Posts Tagged ‘tom brady’

Tom Brady is the 3rd Best Player in an American Team Sport Behind Russell 2nd and Ruth 1st

Posted: January 30, 2021 by datechguy in baseball, nba, nfl, nhl, Sports
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We have now been hearing a discussion where people are asking: Is Tom Brady the greatest player in an American Team Sport ever? Brady being in his 10th Superbowl has earned him a place in that conversation with 10 trips to the finals in 21 chances. Or to put it another way,

  • Tom Brady’s avg of going to superbowls is higher than Ty Cobb’s avg of getting hits.
  • Tom Brady’s avg of going to superbowls is higher than the 3 point percentage of any NBA player in history
  • The only NFL team that has been to more Superbowls than Tom Brady is the New England Patriots with eleven trips over 61 years to Tom’s ten in 21 years. Nine of those trips were in years they were led by Tom Brady.
  • Tom Brady’s as of today has one less playoff win then Maurice Richard has Stanley Cup goals.

That being the case Brady deserves to be in consideration for the best player in a major American Team sport (Baseball, Football, Basketball, Hockey) of all time. There are two people in that conversation with him. Babe Ruth and Bill Russell.

Babe Ruth in 22 years went to 10 World Series winning Seven and if you look at the Baseball Reference pages over his career led the league in over 200 different categories over his career as both a Pitcher and as a Right fielder.

Bill Russell in 13 seasons in the NBA went to the playoffs every season making it to the finals 12 times and winning 11 titles, two of them as player coach.

Brady has four things in common with Ruth and Russell.

  • A Long Career
  • Success early and late in a career
  • Regular trips to the Finals
  • Long tenures in Boston

Brady has one thing in Common with Ruth favoring him over Russell

  • Success on multiple teams under multiple coaches/managers

Brady has two things in common with Russell over Ruth

  • A high level of play every uninjured season of his career (to this point) (Ruth’s final season stunk)
  • Never having cost his team a title with a boneheaded play to lose a series (Ruth inexplicably getting caught stealing in 1926 to lose the World Series)

And Brady has one advantage over Both Russell & Ruth

  • No Margin for error.

In a championship season Babe Ruth and his teams had the liberty of having as many as three bad games or three games where the opposing team outplayed them while still being capable of winning a championship. Bill Russell’s margin of error was larger, with a 6 to 9 game margin or error as their series were all best of seven. Or to put it simply if your better team had a bad day you still had the rest of a series games to show the other guy whose actually better.

However Tom Brady , as a football player, had no such margin of error. A single bad game or a single bad move and you are out. Russell’s Celtics & Ruth’s Yanks and Sox could blow a game or two in a series and still win. Brady never had that luxury.

Why then does Brady rank behind Russell? Very simple. While this season it’s been implied that Brady has functioned as a “coach” to the Offense, Bill Russell for two seasons won titles while actually being the head coach as well as the center. He not only had to play at a high level but had to while on the floor manage the team, call the plays and be aware enough to coach the team to the playoffs and to the title. He not only managed to do so, but managed to do so TWICE.

For that reason I give Russell an edge over Brady, at least so far. If Brady goes to an 11th Superbowl (which is entirely in the realm of possibility I may revisit that advantage.

However Babe Ruth has an advantage over Brady that is even more pronounced. He not only won six titles as the most feared slugger in the major leagues but won three titles as one of the top pitchers in the Majors. It would be as if Brady won his first three titles as the top linebacker or Defensive End before switching to Quarterback. Furthermore Ruth fundamentally changed the game of baseball in a way neither Russell nor Brady did in their sports. It’s true that after Ruth started hitting homers other soon followed, but Ruth did it first and the only chemical enhancements he had were hot dogs and beer.

For this reason I consider Babe Ruth the greatest team sport player in the history of sports, over Russell and over Brady. If Brady wins the superbowl this year and perhaps one other then I may revisit these rankings, if not then.

FYI Michael Jordon doesn’t make this list because while he won six titles in six trips all those titles came in the 2nd half of his career all with the same team and system and failed to make the playoffs with the wizards when he came back. LeBron James doesn’t make this list because of only four titles wins but given that he won three titles in three different cities under three different systems and has been to the finals 10 times one more trip will force him to be considered in this company. Kareem fails to make the top 3 because despite the six titles with two teams and titles early and late in his career, he had a very long period without making those finals or more properly if included on this list he is currently 5th with LeBron right behind him. Yogi Berra with 10 titles in 14 years and 3 MVP titles in a league that had Mantle & Williams is the person that Brady edges out for 3rd. Berra might have had better stats but his development was curtailed by a more pressing engagement off Normandy on June 6th 1944 & two months later in the invasion on the southern coast of France. In fact you might even be able to make a case for Berra going all the way to the top.

My top five list as of this moment would run Ruth, Russell, Brady, Berra, & Jabbar in that order with King James knocking on the door and very likely to take Kareem’s spot on this list perhaps as soon as this year.

What a Difference a Tom Brady or a Donald Trump Makes

Posted: November 2, 2020 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, News/opinion, nfl, politics, Sports
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I know we aren’t doing much sports around here there days as I haven’t been watching any but I have still been listening to sports talk radio locally on my way to and from work and while I’ve never been a Football Fan I’ve always been a Tom Brady fan and thus I want to make a point concerning him that parallels the President.

The Patriots were 2-4 going into this weekend. The last time the Patriots were 2-4 was in 2000 the year Tom Brady was drafted (they actually started 0-4 and won 2 straight to get to 2-4 on their way to a 5-11 season.

During that season 3rd string quarterback Tom Brady appeared in one game, threw 3 passes and completed one for 6 yards.

The following year he would become the starter after an injury to Drew Bledsoe and the Patriots would not have a losing season again.

If the Patriots had won they would have been 3-4 instead of 2-5

The last time the Patriots were 3-4 this late in the season was October 27th 2002 when the Patriots would lose 24-17 against the Denver Broncos who would be 6-2 after the game. It would be the only time in Tom Brady’s career when he would have a losing record this late in the season. He would win 6 of the final 9 finishing 9-7 (Denver would also go 9-7 losing 5 of their final 8) It would be the only time in Brady’s career as a starter when he would not make the playoffs and the only year (other than the season where Brady went down in week one) of the Brady Era when they would not win their division.

What’s really interesting about this is the fact that many in the sports media were ready to declare that the Patriots would be better off without Brady and a lot of the local sports media were saying the same thing.

Yet now it’s being said that QB Cam Newton problem is that he doesn’t have good players around him. Ironically this was the same situation the Patriots were in last season when Brady went 12-4.

What people seem to not have grasped is that having the greatest player in the history at the game at Quarterback covers an awful lot of sins and has done so for this team for a whole lot of years. That’s why a team can go 12-4 with a batch of 2nd rate players on offence.

Take away that QB and then reality rears it’s head.

Or to put it another way. The Patriots are now 20-24 under Bill Belichick when a Quarterback not named Tom Brady starts for him.

There are Patriots fans who will be voting tomorrow who have no memory of the Pats ever having a losing season and do not grasp how losing an extraordinary man forces reality to set in.

And that Brings us to Donald Trump.

Several things have taken place under Trump that were unimaginable under obama: I’ve listed them in song but here is the list sans music

1.  The tax cut
2.  Destruction of ISIS
3.  Cutting Regulations
4.  Moving the Embassy to Jerusalem
5.  The wall
6.  The Space force
7.  VA choice for veterans
8  New trade deals with China
9.  Stock Market records
10.  Criminal Justice reform
11.  New deal with Canada and Mexico
12.  The US becoming energy self sufficient 
13.  Funding Black colleges for multi years vs a single year
14.  Three peace deals between Israel & arab states (so far)
15.  A bunch of COVID relief bills 
16.  Negotiations with North Korea

And remember Trump did this with 2 years of Nancy Pelosi obstructing him at every chance, when Biden brought up GOP control as a reason why the Obama admin did less Trump pointed out “sometimes you have to talk them into it.

With lightbringer Obama none of those things were considered possible, with Trump these things are now part of the public record.

Donald Trump is the Tom Brady of the Presidency and I suspect that we’ve seen nothing yet.

The Brady Effect Comes to Tampa

Posted: October 22, 2020 by datechguy in Sports
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While I haven’t been watching any sports I’d like to make a note of something interesting concerning Tom Brady.

The year Tom Brady came to the New England Patriots, the New England Patriots had been to two Superbowls in 40 years and lost both, the Celtics had not won a championship in 14 years, it had been a decade since the Bruins made it to the Stanley Cup finals and nearly 30 since they had won and the Red Sox had not been to the World series in 14 years and had not won in 82 years.

Within one year The Patriots had won their first title (they would win 5 more in 8 trips to the Superbowl) and during his time in New England the Celtics would win a title and make it to the finals a 2nd time, the Bruins would win their 1st Stanley Cup in 40 years while making to 3 finals and of course the Boston Red sox would break their 86 year curse with a World Series win in 2004 and would win three more for good measure during Brady’s Patriots template.

Now Brady is has gone to Tampa Bay and no Boston Team has made the finals this year and the Patriots have a losing record after five games.

Meanwhile what’s happening in Tampa?

Well Tampa Bay does not have a Basketball team, but since Tom Brady’s arrival their Baseball team the Devil Rays finds itself in the World Series for only the 2nd time ever while their Hockey Team Won the Stanley Cups also for the 2nd time ever.

Oh and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are now in 1st place in the NFC West a division they haven’t won in 13 years.

I’m sure it’s all a coincidence.

The Democrat Biden Dilemma is the Patriots Jarrett Stidham Dilemma (without the sexual assault)

Posted: May 8, 2020 by datechguy in News/opinion, nfl, politics, primaries, Sports
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I keep seeing this poll and that poll that the Democrats are thinking of replacing Joe Biden on the ticket for the nomination. This entire argument reminds me of the great debate on sports radio locally concerning the New England Patriots and 2nd year quarterback Jarrett Stidham.

Stidham was drafted last year as Tom Brady’s quarterback backup and once Brady signed with Tampa Bay, there was speculation that New England would sign one of the available QB’s out there from Cam Newton Jameis Winston or even trade up in the draft in the hopes of getting a new QB this year.

But Bill Belichick decided to stand pat. After all he had struck paydirt with a 6th round pick who turned out to be the greatest QB of all time, and two of his recent QB drafts had started for the Colts and 49ers last year so my not go with the young arm?

But the real question to me come down to: “How much better would the Patriots be in 2020 with an expensive free agent who would have to learn the system that Stidham has been training in for a year?”

I suspect the answer is, not much if at all.

And that brings us to Joe Biden.

There are plenty of reasons why it would be tough for Democrats to pull Biden post Tara Reade:

  • Overturning a series of elections
  • Upsetting vital black voters who turned out in force for Biden
  • Causing a divided convention
  • Risking an un-vetted nominee or worse Bernie Sanders

All of these are valid reasons for the Democrats to stand part, particularly when you see prominent democrat women saying that they thought Biden did it, but will vote for him anyways.

But beyond that the real question is the same one that the Patriots had to ask with Stidham: “Will a replacement do any better in the fall?”

In my opinion the honest answer to that question is: No.

The Democrats will lose just as badly with Biden as they will with anyone else, so they’d might as well stick with fast hands Joe. At least that’s where they are now.

As long as that is the Democrat equation, Joe Biden stays.

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