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Sports · Quarterback of all time · Take No. 002

Brady or Montana?

Seven rings over 23 seasons against four rings without a single Super Bowl interception. The old-school answer and the new one, head to head.

The case for each side, then the verdict. Then the floor is yours.
The case for

Tom Brady

New England · Tampa Bay · 2000–2022

  • 7Super Bowl wins, more than any franchise has. Ten appearances in all.
  • 5Super Bowl MVPs, plus three league MVPs, the last at age 40.
  • 23Seasons. Won a title in his second year and in his 21st, with two different teams.
vs
The case for

Joe Montana

San Francisco · Kansas City · 1979–1994

  • 4–0Four Super Bowls, four wins. Never lost the big one.
  • 0Interceptions thrown in those four Super Bowls. Eleven touchdowns, none the other way.
  • 92The drive: 92 yards in the final minutes of Super Bowl XXIII, under the coolest pulse the sport has seen.

Cast your take

——
The verdict

It's Brady. Montana was perfect; Brady was perfect for longer.

Montana's case is the cleanest in football: he never lost a Super Bowl and never threw a pick in one. For a decade, he was the answer. But Brady did the one thing Montana couldn't: he kept doing it. Seven titles across three different decades, a championship at 43 after leaving the only team he'd known.

Perfection over four games is remarkable. Dominance over 23 seasons is a different category of thing. Brady, and the margin is the three extra rings.

Disagree? That's what the buttons are for.

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