Tom Brady can make history (again) if he leads the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on another deep playoff run. It would just be another notch on the ol’ belt for the GOAT.
You know it’s funny. NFL history, much like world history, often repeat itself. It’s a history of cycles. In today’s pass-happy NFL, the aerial assault that we see every Sunday only gets more awesome with each passing week. It’s due in large part to the fact that we are blessed with more young stud quarterbacks than we’ve ever seen at one time before. They also primarily reside in the AFC. That said, the defending champion Los Angeles Rams reside in the NFC, and that conference has one two of the last three Super Bowls despite the young talent in the other conference.
From 1984 to 1996, the explosion of the passing game was starting to take form. Again, a lot of the young quarterbacks leading this revolution played for AFC teams, yet the NFC dominated the Super Bowl, taking home the Lombardi Trophy in each and every one of those seasons during that span. That’s not to say they didn’t have their own share of legendary quarterbacks, but a lot of times it was the defenses that reigned supreme. The NFC San Francisco 49ers also had a ballplayer by the name of Joe Montana slinging the rock, who was basically Tom Brady before Tom Brady, so that also helped. He was also Brady’s hero as he was a Bay Area kid.
Speaking of Brady, the biggest aspect of the AFC is resurgence in the 2000s and the NFC‘s recent winning ways are because of those are the conferences that Brady happens to be playing in.
Simply put, Tom Brady is the ultimate winner. As we said, he is Joe Montana with a little Otto Graham (look it up) thrown in. Should he and the Buccaneers be so lucky to get to the NFC championship, or back to the Super Bowl if they start off with a bye in the playoffs, then he would tie Steve Young (former Bucs QB of course) and Brett Favre for the most playoff wins against the NFC with 12. He currently sits at ten.
Yes, you read that right, but just for good measures feel free to run through it again if you’re in disbelief. After all, seeing is believing.
When the Bucs defeated the Philadelphia Eagles in the Wild Card round last season, Brady passed Donovan McNabb of those same Eagles to get his 10th playoff win against NFC teams. Right now Aaron Rodgers and Roger Staubach sit ahead of the GOAT with 11, with the aforementioned Young and Favre leading the way at 12. It’ll be interesting to see what happens with Brady and Rodgers this season, other than the annual MVP race of course.
Bringing things full circle, Brady’s 10 playoff wins against NFC teams also has him tied with one other quarterback. That quarterback being Montana.
Perhaps the thing that jumps out the most is the discrepancy in Super Bowl wins. Brady of course has seven, which is where 70% of his playoff wins against the NFC teams come from of course, while his idol Montana sits with four. After that, Stulbach has two, McNabb has none, and the rest of the quarterbacks we mentioned all have one a piece. Certified lunacy.
It can’t be stressed enough, so we’ll do it again. Tom Brady is the ultimate winner, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are lucky enough to benefit from that. Should they keep benefiting, the accomplishments and and accolades will only get more and more ridiculous for the man, nay, Demi-God they call the GOAT.