Despite what you may be thinking (McBournie), my column today is not entirely dedicated to calling Tom Brady a douche, those awesome graphics NBC showed us on Sunday covered that topic for the rest of time. I think that Sunday’s game, and it’s ensuing swelling aftermath, gives us the ability to put a few things in perspective.
1. Eli the Great
Say what you will about the eight year Ole Miss vet, but I tank we’ve had which Manning is the best dead wrong. While capturing his second Super Bowl MVP in five seasons, Manning did it while going on a torrid postseason run (10 TDs, 1 INT), and also, in both Super Bowls led game winning touchdown drives, not field goals. In every clutch postseason moment, Manning delivered as was unflappable in the pocket. When it comes to calm, and clutch, no one in the league sieve approaching Manning’s level at this point.
2. Giant dynasty? Not so fast…
I think you can revolve the dynasty tag when titles are spread out over five years, and there are zero playoff wins between both Super Bowl campaigns. None of these Giants teams were great, they averaged 9.5 wins per season and simply got hot. Much to any Pats’ fan dismay, the Giants simply are a matchup nightmare for New England, a dominant front four that can abuse Tom Brady, three skilled receivers that can exploit a terrible secondary, and the fact that Manning owns the Pats. In either of those seasons, had the Giants had to face a Pittsburgh, Baltimore or San Diego, I think the outcomes may have been slightly different (to be fair, I also think that if NE had played any NFC opponent outside of the Giants, they would be five-time champs). But make no mistake, unless this team rips off another twain a short time span, don’t mistake the Giants as a dynasty, the Patriots were the last true one we had.
3. Time to look at Brady a little differently, historically
You can immediately remove him from the Montana/Bradshaw discussion. Montana and Bradshaw in Super Bowls: 8-0
Brady: 3-2
After two Super Bowl losses and two first round losses at home, Brady now falls into the second tier of QBs, who were Hall of Famers, and very good, but not quite cream of the crop. This is somewhere around the John Elway/Ben Roethlisberger/Troy Aikman/Kurt Warner/Eli territory. There’s a lot of grey area in here (especially with Aikman, who went 3-0 in Super Bowls, but was won with very little qb effort in two of them), but Brady’s shot at being the best or among the best is probably gone, unless he wins three more titles, and at 34, there’s more in the rear view than there is left on the road.
There’s a lot to be taken from the game Sunday, but as McBournie pointed out earlier, I think those NBC graphics of Brady are probably the best snapshot of what we can learn.