Dude, come on. Bradshaw completed 51% of his passes and threw a crap ton of interceptions.
He played with the greatest defense in NFL history, and hall of fame WR’s, RB’s and linemen for his most of his career. The 70’s Steelers were probably the best collection of talent in NFL history. Tom never had a great running back, and probably has played with 2 HOF receivers in Moss (for like 2 years) and Gronk.
Brady is the GOAT and it’s not even close. He has played in several different offensive schemes, with a revolving cast of players, and has been nothing but consistently excellent for 20 years. Oh, and he may have 2 or 3 more years to go.
i have no idea if Bradshaw is a good example or not. Again, different eras.
But the league has Been diluted since the late 90s and into the past two decades. Miami, Jacksonville, Detroit, Cleveland, jets, Washington, bengals, raiders, Buffalo and on and on have been awful. Heck the afc east has been so bad that it was a guaranteed playoff birth every year for New England and usually a first round bye.
Brady had a ton of talent around him, don’t kid yourself. He wasn’t Michael Vick at Virginia tech. Cheap talent too as veterans took less money to come play there. New England usually traded their picks away to avoid the big rookie deals (which, to Tommy’s benefit once again flipped so the new rookie deals didn’t kill his cap for desperate veterans). There were some very good to elite defenses and a number of good lineman. Don’t forget gronk who is probably the best receiving threat of the past 20 years outside of moss, who also played with Brady for a bit.
During Tommy’s era Peyton redefined the QB position, Brees had a cannon, and Ben was a big horse. A few other guys made a splash now and then. I don’t find Brady’s talent to be better than those three on an individual level. But he certainly won more. Some of that is documented cheating, a little bit of luck via the tuck rule, some of that is he never really got hurt, some of that is the advantages he enjoyed as the game changed into a fantasy football paradise, some of that is due to the poor league competition issues stated above, and some of that is due to the mysterious fact that he appears to be a physical freak who doesn’t break down, like everyone else who ever played. Call it good training, huge amounts of money for elite eating and conditioning, steroids, hgh, genetic lottery, whatever, but I only ever saw one guy continue to dominate everyone else at the end of an advanced career like this, Barry Bonds. And Barry didn’t get hit by 300 pound guys for 20 years.