09-08-2021, 09:37 PM
(09-08-2021, 06:24 PM)Shake n Blake Wrote: LeBron could make them "competitive" single handedly...not be championship contenders (which they were) single handedly. The analogy fits because I'm comparing 2 very smart legends going to good situations.
You keep bringing up the win totals and losing culture as if that means anything. The Browns had an even worse losing culture...til they suddenly didn't.
Brady played a (large) role, but to suggest he took a "terrible" team to a championship all by his lonesome is asinine. If that's the case, Brady should have 20 rings. Fact is, no player in any sport has ever won a championship without considerable help.
Again, no need to reach for Lebron if you think the argument holds without him. There should be enough "very smart legends going to good situations" in the NFL to back up the claim. Let's control for as many variables as possible.
"You keep bringing up the win totals and losing culture as if that means anything." Lol yes. I do. Guilty as charged. If there's not a correlation between those two factors then we must live on different planets. Cleveland absolutely had a losing culture, you're right. I don't know that they're necessarily out of it now. They've had just one good year. But if they are, what does that even disprove? If you think I'm saying teams need Tom Brady specifically to emerge from their losing ways, you're just arguing with yourself. Plenty of teams have been burdened by losing cultures at some point and managed to put the train back on the tracks (without Tom Brady!). It doesn't mean it was easy for them to do so, let alone that it happened on autopilot.
My point is not that controversial. Brady evidently brought the kind of leadership to Tampa that they needed. He didn't singlehandedly win them any games- it's a team sport! But he did clearly, if not 'singlehandedly' exert the type of influence on his teammates that helped them fulfill their potential. That is no small thing. The gap between potential and performance in this league is arguably all that separates the best from the rest. And it's a lot more plausible to credit him for what happened than to say that countless disconnected parts in Tampa- with no prior track record of success- somehow came together at the precise moment he walked in the door. I mean, that may or may not be true, but it is a wild coincidence if it is. I'd say he had at least as much to do with it as them- if not more, given the six rings on his fingers.
We have no counterfactual so we'll never know what would've happened without him. But to not give Brady full credit for changing the dynamic of that team and significantly accelerating their development makes us sound like Bills fans. No franchise caught in a playoff drought of 13 years and counting can be described as "loaded" imo- I don't care who they are. There is nothing easier than to look back and claim that all of history was a foregone conclusion. If you thought the Bucs were just one strong QB away from a Super Bowl win before they acquired Tom Brady, please tell me which losing teams are "loaded" this year because I could really use the money.
