Tom Brady is widely considered the NFL GOAT due to his incredible accomplishments, stats, and longevity, but Scottie Pippen questions just how much that label should apply to him.
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Brady seemed to cement his GOAT status a while ago when he knocked off the Atlanta Falcons in the greatest Super Bowl comeback ever en-route to his fifth NFL ring. He’s only added to that legacy, winning two more Super Bowls to bring his total to seven.
However, many people have questioned whether Brady can truly be considered the GOAT NFL player considering that football is the ultimate team sport. One player can’t impact the game the way they can in the NBA, especially when you consider that there’s two completely separate units (the offense and defense). Previously, LeBron James had come out with a similar assessment.
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Scottie Pippen can’t crown Tom Brady as the NFL GOAT
As mentioned earlier, LeBron James had a very similar argument against Brady’s case for the GOAT. “My only argument with a football player being the greatest athlete of all time is that they only gotta play one side of the floor, man,” James said. “Yes, Brady is unbelievable. Brady is the greatest quarterback I’ve ever seen, but he affects the game one way.”
Brady wasn’t too fazed, and he responded to LeBron’s comments as well. “It really just depends what style you like,” Brady replied. “You could say, ‘Well, you’re maybe the most accomplished.’ I would say, ‘OK yeah, I’ve won a lot of games, Super Bowls and so forth.’ But my style of play might not fit everybody else’s, what their view of what that position should be.”
It’ll be interesting to see if Brady will have a response ready for Pippen as well considering he was much more direct in calling Brady out.
Pippen’s exact words:
“It’s hard to place Tom Brady at the top of the NFL. Even though he’s won a lot of championships. There are almost 70 players on each team, so is he playing on every side of the football? Is he on kickoff? Is he on the punt returns? Because if he ain’t playing all them roles, then he got to give credit to his team.”
Pippen and LeBron do have an argument to be made. Do you label Brady as the GOAT, or simply the most accomplished player of all time? Or do you go LeBron’s route and specifically label him the greatest quarterback of all time and not the greatest player?
It’s a tough call to make, and it raises questions then about most accomplished quarterback vs. most talented quarterback, and so on and so forth. Football is an incredible sport in that it involves so many players and so many different positions, but that’s also part of what makes it hard to find the best player.
For example, Devin Hester goes down as the best kick returner of all time, a highly specialized role. If you can look at Tom Brady as the greatest quarterback of all time, then is the only thing separating him and Hester seven Super Bowls (granted that’s a huge gap, but the point stands)? Winning in football is much harder to effect as a single player, and that’s where Pippen and LeBron’s arguments stem from.
