Is it possible to compare quarterbacks from different eras?
New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady throws a pass during an organized team activity at the team's facility in Foxborough on Thursday.I received an email earlier this week from a reader perturbed about a line I wrote that stated Tom Brady was solely focused on earning his fourth ring this year so he could join the ranks of Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana as the most decorated quarterback in NFL history.
The man took umbrage with the fact I didn’t think Brady was already there, even though I was only speaking in terms of rings – Brady has three, Bradshaw and Montana four.
I wanted to reply with an answer that put everything in perspective, but I found it difficult because it’s impossible to accurately compare quarterbacks across eras.
The game isn’t played the same way, players are more athletic and the schemes have evolved. The fact that people even talk about these things has bugged me for a long time. When people put Tony Romo’s stats up on the screen next to Roger Staubach’s, it’s basically the equivalent of comparing what Thomas Edison knew when he was alive to what Stephen Hawking knows today.
That’s how much football has evolved over the last four or five decades.
It’s easy to look at Bradshaw’s first 12 seasons (51.8 completion percentage, 26,144 yards, 193 touchdowns, 199 interceptions) and say he pales next to Brady (63.8, 39,979, 300, 115) and Montana (63.6, 34,998, 242, 123), but it’s also inaccurate.
What used to be considered good, quality coverage is now considered pass interference. And today’s roughing-the-passer calls used to be a friendly way of letting a quarterback know to get off the tracks when the train is coming through – assuming he was able to get up after the shot.
No calculation can take all of those variables into account and accurately say how Bradshaw’s line would translate in today’s NFL. It’s almost foolish to even think about.
The best example of the changing tides came last season when Drew Brees, Brady and Matthew Stafford passed for over 5,000 yards. Show me one person who thinks any of those marks was on par with the 5,184 Dan Marino passed for in 1984 and I’ll show you an individual who needs to be acquainted with how the Chicago Bears and New York Giants played defense in the ’80s.
Furthermore, there have been more 4,000-yard passing seasons since 2009 than there were in all of the 1980s.
And as far as Super Bowl titles are concerned, there was no free agency in the days of Bradshaw and Montana. Teams were built differently. Montana knew Jerry Rice was going to be there forever, and Bradshaw was going to have Lynn Swann. The closest thing Brady has had to a mainstay throughout his career is Deion Branch.
So who is better? All of them. It you want to argue about Bradshaw and Staubach in the ’70s, Steve Young and John Elway in the ’90s, or Peyton Manning and Brady for the 2000s, that works.
But trying to go back and compare Joe Namath and Mark Sanchez is a futile exercise.
Oh, by the way, Sanchez has better numbers through his first three years.