“The youth is wasted on the young.” It’s a common phrase that basically suggests we didn’t know how good we had it when we had it.
It probably wasn’t until Peyton Manning finally bested Tom Brady in the AFC Championship game on January 21, 2007 that football fans truly began to understand the gravity of what they were witnessing: two of the game’s greatest all-time quarterbacks were in the same conference at the same time, gunning for the same prize at the peak of their powers. The two would meet eight more times after that, together authoring up some of the most enthralling games in recent memory. The Brady/Manning rivalry has since been commemorated with its own Wiki page and an NFL Films Top 10 countdown.
Conversely, we’ve only seen Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers lock horns once before their Week 9 tilt: a 2014 PhD-level passing performance and a brief glimpse at what quarterbacking should look like. In short, it was what Anthony Hueston referred to as “space football”.
Invariably, sports talk platforms swerved into the “who’s better?” lane in preparation for their second meeting—that includes the HHSR podcast (55:35 mark).
We should be smarter, though. It’s absent-minded, almost selfish of us as fans to watch 15 years of Brady/Manning without absorbing the prevailing message from those games, and properly recognizing the man who history has now generally regarded as the better player. Yet so many seem to be doubling-down on the same mistake when debating the battle of #12s years later.
Forgetting for a moment the longevity and accomplishments as outlined on the aforementioned podcast—it’s amazing that after all this time, so many observers still haven’t figured out that quarterbacking is WAAAAY more than just stats and arm talent. It has far more to do with intangibles like leadership, discipline, professionalism, work-ethic, connecting with teammates, intelligence, overcoming adversity, coachability, accountability, commitment, confidence, toughness and coming through in the clutch.
Aaron Rodgers is GREAT, but for every argument in Rodgers’ favor that centers around arm talent, mobility and touchdown-to-interception ratio, understand that those attributes only show you the sizzle we see on Sunday. The steak is those intangibles Brady has subjugated that we don’t see, the bulk of which are crafted tirelessly Monday through Saturday.
AR excels at most, if not all these intangibles, which is why he’s one of the best to ever do it (he’s better than Peyton IMO). But NOBODY rates higher on the intangible scale than Tom Brady, which is why (coupled with his arm talent, stats, team accomplishments and individual accolades) he’s a cut above any QB in history. If athleticism and the physical mechanics of throwing the football were all that mattered, guys like Jeff George, Jay Cutler, Michael Vick…even Aaron Rodgers, would’ve enjoyed way more team success.
In a 2014 interview with Bill Simmons, Drew Brees said as much as 80% of what makes a quarterback successful are the intangibles. “You obviously have to have some level of arm talent,” said Brees. “I would say that it’s at least 75%, and maybe even a little more in regards to the intangibles…the leadership ability—the heart, the drive, the passion, your ability to overcome.”
So while Rodgers may have the edge in raw talent (an edge he probably has on any passer that ever lived), the deficit in raw talent has been the thing that has separated Brady from his contemporaries. It’s driven him to work harder, study more film, raise the standards of what it means to take care of one’s body and master all of the parts of the game he can control through his impeccable intangibles—the attributes that affect winning more than anything else at the QB position, including arm talent. Rodgers has a leg up in career passer rating and TD:INT ratio, but there’s a reason why Brady has won 53 more games than Rodgers has started in his career, and participated in eight times as many Super Bowls.
We may never see Rodgers and Brady share a football field again, so be sure to soak it in. And while you soak in the brilliance of what you see Aaron Rodgers doing, be sure to soak in the brilliance of what you don’t see Tom Brady doing—it’s the thing that’s led him to line up in victory formation more than any quarterback in NFL history.