MINNEAPOLIS — When Tom Brady is inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, he will receive a gold jacket, a bust and, if valid emotions rule the day, dozens of kicks in the shins from his fellow passers.
Brady ruined the greatest-of-all-time argument for every other quarterback.
Brady announced his own retirement Tuesday, at age 44. He leaves the game having not just established himself as the most accomplished quarterback ever, but having done so in a way that eradicates doubt.
Every other great quarterback is attached to an asterisk or a question mark.
Johnny Unitas? Maybe the most important player in NFL history, he nudged the game from irrelevance to prominence. But there was no way he was going to accumulate stats like Brady's while playing in high-top cleats, in mud, while defenders were allowed to mug.
Joe Montana? Nearly perfect in four Super Bowls, he couldn't match Brady for total titles or longevity.
Brett Favre? Won "only'' one Super Bowl.
Aaron Rodgers? See "Brett Favre.''
Drew Brees? See "Brett Favre.''
Peyton Manning? Lost his head-to-head competition with Brady in the rivalry that defined recent NFL history.
Brady will retire with the NFL records for career passing yards, touchdown passes and Super Bowl victories. The way he achieved those championships makes his resume unmatchable.
Manning played with exceptional skill-position players throughout his career and spent most of his career in a pass-friendly dome. Montana played for one of the greatest offensive coaches of all time — Bill Walsh — and won three of his Super Bowls with the greatest receiver, if not the greatest football player, of all time, in Jerry Rice.
Brady won in good weather and bad, in ice and snow, with great receivers, and receivers who weren't really receivers.
In 2001, he won a title in his first year as a starter as a former sixth-round draft pick who led a late Super Bowl comeback.
In 2020, he won a title as a 43-year-old transplant in his first season with a new team.
In his last season, at age 44, he led the league in passing yards and touchdown passes with a depleted receiving corps.
When given an anonymous group of receivers, he won. When given perhaps the most talented receiver in NFL history, he threw a go-ahead touchdown pass to Randy Moss in the Super Bowl that would have secured an undefeated season if not for Eli Manning's late heroics.
Brady won with a variety of offensive coordinators, running backs, receivers, tight ends and offensive linemen. He may ultimately be joined in the Hall of Fame by only two of his longtime offensive Patriots teammates: Moss, with whom he played for just three years, and tight end Rob Gronkowski.
Give Brady a receiver like Troy Brown, who would also be used at cornerback, and he would win. Give him Julian Edelman, a running quarterback from Kent State, and he would help Edelman become one of the best receivers in the league.
Give him Moss, and he would set the league on fire.
Before 2007, Brady was considered to be more of a skilled craftsman than an immortal. In 2007, with Wes Welker running short routes and Moss running deep, Brady led the league in completion percentage (68.9), yards (4,806), touchdowns (50), passer rating and QBR.
That was the year Brady proclaimed, with his play, that he wasn't just part of Bill Belichick's winning formula — he was the most important active ingredient.
Brady turned himself into a symbol of overachievement. A sixth-round draft pick whose shirtless combine photos showed a skinny kid with an underdeveloped chest, he wasn't fast or strong.
He would win a record seven Super Bowls. Only Eli's miracle comeback and a key dropped pass in another Super Bowl against the Giants kept him from edging toward double figures.
No other NFL quarterback has won more than four Super Bowls.
Brady didn't merely become the greatest quarterback of all time. He ended the debate.
