If there’s anyone who would be good at picking and ranking the best teams in the National Football League, you may think it would be the guy who dominated them all for the better part of the last two decades, Tom Brady. Well, Fox Sports did, and now one of the biggest weekly segments sees the former New England Patriot doing just that while providing his reactions to the latest results.
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Of course, that’s naturally resulted in the seven-time Super Bowl winner dropping some rather hot takes, such as choosing to leave the Indianapolis Colts out of his top-10 rankings, or keeping the Philadelphia Eagles inside of his top-5 list despite their implosion against the Dallas Cowboys.
He’s caught some flak for the latter, but Brady is remaining adamant, asserting that “I’m still not giving up on this team.” Citing the fact that the Eagles have endured “one of the hardest schedules in the NFL” yet are still sporting a healthy 8-3 record, Brady’s still willing to trust them to resolve those “misfires on offense” right when it matters most.
Unfortunately, the Colts’ strength of schedule doesn’t quite measure up to the Eagles, and as a result, their late-game meltdown won’t be met with the same grace that Philadelphia’s has. Another interesting aspect of Brady’s rankings, however, is the fact that he has three of the four NFC North teams all graded inside the top 10.
The Detroit Lions, Chicago Bears, and Green Bay Packers all hold a spot in the 6-9 range of his rankings. Although, perhaps rather controversially, Brady has the Bears ranked the highest of them all.
The Denver Broncos being given the third overall spot, or the Seattle Seahawks being billed as the fifth-best team in the league, will likely cause some feedback from fans as well. But in the end, it just goes to show you that everyone values different things when organizing their top-10 rankings.
Whether he truly believes in the improvements that have been made by Caleb Williams or Bo Nix, or he’s simply engaging farming, Brady’s weekly top-10 rankings stand as a testament to the fact that everyone is going to offer up a questionable take from time to time. It’s unlikely that anyone would disagree with his decision to list the Los Angeles Rams as the best team in football through the first 12 weeks of the season.
Matthew Stafford is throwing touchdowns at an unprecedented rate right now, and the Rams’ defense has been equally oppressive at times. Until someone is finally able to put an end to Stafford’s passing touchdown streak, they’ll likely continue to dominate the rankings right until they are officially named as the NFC’s number-one seed.
