Is Tom Brady the greatest quarterback?

 If you want to review the entire study, you can view it at the following links: 

Football study at Slideshare.net

Football study at SlidesFinder.com 

The above studies include extensive use of the binomial distribution that allows differentiating how much of the quarterbacks' respective records are due to randomness vs. how much is due to skills.  This statistical analysis is not included within this blog post.  (The study at SlidesFinder may not include this complete section right now, but it should within a few days). 

The quarterbacks I looked at include the following: 

 

Performance during the Regular Season.

If we look at Brady's performance during the regular season at mid career (34 years old), he actually is far behind many of his peers.  

First, let's look at cumulative yards passed by 34 years old. 

Next, let's look at number of touch downs by 34 years old. 

As shown above in both yards and touch downs, at 34 years old Brady is way behind Manning, Marino, Brees, and Favre.  

At this stage of his career and on those specific counts, Brady does not look yet earmarked to become a legendary number 1.  

However, Brady's career longevity and productivity is second to none.  And, when you compare the respective records over an entire career, the picture changes dramatically. 

 

 

 Brady's ability to defy traditional age sports curve is remarkable.  He just has not shown any decline in performance in age.  At 44, he is just as good as 34... unlike any of his peers who have been out of the game for years. They all retired by 41 or earlier. 

 

 

 

Track record during the Post-Season.  

During the Post-Season it is a very different story.  Brady has been dominant throughout and since early on in his career.  He leads in number of Play Offs. 

 

 

 

He is way ahead in number of Super Bowl games. 

And, way ahead in Super Bowl wins. 

The table below discloses the performance of the players during the Post-Season. 

Given the number of teams in the NFL (32), and number of seasons played, the above players have a random proportional probability of winning one single Super Bowl ranging from 50% (for Montana) to 66% (for Brady).  That probability based on just randomness drops rapidly to close to 0% of winning 2 Super Bowls.  Notice that Marino, Brees, and Favre actual records are in line with this random proportional probability.  This underlies how truly difficult it is to win more than one Super Bowl.  Manning and Elway do not perform much above this random probability.  Only Montana and Brady perform a heck of a lot better than random probabilities would suggest based on the number of seasons they played. And, as shown Brady with 7 is way ahead of Montana.  And, he is not done!

When looking at the Post-Season track record, there is no doubt that Brady is the greatest.  Under pressure, and when it counts he scores.  Also, interesting even when he looses in a Super Bowl game, it is a close game.  He does not get wiped out.  By contrast some of the other quarterbacks (including Marino, and Elway among others) suffered truly humiliating lopsided defeats in the Super Bowl... not Brady.