After winning his fifth Super Bowl last night, there is no doubt anymore- Tom Brady is the greatest player in the history of the NFL. He is the greatest of all time (GOAT).

There are a lot of people who will disagree with this and they are free to disagree. The greatest in any sport is something people disagree on. 

The primary argument against Brady will always be two things. The first is that he lost two Super Bowls, but he has won five. The second is the amount of cheating scandals that have plagued him and the Patriots over the last decade or so. However, losing two Super Bowls should be a positive not a negative, and are the cheating scandals really as big a deal as everyone makes them out to be?

The Deflategate scandal should be thrown out the window because it happened the week before New England’s game against Seattle in the Super Bowl. There was a lot of attention on the PSI of the balls going into the Super Bowl, so they were properly inflated and that did not seem to affect Brady’s game at all. Brady threw for 328 yards and completed 37 of his 50 passes on his way to four touchdown passes in that Super Bowl. So I don’t think the inflation of the ball had anything to do with how well he plays. 

Then there is Spygate, which is probably the most overblown scandal ever. Spygate happened when the Patriots were caught filming signals of the New York Jets from an illegal location. It is not illegal to film other coachs’ signals, however, you can only do it from certain locations. The Patriots were doing it from what was considered an illegal location. It, in the simplest sense, was a misunderstanding of the way the rules were written.

Let’s say Spygate is as bad as people say it was. Did it really change how good the Patriots were?

The year Spygate was revealed, the New England Patriots went 16-0 in the regular season, which kills the argument that the Patriots could not win games post-Spygate. I could go on for a while about why Spygate is ridiculous and people need to let it go, but that isn’t what this column is about. 

Brady’s competition for G.O.A.T has always been Joe Montana. Brady has now surpassed Montana in terms of Super Bowl wins, with Montana having four and Brady now having five. The main argument brought up for Montana is that he never lost a Super Bowl and Brady lost two. 

People make the same argument with LeBron James and bring it up as a negative for him as well. It might be the most frustrating thing to hear. What you are saying when you say it is a negative to make a championship game and lose, is that you would rather have someone who goes out in the first round of the playoffs than someone who makes it all the to the championship but comes in second. You are not only saying “If you’re not first, you’re last,” you are saying that being in second is actually worse than being last. It just does not make sense. 

Now that that argument is out of the way, why don’t we take a look at some stats, because Montana’s and Brady’s are not even comparable. Brady has 61,582 passing yards in his career, which is not over. He also has 456 touchdowns and 152 interceptions. 

Montana does have less interceptions with 139, however, he threw just 5,391 pass attempts in his career compared to Brady’s 8,224. Montana also only has 40,551 passing yards to go with 273 passing touchdowns. There really is no comparison. 

There are other players you could bring up besides Montana, but at the end of the day, the G.O.A.T in football will always be a quarterback. The reason being that no other position affects his team more than a QB does in the game of football.  Jerry Rice is someone who will get brought up in this discussion but he only has three Super Bowl rings. 

Peyton Manning is probably the person you have been saying is the G.O.A.T in your head while reading this column, but he only has two rings as well and has been awful in the postseason in his career. Manning really should not be in the discussion, he is great in the regular season, but usually folds in the postseason. 

There really is not a debate anymore. Tom Brady is the greatest football to player to ever live.