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By Scott Ludwig, MagicLudwig1@gmail.com
There’s been a lot of debate over the past generation or so about who deserves the distinction of being the greatest of all time. The GOAT.
From my extensive research on the subject (thanks, Wikipedia!), the term can be traced back to heavyweight boxer Muhammad Ali and his wife in the ‘90’s.
Incidentally, music aficionados may recognize GOAT as the title of an album by LL Cool J,
which has absolutely nothing to do with this piece. Think of it as a bonus.
There has been much speculation over the years of who truly holds the title. Some look to the past – Babe Ruth (perhaps you’ve heard of an accomplishment referred to as ‘Ruthian?’), Jim Thorpe, Willie Mays, and Jim Brown, to name a few.
Others, of course, look more at the present:
- In golf, Tiger Woods, winner of 14 major championships and 82 wins on the PGA tour. By comparison, Jack Nicklaus has 73 PGA tour wins, but his 18 major championships is a Arecord that will never be broken. Coin flip, anyone? (Note: there was a time I thought Woods was the man who would break Nicklaus’ record – I thought 25 majors and 125 PGA wins were well within his grasp – but by the time he drove his vehicle into that fire hydrant in 2009, that ship had sailed.)
- In soccer, the names Pele and Lionel Messi always seem to come up in conversation. OK, so that was just a guess because I’ve never given a rat’s patootie about a sport where 3 – 1 is considered a blowout.
- In hockey, Wayne Gretzky is the name I hear people mention most. I’ll have to take their word for it, because of what I said earlier about soccer.
- In running, Usain Bolt stands alone as the owner of world records at both 100 and 200 meters. Since they have stood for more than 15 years – a lifetime in a sport where the world record in the marathon has been broken six times in that time – Bolt stands head and shoulders above the field.
- In the Olympics, swimmer Michael Phelps has won 28 medals (23 gold), and gymnast Simone Biles has won 11 medals (7 gold). Both deserve consideration as the greatest (Olympian) of all time.
- In basketball, it would be hard to discount Michael Jordan as the GOAT, mainly because he led the Chicago Bulls to a pair of threepeats as world champions. But what about Bill Russell, who played center for the Boston Celtics for 13 seasons, 11 of them which they won the NBA championship? Or LeBron James, who has won four championships with three different teams and is currently the NBA’s all-time leading scorer? Or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or Magic Johnson or Larry Bird?
- In tennis, Roger Federer was singled out as the sport’s GOAT when he won his 20th Grand Slam tournament. Later, Rafael Nadal went on to win 22, followed by Novak Djokovic winning his 24th, so it’s entirely possible they have leap-frogged one another for the title. I can’t say for certain because I follow tennis about as closely as I follow weather patterns in Nairobi.
- Baseball has been a revolving door of GOAT’s in recent years. Nolan Ryan, perhaps. Maybe Derek Jeter or Albert Pujois. There’s plenty of debate, but in time there’s a solid chance there will be a clearcut winner of the title: Shohei Ohtani, who has won the Most Valuable Player award three of the last four seasons in Major League Baseball and, at just 30 years old, there should be more to follow.
- However, in football, the name that comes to mind for most when the greatest of all time is mentioned is Tom Brady, who won 7 Super Bowls (6 with New England, 1 with Tampa Bay) and played in 10 (9 with the Patriots).
Lately there has been some speculation that Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes is giving Brady a run for his money. But to borrow from ESPN’s Lee Corso: not so fast.
Yes, Mahomes’ credentials are impressive. He’s already been to 5 Super Bowls, and he’s just 29 years old. (By comparison, Brady was 34 when he played in his fifth.) And he has wins in 3 of them on his resume.
There’s the catch: the last one against the Philadelphia Eagles isn’t one of them.
All of that to say this: Tom Brady’s had a record of 7 – 3 in the Super Bowl. When Brady walked off the field for the last time in all 10 of those games, his team had the lead.
As for Patrick Mahomes, his Super Bowl record is now 3 – 2 after a 40 – 22 loss to the Eagles. His two losses were by a total of 40 points. In Brady’s three losses, his team lost by a total of 15.
As for Mahomes’ most recent Super Bowl loss, for all intents and purposes the game was over by halftime with the Eagles on the plus side of a 24 – 0 shutout. In fact, the Chiefs went into the locker room with just 23 yards and one first down from their offense, the latter coming on their very first play of the game.
In fact, had it not been for racking up a little garbage yardage and tacking on a few meaningless ‘pride points’ towards the end of the game, the final score wouldn’t have been as respectable as it implies. While all this was going on, the Eagles were busy on the sideline deciding who was going to dump the cooler of Gatorade on their coach’s head.
The scenario reminded me of a cheer we used to do in high school when our team was pulverizing the opponent:
Watermelon, watermelon, watermelon rind,
Look at the scoreboard and see who’s behind.
YOU ARE!
That cheer ran through my head more than once during the game. The same thing happened in the Chiefs’ other Super Bowl loss to Tom Brady’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 31 – 9. It made me realize that a true GOAT would never allow his team to get blown out in the biggest game of the year – twice.
Besides, in Brady’s 10 Super Bowls, the watermelon cheer never crossed my mind.
For that reason alone, Tom Brady is the undisputed GOAT.
Patrick Mahomes, alas, will never be.