Why does the NFL hype up certain players?!

36 comments

1. They have a goat narrative for Brady as part of his brand.
   It makes them more money.

2. I’ve always said this.. Bree’s never get enough recognition. They hardly ever talk about how good he was or his stats. People even Roger’s is better than him or manning. And I just don’t see it

3. Part of being great is being able to be great for a long time.

4. Brady kept playing at a high level over those seasons though. If you can play longer then that’s better than not playing longer. As much as I love Brees, I would have rather had Brady if that meant Brady stayed with the Saints until retirement.

5. Marketing.

6. That’s some creative math you started doing. You can make any player look great or terrible by extrapolating their career over 23 seasons. According to your logic, Rattler is 0-372.

7. The only thing I hate about this pic is using the Bucs for Brady and the Steelers for Rodgers. Either put all of their teams or just the Patriots and Packers. Putting their last teams is nasty work. You never see Jordan in a Wizards jersey for pics like this.

8. Longevity at the highest level is part of being the best. In his penultimate year he threw for 43 TDs, his second-highest return and at the ripe old age of 45.

   You can’t average it out and say “well if Brees played as many as seasons as Brady then he’d have more TDs” because that’s not a fair argument. Not least because Brees was struggling with his health in his last couple of seasons, whereas Brady went on stronger for longer.

   I don’t think Brees gets a fair shake when it comes to GOAT arguments and I do think he’s the best passer of all time, but Brady’s longevity, his rings, his wins and his general overall play elevates him above the rest pretty comfortably.

9. Money.

10. I get it, but there is legitimately something to be said for the ability to play at a high level for such a long time, looking at LeBron in the NBA. Most dudes his age fall way off, something there is a case to be made for length of play.

    Unfortunately there’s so many factors involved with injuries, team ability etc.

    Similar arguments can be for Barry Sanders vs Emmett Smith and Randy Moss vs Jerry Rice.

11. Sorry to nitpick, but this method of scaling may be a bit more biased towards those who played after the NFL expanded to 17 games (Brady/Rodgers/Allen/Mahomes/etc).

    So their annual stats will be higher by virtue of an additional game, and projecting that over 23 years just compounds the bias. I think scaling per game may be a bit more balanced – whether you scale over games played, games started, or games that potentially could have been played is up to your analytical goal.

    That being said, this bias still has Brees very high in the categories, which further exemplifies not only his skill but also his consistency when having one less game to still post high averaged numbers.

    And no amount of statistical interference nor deviation will ever deny that the Falcons did in fact blow a 25 point lead. FTF

12. I think it’s also worth noting that the NFL started doing 17 game seasons in 2021 – right after Brees retired.
    So the averages you have on current players need to be tweaked a bit to factor that in

13. The bar graph here is also hilarious, no reason for them to scale it to the point where it looks like Brady has twice as many as second place lmao

14. Cmon bro, this ain’t it. If somebody played one season where they threw 6000/60 would you say that they were better than this list?

15. This isn’t an analytical rant its an ideological one. For reasons unstated, you think seasons played should be factored in.

    Couple years ago on r/nfl someone did an very good bit of research to prove Mahomes was average by removing all the instances where his play was better than average. Their point, if you factor out Mahomes being amazing, he’s average.

    Yea, if you take away the fact that Brady somehow has 23 years of stellar play and reduced him to the avg lenghth of a great career, he ain’t special.

    That Brady somehow kept being worthy for 23 IS WHY HE IS SPECIAL!!!

16. They talk about the players people want to hear about and with tea. Brady is a character. Rodgers is a character. Brees is a good guy who played great with no drama. Oh what will happen now that Brady is in Tampa Bay… So exciting! As opposed to just retiring. Most of these guys landed in a situation where they had some extra years playing on a rival team or just a new city. That’s at least part of it. Deflategate, cryogenic chambers, supermodel wife, cheating coach, gives them a lot to sink their teeth into.

17. Now do interceptions. He will be #1.

18. It’s breaking into like top 5. Yes, the longer a player plays the more likely they are to get a record like most yards or most TDs. You can’t assume players, had they played longer, would have maintained their same average output. Production can decrease with age after a certain point. 

19. So you’re saying Aaron Rodgers convinced you to do your own research

20. The US is obsessed with meritocracy. We have to believe that the guy who won the most was the Greatest so we adjust the criteria to match the status. We can’t accept that the world is not divinely ordered and some people just get lucky+genetics+help.

    We will ignore that Brady had top 5, 3, and 1 defenses his whole career. Manning won when he had top defenses in Indy and Denver. Rodger’s won when he had a top 2 defense. If they had more, would they not have won more?

    And then we ignore other things to hold onto the narrative. We ignore the fact that it took Brady multiple seasons to catch Manning and more seasons to catch Brees. We ignore the fact that Brees had more comebacks thwarted by his own defense than Manning, Brady and Rodger’s combined. Would Brees have more superbowls if his defense stopped the 49ers in 11, Minni in 18, the rams in 19 with less than a minute left each?

    We ignore these things because if we accepted them, we’d have to admit to ourselves that winning the most Super Bowl doesn’t mean you’re the best. The world is full of ambiguity and complexity, and not everything happens for a logical reason. And people would rather believe that gods walk among us.

21. The US is obsessed with meritocracy. We have to believe that the guy who won the most was the Greatest so we adjust the criteria to match the status. We can’t accept that the world is not divinely ordered and some people just get lucky+genetics+help.

    We will ignore that Brady had top 5, 3, and 1 defenses his whole career. Manning won when he had top defenses in Indy and Denver. Rodger’s won when he had a top 2 defense. If they had more, would they not have won more?

    And then we ignore other things to hold onto the narrative. We ignore the fact that it took Brady multiple seasons to catch Manning and more seasons to catch Brees. We ignore the fact that Brees had more comebacks thwarted by his own defense than Manning, Brady and Rodger’s combined. Would Brees have more superbowls if his defense stopped the 49ers in 11, Minni in 18, the rams in 19 with less than a minute left each?

    We ignore these things because if we accepted them, we’d have to admit to ourselves that winning the most Super Bowl doesn’t mean you’re the best. The world is full of ambiguity and complexity, and not everything happens for a logical reason. And people would rather believe that gods walk among us.

22. The US is obsessed with meritocracy. We have to believe that the guy who won the most was the Greatest so we adjust the criteria to match the status. We can’t accept that the world is not divinely ordered and some people just get lucky+genetics+help.

    We will ignore that Brady had top 5, 3, and 1 defenses his whole career. Manning won when he had top defenses in Indy and Denver. Rodger’s won when he had a top 2 defense. If they had more, would they not have won more?

    And then we ignore other things to hold onto the narrative. We ignore the fact that it took Brady multiple seasons to catch Manning and more seasons to catch Brees. We ignore the fact that Brees had more comebacks thwarted by his own defense than Manning, Brady and Rodger’s combined. Would Brees have more superbowls if his defense stopped the 49ers in 11, Minni in 18, the rams in 19 with less than a minute left each?

    We ignore these things because if we accepted them, we’d have to admit to ourselves that winning the most Super Bowl doesn’t mean you’re the best. The world is full of ambiguity and complexity, and not everything happens for a logical reason. And people would rather believe that gods walk among us.

23. Josh Allen is ridiculous bro

24. You can’t just use averages to predict how players would have performed if they’d played as long as Brady. Peyton is a particularly good example of why, just take a look at his last season. Brees also limped to his finish line. Longevity is a skill.

25. I hear what you are saying but Rodgers didn’t play at all basically his first 3 years or the 2023 season, along with a couple of seasons with limited games (2013(9), 2017(7)).

    These stats are hard to parse out as average yearly production.

    Drew is definitely regarded amongst the greatest QB’s ever but Rodgers has one of the best arms we’ve ever seen and a good guy/bad guy weird charisma that focuses a shit load of attention on him.

    Just one of those things, I guess.

26. Why show Rodgers as a Steeler but Manning as a colt?

27. and winning 7 super bowls instead of 1 helps

28. Lol you must not have seen manning’s arm his last year

29. Performing at a high level with the top fractional percentile on the planet for more than 2 decades is incredible and deserving of praise. Jerry Rice is the greatest receiver of all time and it isn’t even close – most of that due to the length of his career.

    “He did it into his 40’s that’s the only reason he’s considered the GOAT” isn’t a gotcha

30. This should be based on games played, not seasons played. Rodgers didn’t even play during his first three seasons, and several of these players never played in an 18-week league

31. Yeah. The guy with the best stats of all time, the longest career, and the most super bowls shouldn’t be the one they feature

32. I love this post. All of it!

33. Interesting they have Brady as a Buc but Manning as a Colt (Broncos) and Farve as a Packer (Vikings)

34. Old at this point, but it doesn’t make since to compare everyone as if they played 23 seasons. What makes Tom better than all of them is he was an elite quarterback well into his 40s.

    Brees was good. He gets ton of recognition as the best dome QB probably ever.

    Why cry?

35. Had to zoom in because i thought rodgers was roethlisberger and was very confused

36. The team was mediocre when Brees went particularly insane with stats. The Saints never really played complimentary football. As much as “game manager” is perceived as a dig, it shouldn’t be for elite quarterbacks. I don’t know the Saints defense would have been so terrible if they had a better approach on offense. Team approach. Team game. Wins matter.