As for those Brett Favre plays forever beautitudes towards Tom Brady, it's shoulda, coulda, woulda. Sure he may play another five to seven years and be productive like Favre (who did quite well late in life in a Vikings uniform, white hair and all), but on that same argument I could say that Jim Kelly would be the greatest "had" he won four SBs in a row!
The fact is, basically two things about Brady. Along with Favre, Brady is the best on everything a QB is about of the modern, post SB era.
I think you're overrating Favre quite a bit here. Favre was a clearly an All-star caliber quarterback, but the biggest part of the argument for him being considered one of the best is because of his longevity. Yes, that's great, and it does help him in the discussion, but even in his prime years he wasn't the best QB in the league. He put up good numbers, but not great numbers. He obviously won some big games, won a super bowl, etc, but a lot of the Favre memories I have were him throwing a game winning INT for the other team. He's probably borderline top 5, but there are a few besides Brady who are clearly better.
Let's take a look at some career stats for a few quarterbacks that most people would consider some of the best to play the game:
Brett Favre: 62.0% comp, 5.0 TD%, 3.3 INT%, 1.51 TD/INT, 86.0 rating,
186-112 W-L (.624), 1x SB Champion, 3x NFL MVP
John Elway: 56.9% comp, 4.1 TD%, 3.1 INT%, 1.32 TD/INT, 79.9 rating, 148-82 W-L (.643), 2x SB Champion, 1x NFL MVP, 1x SB MVP
Dan Marino: 59.4% comp, 5.0 TD%, 3.0 INT%, 1.67 TD/INT, 86.4 rating, 147-93 W-L (.613), 1x NFL MVP
Peyton Manning:
64.9% comp, 5.5 TD%, 2.7 INT%, 2.02 TD/INT, 94.9 rating, 143-69 W-L (.675), 1x SB Champion,
4x NFL MVP, 1x SB MVP
Tom Brady: 63.9% comp,
5.6 TD%,
2.1 INT%,
2.64 TD/INT,
96.5 rating, 126-
37 W-L
(.773), 3x SB Champion, 2x NFL MVP, 2x SB MVP
Joe Montana: 63.2% comp, 5.1 TD%, 2.6 INT%, 1.96 TD/INT, 92.3 rating, 117-47 W-L (.713),
4x SB Champion, 2x NFL MVP,
3x SB MVP
Bold indicates the leader for that specific category. Obviously there's more stats that I haven't included here, which just goes to show how complicated this discussion can get. I used mostly the percentages because I think that's the best way we can measure how effective and efficient a quarterback is.
From the numbers, we can see that Peyton Manning completes the highest percentage of his passes (64.9%), followed closely by Brady and then Montana. Brady has the highest percentage of passes that go for touchdowns and the lowest percentage for interceptions, closely followed by Manning and then Montana. This also gives Brady the best touchdown to interception ratio and the best quarterback rating, where he is again closely followed by Manning and Montana, respectively. Brady also has that ridiculous .773 winning percentage (him, Montana, and Staubach are the only ones over .700). So, going strictly by statistics only, Brady looks like he has the best numbers, with Manning and Montana really close behind.
In the hardware department, Montana obviously takes the cake with 4 Super Bowls, 3 SB MVPs, and 2 NFL MVPs. Brady's not far behind with 3 SBs, 2 SB MVPs, and 2 NFL MVPs. Elway comes next with his 2 SB wins (in 5 appearances), 1 NFL MVP, and 1 SB MVP.
Manning and Favre each won the Super Bowl once, and Marino wasn't able to at all, so I'd look at Manning's 4 NFL MVPs to put him ahead of Favre (3 MVPs) and Marino (1 MVP).
Considering all of this, I'd rank Montana 1st, Brady 2nd, Manning 3rd, Elway 4th, then either Favre or Marino 5th. But I'd say Montana, Brady, and Manning are in a tier above the rest. As far as I'm concerned, the only thing keeping Montana on top is that 4th ring. If Brady gets a 4th, his advantage over Montana on every other statistic put him in the top spot. This is definitely a good discussion though, all of these players are quite close, and the differences between some of the eras they played in can skew opinions too.
We will have to wait for another QB to lead a team to four out of four like Bradshaw or Montana, and also to have a perfect season and postseason. Brady can still do the latter which seems less and less likely the older he gets, imho. Heck, if Brady has a perfect season next season at age 36, or later (age 37 into his 40s), and then ends up in a Super Bowl against my 49ers, I will actually root for Brady so I can see a perfect season realized for one who came up just one short a few years ago. Triumph over a monkey on one's back is a great thing, no matter who. I spent a decade disliking the Broncos and John Elway, but it was really special to see him finally win one, after three losses and some narrow misses to SB/playoffs. Maybe Brady and co has something left for a big hoorah.
But Favre, for our generation, was a one of kind QB who seemed to actually have a better 30s than his 20s. But for every sport I can think of, save maybe golf, one's 20s is the time to get the best decade in as a professional athlete. Yes, if Brady wins four more Super Bowls before he's 40 and also has a perfect season in there somewhere, then it's possible he can play until 40 and post his 30s as his "best" decade. If Brady pulls this almost impossible thing off and has more SB wins in his 30s and QB rating numbers and/or perfect season, and only a handful have had his talent in last 30 years, I will be first in line to root for the old man to show up the young jocks in the NFL.
This is definitely something interesting to look at. NFL players do peak in their mid 20s and most usually start to decline in their early 30s. Quarterbacks do tend to peak a little bit later, and have more longevity than more physical positions, such as running backs, linebackers, and lineman.
Favre definitely took it to another level as far as longevity goes, but I wanted to actually take a look at the numbers to see if they support your argument saying he was actually better as he got older. To do this, I took his career and split it in half, from ages 22-31, and ages 32-41.
Favre age 22-31: 60.9% completion, 28 TD/yr, 5.17 TD%, 17 INT/yr, 3.17 INT%, 1.65 TD/INT, 86.29 rating
Favre age 32-41: 63.1% completion, 25 TD/yr, 4.85 TD%, 18 INT/yr, 3.47 INT%, 1.41 TD/INT, 85.99 rating
These numbers show that he was actually quite consistent over his entire career. As he got older, he completed a little higher percentage of his passes, but threw a lower percentage for touchdowns and a higher percentage of interceptions. In fact, it tends to show that except for his completion percentage, Favre was actually a more efficient quarterback when he was younger (not that this should really be a surprise). It's definitely impressive that he was able to maintain fairly consistent play at a high level for 20 years though.
It would be interesting to do this for a few of the other quarterbacks above, but I don't have the time at the moment... maybe one of these days.
edit--
Since I am a Pats fan and you're original post was comparing Brady and Favre, and their play (or in Brady's case possible play) in the later half of their careers.
Here's Brady's career stats split, his first 6 years as Patriots starter and the last 5 years. I extrapolated the numbers from the first 4 games of this year over a 16 game season to get the correct TD and INT rates per season, and threw out the 2008 season where he played 1 quarter of 1 game because of injury to not throw off the numbers.
Brady aged 24-29 (2001-06): 61.9% completion, 25 TD/yr, 4.83 TD%, 13 INT/yr, 2.57 INT%, 1.88 TD/INT, 88.48 rating
Brady aged 30-35 (2007-12): 66.3% completion, 36 TD/yr, 6.38 TD%, 8.2 INT/yr, 1.42 INT%, 4.41 TD/INT, 106.5 rating
wow. This clearly shows how much better of a quarterback Brady has become over the 2nd half of his career so far. Those numbers over a 5 year period are amazing and show you he's clearly in his prime right now. It will be interesting to see if he can keep up this high of a level of play over the next 5-8 years.
This seems like a teeny weeny exaggeration.
