Tom Brady only cares about one thing in football, and it has nothing to do with whether he’s on the Mount Rushmore of quarterbacks.
Brady mocked a stats-centric report from Pro Football Focus, republished on ESPN Insider, that claimed he was no longer among the top quarterbacks in the game.
“I think that people watch the games on TV because there is a scoreboard. I think that’s what it is all about,” Brady said, according to ESPNBoston.com. “If there was no scoreboard, then people wouldn’t tune in and watch. There’s only one stat that matters, and that’s because the competition in the NFL is very high, extremely high on a daily basis.”
The 37-year-old Brady was bumped out of the top five because of a lack of accuracy and an increase in turnovers under pressure. According to the article, the Broncos’ Peyton Manning, the Packers’ Aaron Rodgers and the Saints’ Drew Brees remained in the top tier, but Brady was surpassed by the Chargers’ Philip Rivers and the Steelers’ Ben Roethlisberger.
“You can’t sit here and compare one year to another year or compare this player to that player,” said Brady, who has won three Super Bowls.
“I think winning games is the most important thing, certainly for this organization. When you come here, you learn that pretty quickly. Whatever matters to you as an individual, it’s far distant to what the team goals are. And the team goals are one thing — to score more points than the other team.”
Last season, Brady threw 25 touchdowns and 11 interceptions and completed 60.5 percent of his passes in leading the Patriots to the AFC Championship game, where they lost to Manning’s Broncos. Those numbers led to a quarterback rating of 87.3 — his lowest mark since 2003.
The PFF report was played up strongly by ESPN last week, leading to a day of debate across countless platforms in their news cycle. Brady spoke with reporters, and embraced the subject, after making an appearance for Patriots owner Robert Kraft at a charity event at Gillette Stadium.
“Hopefully I’m answering those questions a long time from now too, and you guys can just reprint the stories or whatever you want to write now,” he said. “I want to do this for this team for as long as I possibly can. I love playing football for this team and for this organization. My goal is to continue to play at a high level, and there is nothing that really gets in the way of that.”