So game on the line, you need to convert on 4th down and score in order to win, who do you want as your quarterback? Do you want Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady? You want your quarterback to throw a pretty pass or you want your quarterback to just find a way to win? Does it matter to you how you win a game? It shouldn't.
Tom Brady has won a lot of big games in the clutch. He comes up big when the lights are all on him. Proof? His game winning drive against the St. Louis Rams. His game winning drive against the Carolina Panthers. Game winning drive against the Philadelphia Eagles. Against the Seattle Seahawks. Finally, his epic game winning drive against the Atlanta Falcons. All the drives I just mentioned, took place in the Super Bowl games. Super Bowl is the biggest game of the year. Brady has been there seven times and came up victorious five times. Aaron Rodgers has so far been to one and has won it.
Five to one super bowl win ratio and seven to one in super bowl appearance ratio, gives Brady a huge advantage over Mr. Rodgers. To get to seven super bowls, Brady and his team had to win at least two post-season games in those years. Brady and the patriots had to win a total of 14 playoff games to get to those seven super bowls. Aaron Rodgers so far in ten years, has won a total of nine games. That's pretty close to one playoff win each year, which is actually awesome but, it is still five games less than what Brady won just to get to the super bowls. Add on five super bowl wins, four other divisional wins, and two more wildcard wins. At this very moment, Tom Brady has sixteen more playoff wins than Aaron Rodgers. That difference is seven more wins than what Rodgers has actually won so far.
I know Rodgers started playing in the league seven years after Brady did, but I think the chances of him getting to super bowl six more times and winning it four more times are pretty slim. Okay okay, let's not talk talk about super bowl because it is just one game. Let's talk about playoff games that players have to compete in besides the regular season games, before they get to the super bowl. First of all, who has Aaron Rodgers beaten in the playoffs? He has beaten the Philadelphia Eagles, Atlanta Falcons, Chicago Bears, Pittsburgh Steelers, Minnesota Vikings, Dallas Cowboys (twice), NY Giants, and Washington Redskins. His first four of the nine playoff wins came in the year when he went onto win the super bowl and he was great during that run. After the super bowl, his record hasn't been so good and other than the giants and the cowboys (2014), he hasn't beaten any great team in the playoffs. Dallas Cowboys who lost twice to Rodgers, had great regular seasons in those years, However, the second time when he faced the cowboys, he went up against a team that was led by two rookies. Yes cowboys were awesome that year and the rookies played extraordinary, but still it was their first year. They were inexperienced in the playoffs. The rookies ended up playing well in their very first playoff game, but they had an awful start to the game and that was enough to give Rodgers an advantage over them.
Other than beating the cowboys (2014) and the giants (2016) at home, he has struggled against great teams. Do you all remember what happened to him when he played the 49ers in 2012 and then in 2013 (at home). What happened when he played seahawks in 2014? Oh what happened when he played Falcons in 2016? He lost all those games and he lost them in different ways. In the divisional round game against the 49ers at San Francisco, he lost 31-45 with the packers scoring their final touchdown of the game in garbage time. Basically the 49ers won the game at 3:39 mark in the 4th quarter when they took a 21 point lead. A team was up by twenty-one points against the great Aaron Rodgers? wow. In 2013, Rodgers and packers got to play the 49ers again in the playoffs and this time they played them at home. I am not going to kill Rodgers for this lost, because it was two good teams going at each other in a wild-card game. Okay the Seahawks game was a competitive up and down game, but come on Rodgers, you gotta finish the deal. Seattle Seahawks were begging Aaron Rodgers and the Packers to win the game and move on to super bowl as, Seahawks played their worst game of the year at home. Russell Wilson, the Seahawks quarterback was responsible for four turnovers, as he threw four interceptions and one of his receivers fumbled the ball and lost it. That's FIVE turnovers, which is a recipe for disaster. A team that turns the ball over five times in a game should lose at least by two scores, yet Seahawks won the game. Why and how did that happen? Aaron Rodgers and his offense started playing extremely conservative for about most of the fourth quarter. With five minutes left in the game and Packers holding a twelve point lead, Russell Wilson threw his fourth interception of the game. Russell Wilson confidence was all destroyed and all the momentum was on the side of the Packers. All the Packers needed to do was pick one or two first downs and the game was over. Guess what Mr. Rodgers did? He came onto the field with his offense with 5:04 left in the game, then he went three and out for negative four yards and watched his punter from the sideline, kick the ball back to the opponent's offense. Then Russell Wilson did what Rodgers couldn't, he finished the deal. Wilson overcame the deficit and helped his team win in overtime.
You would think the Seahawks game was Aaron Rodgers worst playoff game and he was going to change his approach to become a different type of a quarterback. A much better quarterback! After beating the rookie led cowboys in the divisional round of 2016, uncle Rodgers went to Atlanta to play the Falcons. The greatest thrower of the football was completely outperformed by Matt Ryan (Matty-Ice). This was supposed to be a shootout between two of the best quarterbacks in the NFC, but that didn't happen. What exactly happened then? In the first half of the NFC championship game, Falcons outscored the Packers 24-0. Wow, mister Rodgers didn't score a point in one half of the game. Okay that could happen to other great quarterbacks too, but then they make up for it in the second half of the game. Rodgers kinda did turn it around in the second half of the game as he put up twenty-one points on the board. However, it wasn't enough, as Falcons added twenty more points to their total. Aaron Rodgers numbers weren't that bad. He passed for 287 yards and tossed three touchdowns as he completed sixty percent of his passes. Then again, those numbers were not good enough to keep up with the shootout with Matty Ice. Matt Ryan passed for 392 yards and tossed four touchdowns while completing seventy-one percent of his passes. Matt Ryan didn't have an interception whereas, Rodgers did have one. Also just like the 49ers game in 2012, Rodgers third and final touchdown of the game came at 6:43 mark in the fourth quarter, which was after the Falcons had taken a twenty-nine point lead. Aaron Rodgers and the Packers could have played better and avoided this blowout lost to the Falcons. He lost a game which many experts picked him to win with his greatness and also because he was better than Matt Ryan. Don't tell me that Atlanta Falcons were a lot better team than the Packers. Okay, overall their offense was better than Green Bay's, but Packers had a better quarterback in Aaron Rodgers and their defense was just as good as Falcons. In fact, Cowboys had a better defense than the Falcons, as they finished ahead of the Falcons in scoring and total defense. Yet, Rodgers put up thirty-four on Cowboys but, failed to keep up with Matt Ryan and the Falcons in a shootout. What happened to him? Oh, he choked! Yes, I know Falcons, in the super bowl got off to a crazy hot start against Tom Brady and the Patriots, as they outscored the Patriots 21-3 in the first half and had a 28-3 lead late in the third quarter. However, Patriots won the game 34-28 in overtime. How did that happen? Defense shut Matt Ryan and the Falcons down? No, Tom Brady and the Patriots tired down the Falcons defense by dominating the time of possession in the first half and then scoring their first touchdown with a long drive in the third quarter. In the first half, Brady and the pats had bad breaks with the turnovers and missed opportunities, but they were able to move the ball against the Falcons defense. Then in the second half, Brady and the pats turned it around, cleared up their mistakes and started scoring on the Falcons. Rodgers and the Packers didn't make up for their mistakes. Yes they did put up points in the second half, but Falcons defense weren't tired as they were against Tom Brady and the Patriots. Dominating time of possession in a game is huge as it gives time to your defense to make adjustments and play better against opposing offenses. As the super bowl game went on, Patriots offense and defense started playing better and figured out a way to beat out Atlanta's high octane offense and energetic defense. Tom Brady completed the miracle, while Aaron Rodgers in the playoffs, lost pretty badly.
Yes, Tom Brady has had bad playoff games too. He has suffered double digit losses in the games in which his team was predicted to win. The losses against the Baltimore Ravens in the wild-card game in 2009 and in the AFC championship game in 2012 were awful. He was pretty awful in those games. There have been other bad games too for him in the playoffs such as, the games against the Denver Broncos three times from 2005 till 2015, the games against the New York Giants in the super bowls, and the (then) San Diego Chargers game in 2007. Brady has struggled in the playoffs like Aaron Rodgers and other quarterbacks, but because he has a playoff record of thirty-four game appearances and has won twenty-five of them, he gets a pass on those terrible losses. Of course, him, his teammates, his coaches, and his friends wouldn't want him to have those losses, but when you play so many games at the highest level against great competition, you are going to get beat at times. But, how many do you know would go out there and win twenty-five playoff games? Not many, just one. How many do you know would make it to seven super bowls? Maybe just one. How many would win five of those seven super bowls? One and only, Tom Brady! Aaron Rodgers is not the Michael Jordan of the NFL. No he is not! Michael Jordan made his name in the big games of the NBA playoffs. Jordan went to six NBA finals and won all of them. Rodgers has been to one Super Bowl and has won it, but what has he done in the playoffs since then? How many times has he been to super bowls since 2010? Wait for it, ZERO! You are the greatest quarterback according to many and you play for the legendary franchise, the Green Bay Packers, and you can't make it to at least one super bowl in seven years?
I am not an Aaron Rodgers hater or a fan. I find him a great quarterback, who is supremely talented and enjoyable to watch. However, some analysts and crazy Rodgers' fans make me hate him when they say, he is miles better than Tom Brady. Aaron Rodgers is a winner too, as it is hard to win in the NFL and appear in the playoffs every year, but he is not the ultimate winner. He is nowhere close to the greatest winner of all time, Tom Brady. Don't you argue with me that greatest winner and greatest player are two different things. Why do we play sports? To have stats or to win? To find a way to throw a beautiful pass or to find a way to win the big game?
Thank You!
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