On Sunday night, the Patriots and Rams offenses bored us all, as both teams failed to produce memorable plays and wasted possessions until the clock hit 0:00, winning Tom Brady his eye-opening 6th Super Bowl, only the second of which he was not the game MVP. This, of course, ties the Steelers for most Super Bowl wins by a franchise or player, and Brady tied the 49ers for the most playoff wins: with 30. His latest crowning achievement was in some ways weighed down by the fact that it was the worst of his nine career Super Bowl performances. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, Brady outplayed his opposing QB Jared Goff, a one time MVP candidate who has been waning since December. Brady’s performance has more than enough wiggle room between his previous 8 Super Bowl performances and Jared Goff’s. Against one of the league's most talented and inconsistent defenses, Brady went an unremarkable 21 for 35 for 262 yards with 0 TDs, 1 INT, and 1 sack for a 9 yard loss. The average NFL QB put up 22.4 completions on 34.5 attempts, for 237.8 yards, 1.7 TDs, 0.8 INTs, 2.5 sacks for 16.7 yards lost this season, and a passer rating of 92.9. Opinions on how much better or worse this performance was within the context of the game vary, but it’s clear the defenses were the heroes on Sunday, but the Patriots at least put up respectable numbers in the air.
Some were so turned off by this performance that the bad idea that Tom Brady’s legacy has been damaged after throwing for 318 yards per game while only being sacked once this postseason en route to his 6th Super Bowl ring at the age of 41.
Some were so turned off by this performance that the bad idea that Tom Brady’s legacy has been damaged after throwing for 318 yards per game while only being sacked once this postseason en route to his 6th Super Bowl ring at the age of 41.
To Skip’s credit, it was actually Shannon who took the legacy was damaged side of the debate. But all of this has ignored, or been tangential, to what is truly the most remarkable part of Brady’s pedestrian night. Through 9 Super Bowl appearances, this was Tom Brady’s worst game. I looked up the stats of every Super Bowl performance by every QB to start in at least three Super Bowls and picked their worst game for comparison’s sake. Before checking out the table below, consider that Tom Brady has played in 3 times as many Super Bowls as 4 of the 10 others on this list, and 4 more than the second most experienced Super Bowl quarterback ever: John Elway.
A few of quick notes before I draw my conclusions: Joe Montana was the MVP in what was by far his worst Super Bowl performance. Terry Bradshaw had some much less efficient games, but he passed for over 200 yards in all the others. Yes, Bob Griese really did lose 29 yards on one sack, you can find it on YouTube. Interestingly, these quarterbacks went a combined 6-5 in their worst Super Bowls.
So from this table, it’s clear that Joe Montana is the only 3+ time Super Bowl starter to play well in every single start. But after him, the competition drops off to Bradshaw, Aikman, and Brady. It really depends on what you value in a performance, and I honestly couldn’t give you a definitive answer unless I went back and watched all of those games. But when accounting for the era theses games were played in, I personally would rank Aikman’s as the second best worst performance, followed by Brady’s and then Bradshaw’s. Bradshaw did have the best passer rating and TD:INT of the bunch, but was ultimately a very small and mediocre part of the Steelers offense in a game were Fran Tarkenton made Jared Goff look good. Bradshaw only dropped back to pass 16 of 73 offensive snaps. In a game where Franco Harris rushed for 158 yards on 34 carries (Bradshaw did have 33 yards on 5 carries himself). All together, Bradshaw only accounted for 35% of yards gained, which is not in the same ballpark as Brady’s 62%.
So if you think Brady’s legacy is always playing better in the Super Bowl than any other quarterback, Sunday hurt his legacy. But Brady never was the best Super Bowl QB, that title has, and always will be Joe Montana’s. In his 4 appearances Joe Montana threw 11 touchdowns to 0 interceptions and averaged 285.5 yards per game. But if he had to play in 5 more Super Bowls, would Montana have had just one average game? I don’t know, but I can say for a fact that no other quarterback, if not any football player ever, has always been ready to do what is needed to make his team win in every single game he plays, and that is Tom Brady’s legacy, and why in 9 Super Bowl appearances, he has never let the Patriots down.
photo credit: NESEN
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