There’s nothing better than dispelling false narratives, which is probably why I had so much fun researching this one and diving deep into the numbers.
People who credit Tom Brady for being a winner tend to forget that he played with the best D/ST of a generation in the original dynasty, allowing him to win the 2001 Super Bowl while scoring just 29 (!) offensive points in an entire postseason (16 vs Oakland, 0 against Pittsburgh, 13 against St Louis), and in general make more mistakes than any other QB would've even been allowed the chance to come back from.
Even in a situation like the 2016 Super Bowl, the main catalyst for that comeback was a herculean performance from the Patriot defence to hold one of the best offences of all time (2016 Falcons) to just 21 offensive points. We saw what the Falcons did to the Packer defence. Instead of 28-3, the Falcon lead was 31-0 by the time the Packers scored their first touchdown. That defensive performance is why Tom was able to come back scoring three touchdowns out of five second half touches in the Super Bowl, and Aaron was laughed at and mocked scoring three touchdowns out of five second half touches, in back to back games against the same Falcon team.
Is that because Tom is a winner? No. It's because the Patriots are winners.
Aaron repeatedly runs into comparisons like this over his long and great playoff career (compare Aaron's performance against the 2013 49ers to Russell Wilson's, for example). It's just the wins that never came, except for the one magic run in 2010. People will yell 'excuse!' when I claim that this is bad luck and nothing more, but that's my opinion on what Aaron's playoff career was.
I feel like you are living inside my brain. I always like to make these points using the numbers you just shared. Also, the Packers D allowed 32.9 points per game in Rodgers’ 10 playoff losses (half his playoff career). Hard to win with that…
Yeah man, the summary stats tell the story themselves, but the general public seem to love specific examples. You give plays. I give games. That's why the 2016 Super Bowl comes up when talking about Tom vs Aaron in the playoffs. Their two performances against Atlanta were quite similar, but led to widely differing results.
In terms of individual performance, it's arguable, but in the new millennium Aaron may be a worse playoff performer only than Patrick Mahomes. It depends on what you want the start barrier to be. If you include Nick Foles and his six playoff starts, he's almost certainly the best playoff QB of all time (better than Patrick and everybody else), so let's not do that.
However, it seems to be convention to include Eli Manning and his 12 starts, so let's work down from here. Matthew Stafford has eight damn good playoff starts, but does anybody include him in best playoff QB discussions? I've never heard it, so this indicates to me that our start barrier has to be higher than eight, which leaves me staring at Matt Ryan's ten starts. This was enough to get people talking about Matt Ryan's playoff abilities, so I'm going to say the cutoff to be considered is ten playoff starts.
In the new millennium, this leaves us with only 15 candidates, and Aaron's placement depends on how you think of Kurt Warner. If you think Kurt Warner is a better playoff QB than Aaron Rodgers, then it's Pat 1, Kurt 2, Aaron 3. If you're less bullish on Kurt, then it's Pat 1, Aaron 2, Kurt 3.
As far as playoff EPA/Play, it's Pat first with his ludicrous 0.291, and Aaron second with 0.251, and then an ocean between them and third place Kurt Warner and his 0.180. This should likely be enough on its own to settle the argument about Aaron's playoff fortunes, but it goes further.
In the fourth quarter and overtime of playoff games, this EPA/Play list morphs to Kurt Warner being extremely far ahead (which is the only reason I brought him up earlier), with a surprise Philip Rivers appearance in second place, and Pat and Aaron in third and fourth. Isolating the small sample of the fourth and overtime drops Tom Brady to ninth out of 15, which entertains me.
In sum, Patrick Mahomes is better than Aaron Rodgers everywhere. That is not up for debate currently, but once Patrick goes through his falloff later in life it may become one again. We'll see. Nobody else is definitively better than Aaron Rodgers in the playoffs. Kurt Warner and Philip Rivers are clutch in the fourth, but not necessarily the rest of the game. Tom Brady won a lot, but cannot compete on an individual performance basis (unless you cut his first 20 playoff starts off. An exercise I've written an article on just recently).
Second (maybe third) is so far above where Aaron's playoff reputation sits that I can publish this comment as a post and title it 'The Dangers of Outcome Bias' or something like that. It's crazy to see.
You can literally feel the outcome bias.
People who credit Tom Brady for being a winner tend to forget that he played with the best D/ST of a generation in the original dynasty, allowing him to win the 2001 Super Bowl while scoring just 29 (!) offensive points in an entire postseason (16 vs Oakland, 0 against Pittsburgh, 13 against St Louis), and in general make more mistakes than any other QB would've even been allowed the chance to come back from.
Even in a situation like the 2016 Super Bowl, the main catalyst for that comeback was a herculean performance from the Patriot defence to hold one of the best offences of all time (2016 Falcons) to just 21 offensive points. We saw what the Falcons did to the Packer defence. Instead of 28-3, the Falcon lead was 31-0 by the time the Packers scored their first touchdown. That defensive performance is why Tom was able to come back scoring three touchdowns out of five second half touches in the Super Bowl, and Aaron was laughed at and mocked scoring three touchdowns out of five second half touches, in back to back games against the same Falcon team.
Is that because Tom is a winner? No. It's because the Patriots are winners.
Aaron repeatedly runs into comparisons like this over his long and great playoff career (compare Aaron's performance against the 2013 49ers to Russell Wilson's, for example). It's just the wins that never came, except for the one magic run in 2010. People will yell 'excuse!' when I claim that this is bad luck and nothing more, but that's my opinion on what Aaron's playoff career was.
I feel like you are living inside my brain. I always like to make these points using the numbers you just shared. Also, the Packers D allowed 32.9 points per game in Rodgers’ 10 playoff losses (half his playoff career). Hard to win with that…
Yeah man, the summary stats tell the story themselves, but the general public seem to love specific examples. You give plays. I give games. That's why the 2016 Super Bowl comes up when talking about Tom vs Aaron in the playoffs. Their two performances against Atlanta were quite similar, but led to widely differing results.
In terms of individual performance, it's arguable, but in the new millennium Aaron may be a worse playoff performer only than Patrick Mahomes. It depends on what you want the start barrier to be. If you include Nick Foles and his six playoff starts, he's almost certainly the best playoff QB of all time (better than Patrick and everybody else), so let's not do that.
However, it seems to be convention to include Eli Manning and his 12 starts, so let's work down from here. Matthew Stafford has eight damn good playoff starts, but does anybody include him in best playoff QB discussions? I've never heard it, so this indicates to me that our start barrier has to be higher than eight, which leaves me staring at Matt Ryan's ten starts. This was enough to get people talking about Matt Ryan's playoff abilities, so I'm going to say the cutoff to be considered is ten playoff starts.
In the new millennium, this leaves us with only 15 candidates, and Aaron's placement depends on how you think of Kurt Warner. If you think Kurt Warner is a better playoff QB than Aaron Rodgers, then it's Pat 1, Kurt 2, Aaron 3. If you're less bullish on Kurt, then it's Pat 1, Aaron 2, Kurt 3.
As far as playoff EPA/Play, it's Pat first with his ludicrous 0.291, and Aaron second with 0.251, and then an ocean between them and third place Kurt Warner and his 0.180. This should likely be enough on its own to settle the argument about Aaron's playoff fortunes, but it goes further.
In the fourth quarter and overtime of playoff games, this EPA/Play list morphs to Kurt Warner being extremely far ahead (which is the only reason I brought him up earlier), with a surprise Philip Rivers appearance in second place, and Pat and Aaron in third and fourth. Isolating the small sample of the fourth and overtime drops Tom Brady to ninth out of 15, which entertains me.
In sum, Patrick Mahomes is better than Aaron Rodgers everywhere. That is not up for debate currently, but once Patrick goes through his falloff later in life it may become one again. We'll see. Nobody else is definitively better than Aaron Rodgers in the playoffs. Kurt Warner and Philip Rivers are clutch in the fourth, but not necessarily the rest of the game. Tom Brady won a lot, but cannot compete on an individual performance basis (unless you cut his first 20 playoff starts off. An exercise I've written an article on just recently).
Second (maybe third) is so far above where Aaron's playoff reputation sits that I can publish this comment as a post and title it 'The Dangers of Outcome Bias' or something like that. It's crazy to see.