Lazy Man and Sports

I just read Mike Hegedus’ Patriots article at CNBC and had a couple of comments. It’s a pity that CNBC doesn’t open up articles for commenting, so I had to turn it into a full story and publish it here. Their loss is your gain.

In the article Hegedus claims that the Patriots are not the greatest team due to so-so competition, Tom Brady is not the best quarterback (see the competition thing), and Belichick is not a genius.

I think Belichick got the genius moniker from beating the Rams in 2001. As 14 point underdogs to the Steelers, the Patriots came in and won – fairly convincingly. As 14-17 point underdogs to the Rams (Greatest Show on Turf), they won. The talent on that team wasn’t great – no real pro-bowlers except maybe Ty Law.

As for this team’s place in history, I’m going to have refute the so-so competition judgment. As someone on CNBC, you no doubt realize that the NFL is the biggest team sport in America now. Billions of dollars are invested in it from scouting to training to make the players the very best they can be. In 1985 it wasn’t this way. Football was no doubt big, but it had to fight with the NBA for Celtics/Lakers rivalries. It had to compete with the national past-time of MLB. Today the MLB is shocked by the steroids and many people don’t watch the NBA any more. Hockey has taken a dive as well. Football is the only sport to have gotten more popular.

If you go back and look at the best football teams, who would be the greatest if not these Patriots? Would you go with the 1972 Dolphins as many have suggested? They faced much worse competition only beating two teams with .500 records. Would you go with 1989 49ers? I might buy that, but I don’t see how their competition was better than the Patriots. Dallas then and the Colts now are about equal. San Deigo now has to fit in there as well. Is it the 1985 Bears? How can the best team lose a game? It seems to me that the NFL has as much competition as ever with people on the lines being 350 pounds and players that look more like body builders than anything else.

Is Brady the best quarterback ever? Well that all hinges on the competition comment. Up until this year, he hasn’t had good wide receivers. Yes there was Deion Branch, but what has he done in Seattle? Davids Patten and Givens have been silent since leaving Tom’s arm. These were all successful players with Tom Brady as their quarterback. What did Wes Welker and Randy Moss do last year with their teams? Not enough to keep them from being traded for what seems like pennies on the dollar.

Who is a better quarterback than Tom Brady? Is it Joe Montana? He’s a great choice, but he also had a guy named Rice to pass to his whole career. He also has had Taylor receiving and Craig running the ball. Brady supporting cast hasn’t been nearly as good. I would listen to arguments that Marino is the best QB, but he wasn’t good enough to take the Dolphins to a Super Bowl victory, so I have to wonder about that. There’s Peyton Manning and he should get a lot of credit. He’s come up short in the playoffs more often than not. While he’s had the great receivers that Brady was lacking (Harrison, Wayne), he hasn’t had the benefit of the Patriots defense until recently. If they had the same about of titles, I’d call that a draw.

Mr. Hegedus, I love watching your short pieces on CNBC. And you are right that the “greatest” gets tossed around too much nowadays. This is one case where it is actually fitting. I suppose when another NFL team goes 18-0 we can compare.