 5

• Most Super Bowl touchdown passes: 21

• Most passing yards: 3,039

• Most passes completed: 277

• Oldest QB to win a Super Bowl: 43 years, 6 months, and 4 days

• Oldest player to win Super Bowl MVP: 43 years, 6 months, and 4 days

And then there are of course an insane amount of franchise records he holds for the New England Patriots, not to mention a bevy with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers despite only playing three seasons there. To over-simplify, the guy has a lot of records.

Finally, the real question, will they be broken?

Well, I mean, probably some of them, he has like a million, they can’t all stand. I genuinely think the career production numbers are doable (unlike Rice), in that there are players with better passes/yards/TDs per game absolutely killing it right now; if they play for 20 years they will definitely break the records, though that is asking a lot. But the success records, those are as unbreakable as almost any other in sport. Most QBs only play around 15-20 years. To break his playoff records you would need to be winning your division (quite the feat) almost every year, making the playoffs even when you don’t, progressing to the semi-finals more often than not, and appearing in almost as many Super Bowls as you don’t for the length of your career. Just look back above at how far ahead of the pack Brady is in regards to wins, regular season or otherwise. I mean check this out:

It’s just ludicrous. I mean the guy won a Super Bowl, and the MVP for the game, at the age of 43. He’s won more titles on his own than any team has, and he proved it wasn’t just the environment, winning a Super Bowl his first year with Tampa Bay. New England by the way have had a combined record of 25-25 since his departure, so smack on 50% without him, ouch Belichick…

There is one guy who might challenge some of Brady’s numbers, which is Patrick Mahomes. He has won two Super Bowls in his first 7 years, and it looks like he’ll win a few more, though the key pieces that won those first two are already fading, so it would need continued improvement to maintain those odds. I think Mahomes is on track to break Brady’s production numbers, but despite his success so far, it’s bordering impossible to think he’ll break the success records. Mahomes does already have multiple seasons leading the league in TDs, so that record of Brady’s is possible, 5, but is still unlikely considering the other talent going around right now.

All in all, with the way the league has developed into a more balanced and shifting dynamic in terms of team success, I think his career wins (regular season and play-off), play-off production (yards, touchdowns), Super Bowl wins, and oldest to win Super Bowl records are all untouchable.

So while it pains me to say this, Brady really is the GOAT.

But come on, this is a bit smug right? I’m not crazy? Picture taken from People