After laying claim to seven Super Bowl rings, 15 Pro Bowl nominations, three All Pro titles, and a slew of all-time career passing records, Tom Brady’s name has become synonymous with greatness. Regarded by many to be the greatest player in the history of gridiron football, the only thing that he hasn’t accomplished is becoming a first ballot Hall of Famer, but it’s coming.
Advertisement
However, as with any G.O.A.T. athlete, there will always be a fair share of naysayers. Amongst those that find themselves still struggling to accurately assess the greatness of Brady is none other than analyst and former quarterback for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Chris Simms.
On the latest broadcast of NFL on NBC, Simms sat down to discuss the details of Brady’s career with Mike Florio. Going as far as to label him as the “most overrated and most underrated quarterback in NFL history,” Simms argued that the media frenzy surrounding Brady did little to help his likeability.
“It got a little crazy at the end because it was like ‘We saw the way he looked over by the Gatorade bottle. We knew he was telling us, with a look in his eye, we’ve got to improve our play or else.’ I was like, oh my god, now he’s just looking at people and we’re making up fables about it for a story? That drove me crazy.”
While the sensationalism and headlines surrounding Brady may have been a bit overwhelming at times, Simms conceded that his performances on gameday were made of magic. Believing that the Super Bowl run with Tampa Bay was more than enough to put him over the top, Simms couldn’t help but to applaud Brady for his tenacity in the closing years of his career.
“His ability on the football field is underrated, his arm is an all-time great arm. His toughness in the pocket, he showed that when he went to Tampa Bay. Everybody questioned whether he could do it without Belichick… He went there, first year, COVID year, they hosted the Super Bowl, he did that.”
Aligning with Simms on the notion that Brady’s career isn’t being accurately evaluated, ProFootballTalk.com’s Mike Florio detailed how each era of Brady’s career could be viewed as a hall of fame career on its own.
Highlighting his two Super Bowl runs, in addition to his storybook start with the Buccaneers, Florio suggested that “You could make the argument that Tom Brady had not one, not two, but three separate Hall of Fame careers. You could break his career up into three, and those three versions of Tom Brady would make it to the hall of fame. The early Patriots, the second, three Super Bowl run for the Patriots, and then his time in Tampa Bay. That would be a tougher sell, but still.”
Given the sheer amount of hardware that Brady is responsible for, Florio’s claims certainly have some teeth to them. Closer to Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan than he is to Patrick Mahomes, it will be a long time before someone is able to outdo the accomplishments of Brady.
While there is certainly a pocket of football fans that can not wait to see his name be removed from the record books, the reality of the world in which we exist is that the name “Brady” will echo throughout the NFL so long as it remains.
