Love Him or Hate Him, Tom Brady Is Football’s Winningest Quarterback
Tom Brady tied Peyton Manning for most wins by a quarterback – both regular season and playoffs combined – when the New England Patriots knocked off the New York Jets 22-17 yesterday at MetLife Stadium yesterday. Brady now stands alongside his former rival at the top of the mountain and, barring something insane happening, he will no doubt crack 201 this season with four games left on the schedule. He is one of the two winningest quarterbacks in football’s history, and soon he will stand totally alone.
Bill Belichick seems enthusiastic, to say the least. Or as excited as the Emperor of football’s Galactic Empire can get.
*Belichick clears throat 3 times*
“Uh, coach why is Tom Brady so great?”
“Well, umm…he’s a good player. We have a lot of good players.” pic.twitter.com/Pqlxyk0xy3
— Thomas Fant (@Winston_Wolfe) November 28, 2016
Of course, there will probably be other people that downplay the milestone, saying that Manning and Brett Favre won more games during the regular season, and that’s still a record Brady will probably need another season to catch up to. Something he has a really good chance of doing, and quite soon.
Brady, at 178 wins in the regular season (an astonishing number when you really think about it), could inch toward the 186 wins that Manning and Favre got in the regular season, and he no doubt will be able to do it next year unless something really crazy happens. And since it’s Brady we’re talking about, it’s entirely possible.
When we discuss Tom Brady in 2016, we’re operating under the question of what if the NFL hadn’t suspended him for the first four games of the regular season this year. Brady could have at least three more regular season wins under his belt, and could have possibly been the thing the team needed in their Week 4 loss against the Buffalo Bills. This could have been Brady’s year to put everybody else way behind him, but it wasn’t meant to be. We’ll just have to wait until next year for that.
But who cares? From here on out, over the next four games and then however far in the playoffs the Pats get, Brady is going to eventually become the winningest QB in football history. He’s already six games past Joe Montana for the most wins in the postseason (you know, when it counts the most), and nobody is catching him anytime soon. Ben Roethlisberger, with 11 wins, has the second-most among active players, and Big Ben isn’t getting any younger or healthier. Brady is about to be in a class all by himself and that’s something that football fans, no matter how hard they might hate New England, should stop and appreciate – even if just for a few seconds. Brady is 39, playing some of the best football of his life, and is about to officially become the best quarterback in the history of the game.