Can the GOAT be overrated?

 Tom Brady is retiring, and he is by acclamation the GOAT, the greatest of all time. Certainly the greatest quarterback, and maybe the greatest football player. Maybe the greatest American athlete of all time. (Most Americans wouldn’t bother with the national modifier.) If he really is the greatest, is it even possible for him to be overrated?

Let’s consider. If you look at results, it’s a no-brainer. Nobody else is even close statistically during the regular season, and the comparisons get even more absurd when you look at the post-season.

But results in a team sport are tied to the team. Brady was coached by Bill Belichick, who is just as arguably the GOAT among coaches. Josh McDaniels, the offensive coordinator, is given a lot of credit for the Patriots offense, and he made sure that Brady could get rid of the ball quickly. Wes Welker and Julian Edelman were the kind of quick receivers that could consistently get open when needed. Some people consider Rob Gronkowski the GOAT among tight ends. Dante Scarnecchia, the offensive line coach, was a huge factor in the Patriots’ success. He put a line in front of Brady that was consistently among the better units in the league. This Giants fan could only look on in envy as Eli Manning was getting pounded behind a lousy line for most of the last half of his career. (And he didn’t even have the worst of it in his family—read up on Archie’s career some time.)

 When Brady got pressured, he was still very good, but he wasn’t quite as great. In two Super Bowls against the Giants he put up a total of 31 points. Still good against those defenses, but human.

Did Brady do more with all of his assets than other great quarterbacks would have? Very possibly. But how would Peyton Manning or Dan Marino or Aaron Rodgers or Drew Brees or Patrick Mahomes have done if they’d been on those Patriot teams? It’s easy to imagine that they’d have been even more successful than they already were.

What would Brady’s career have looked like if he’d been a Brown or a Lion for his entire career? He still would have been a great quarterback, and might even have dragged one of those franchises kicking and screaming to a Super Bowl, maybe two. Or maybe none. If his offensive line was being beaten consistently and his defenses were terrible, his regular season numbers would have seemed more ordinary, and he might not have even reached the post season. We might look at him somewhat like we look at Marino.

The surrounding pieces make a difference. Brady was still great with the 2019 Patriots, but they didn’t have a lot of offensive weapons for him. At 6.3 he had the lowest yards per attempt since his second full season. And he had the lowest touchdown percentage of his career. He still led them to the playoffs, but they were knocked out in the Wild Card round. The next season he went to the Buccaneers, who were loaded, and poof! He was a Super Bowl champion and looked like the GOAT again. Coincidence?

OK, let’s take a step back and look at the question of quarterback greatness another way. if you had to put together a team from scratch without all of those Patriot assets, which quarterback do you take first? For a lot of Pats fans, the answer is still Tom Brady, and you can’t say they’re wrong. But for other observers it’s at least an interesting question. Certainly other quarterbacks were good in the clutch, smart, and had physical gifts even greater than Brady’s. Maybe he had something they didn’t, but you could make a decent case for several guys as your first pick. If you asked players, coaches, and fans from across the country, Brady might or might not end up on top overall. Even if he came out ahead, you’d get a lot of different answers.

If you wouldn’t take Brady first in an all-time mock draft, is he really the best quarterback? Or is he maybe, despite all of his mind-boggling accomplishments, just a tad overrated?