When Tom Brady retired after one of the longest and most prolific careers of all time, he was considered by most football fans to be the greatest quarterback in NFL history.
The opinion was so widely held that when Brady joined Fox Sports, many (including this website many times) casually referred to Brady as the GOAT, without hesitation.
But apparently, one of Brady’s fellow Super Bowl champion quarterbacks and Fox teammates disagrees.
In an appearance on former Falcons linebacker Tim Green’s podcast this week, Bradshaw made a case for his generation of stars to be weighed more heavily in the all-time conversation. In doing so, Bradshaw lofted out his personal pick for GOAT QB.
“People say, ‘Well, is it really that important?'” Bradshaw said.
“I always hear people say, ‘Tom Brady’s the greatest quarterback to ever play.’ OK, is he really? Otto Graham may be the greatest quarterback to ever play. How many titles did Otto win? Look it up. And Tom lost three. I was 4-0. (Joe) Montana was 4-0. Tom was 7-3. Seven minus three is four. Four, four, four. That’s kind of the way I look at it. People are something else. We always want to know who was the best, don’t we?”
As Pro Football Talk noted in a write-up of Bradshaw’s comments, Graham won the same number of Super Bowls as Brady. And, like Brady, Graham also lost three of them.
Brady’s appearance in 10 Super Bowls across multiple eras of NFL football, on two separate teams, is a large part of what cemented him in many people’s minds as the best QB ever. Plenty of other historical greats are still regarded as the best, from Lawrence Taylor to Jerry Rice to Barry Sanders. But in Brady’s case, the longevity and winning pedigree are hard to match.
“I’ve never had anyone walk up to me and say, ‘Hey Terry, how many yards did you throw for? How many touchdown passes you got?’ Not one. Not one,” Bradshaw said. “But boy, I’ve had a million of them go, ‘Hey man, where’s your rings?'”
“So that kind of tells me that’s where the focus should be.”
And apparently, in Bradshaw’s imagination, that leads to Otto Graham.
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.