He can't take a punch because if he gets hit a couple of times in a game, he folds. Watch the Jets/Patriots game in the divisional round for the latest example. If more teams would play their defensive backs on the line instead of playing zone coverage, Brady wouldn't look nearly so good. But as Gregg Easterbrook is fond of saying, a lot of coaches are content with making losses look respectable instead of attacking and potentially taking grief from the media after giving up a big play.

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Rodney Harrison said a few times prior to the divisional game against the Jets, that the best way to beat the Patriots is man coverage. Zone coverage will allow Tom Brady to beat you. What's this got to do with whether Aaron Rodgers is under rated? I have no clue, but I maintain that Aaron Rodger is over rated.

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I made the initial post just before leaving town for the weekend, so I haven't had the chance to join the discussion until today.

I think Nonstop's trashing of Tom Brady is a bit over the top. No QB plays as well with a lot of pressure as he does without it. Aaron Rodgers threw nine picks in the first seven games this season, largely because of protection issues.

Also, there are two reasons why Brady stands in the pocket for such a long time patting the football. One is that he has one of the best pass protecting O-lines in the league. The other is that his receivers are not very good, so it tends to take them a long time to get open. Welker is very good, though he may have lost half a step this year because he's recovering from an ACL injury. Who else do they have? Deion Branch, who's pretty average, and some no-names. Brady only played two seasons with Randy Moss, and he was already established as one of the very best QBs in the game before Moss came along.

Another line of reasoning that I have to question is that Brady is only good because opposing teams play too much zone against him. The assumption is that basically the entire NFL (with few exceptions) plays stupid against this one QB. Hard to believe.

One of the downsides of having a great player, like Rodgers, on your team, is that a lot of fans will try to raise him even higher by denigrating the abilities of other great players. We saw this all the time during the Brett Favre era. I'd rather not go there. At this point I am happy just to claim that Aaron Rodgers is right up there with the very best QBs in the game. I would give him the edge over all of them at this point, but I'm not ready to say that he stands head and shoulders above them. It is tempting sometimes to base too much of our opinion on the most recent game or string of games. Things could swing back the other way next year.

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Very true, although he has had the highest passer rating in the league against the blitz two seasons running. But I don't see how that's relevant. My whole point is that Brady's greatness stems in large part from excellent protection.



It may well be true his receivers aren't that good, but he undeniably has an incredible amount of time to pass. I couldn't believe the number of times this season I was able to count to 8 or 10 before he got rid of the ball. Anyone who wants to argue that having so much time in the pocket doesn't inflate his yardage and reduce his interceptions is kidding himself, in my opinion. Aaron Rodgers continues to perform well despite being pressured seemingly every other play.



Primarily on the merits of his third Super Bowl ring. Before that, he was regarded as a system quarterback, and a rather mediocre one at that. His performance in the playoffs hasn't been all that impressive overall. He has some of the lowest playoff YPA and YPC averages in league history, compared to Rodgers who so far has the highest average in both categories. But people easily get dazzled by Brady's sparkly jewelry.



Conventional wisdom is powerfully persuasive. The average coach also punts or kicks a field goal when the statistics show he'd be better off going for it. Getting burned one or two times by big plays leaves a far stronger impression in the memory than getting dinked and dunked down the field. It may also be that for whatever reason, many coaches don't believe their defenses are capable of playing man coverage effectively against the Patriots.



I agree wholeheartedly. I've been trying to demystify Brady (and other quarterbacks) for years, long before Rodgers came on the scene. While I certainly laud Rodgers' accomplishments, the significance of which I believe have been underestimated to this point, my denigration of Brady has nothing to do with assessment of Rodgers, nor does my assessment of Rodgers have anything to do with my perception of Brady. I think Brady has been overhyped for years and that he's a less-than-impressive postseason quarterback. His gaudy statistics in the Moss era don't dissuade me from that notion.

Hell, the Patriots, a team with an average margin of victory of over 18 this season, barely beat (by 4 points), at home, a Packers team lead by their backup quarterback, a seventh-round pick in his first NFL start. Shouldn't they have destroyed the Packers? (Yes, I know the Packers lost at home to the Dolphins lead by Chad Henne; that was embarrassing too.)



But I'm not. I've been an enthusiastic Rodgers supporter since before he became the Packers' starter, and I've been cataloging his impressive accomplishments since day one.

I've been denigrating, as you put it, Brady's accomplishments for far longer than that, and it certainly wasn't out of a liking for Rodgers' predecessor.

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When Kitna was getting sacked 51 times Detroit, he put up some pretty good games with a pretty bad team. Every time Brady's protection was defeated, he lost. Because he just isn't good under duress. He is not very good under pressure. He is a good QB, but he needs to have the time afforded him by that line. He will not carry a team without it.

Yes, Brady whined to the officials a lot after they started protecting him. That is why everyone jokes about his wearing a skirt. He didn't get hit hard, someone touched him lightly and he cried. Then he got the flag.

Rodgers had a fantastic first half of '09 with the 32nd ranked O-line in front of him. With as bad as the line was in his first 2 years as a starter, nobody had a better start... Ever. His rating goes up under duress and in the playoffs. Unlike Brady. Because NSD is right.

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The numbers are all there in cold black and white. Ignore popular perception. The film is there. Watch the film with the announcers muted (which is how I usually do it, even on Packers games). Brady has my current vote for most overrated quarterback, though one of my goals for this summer is to dig up old game footage of Joe Montana games, because I suspect, based on the numbers I've found, he may also have been overrated (on his individual performances). Much is made, for example, of the fact that he never threw an interception in the Super Bowl, although he threw plenty in the playoffs, and I know for a fact that on the last drive of one of the Super Bowls, he threw a pass directly into the hands of a (Bengals?) defender that would have lost them the game. The guy just flat-out dropped it. Montana was one of the few quarterbacks in league history (among them, Rodgers, though with a much smaller sample size) who threw interceptions in the playoffs with a positive point differential. Montana was also anything but durable, having only started three complete seasons his entire career.

But until I actually watch the games, I'm just talking out of my ass, so I'll shut up.

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That was a very good rebuttal up above, Nonstop. I am still far apart from you when it comes to Brady, but you make some valid points.

One point that I think you are wrong about is your statement that Brady was regarded as "a system quarterback, and a rather mediocre one at that," before he won his third Super Bowl. At worst, he was regarded as an excellent system quarterback until that point, and maybe that's all he was, but he kept improving. When the Patriots opened up their offense, Brady showed that he could throw the ball accurately downfield and put up some gaudy numbers.

Another point where I'm not with you is your singling out yards per attempt and yards per catch when judging playoff stats. Those are important stats, but they provide only a partial image of a QB's performance.

I'd be interested to know where you rank Tom Brady among NFL QBs.

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You do make a good Ace Ventura once in a while, but for the most part I agree with a lot of what you say, with the exception of your sympathy for poor Mark Chmura, of course.

Your analysis of Pretty Boy Brady is spot on. Put a few deserved defensive holding and obvious offensive line holding in those Super Bowls and they take the Vikings off the schneid with an 0-5 Super Bowl record. NE Dynasty my ass.

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I havn't read through all of the pages here but I don't get why people always say "Brady has such great pass protection" but never say anything about who Brady's throwing to. Does any one even know a single Pats WR?

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By the way, for what its worth and its worth nothing, I don't get the thought that Rodgers is underrated. Everyone and their mother (at least the TV shows I watch or the websites I read) says they would take Rodgers to start a franchise. I'm not sure what else you would want, do you want them to say that Rodgers is better than Brady and Manning after one year (or two) in which he bested them?

But to put Rodgers into the same company as Manning and Brady in terms of career or image, doesn't make sense to me, those guys did it for 10 years. For example, Rodgers has never won an MVP (even a vote?). He's a great player and amongst the best but the way some people talk about him is way off to me. One of the key things is do it over a period of time. He hasn't done that yet so I am not sure how he can be underrated.

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