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If Tom Brady retires, he will enter the Hall of Fame as the most accomplished quarterback in NFL history.
If Brady retires, the NFL will not miss him.
These are not contradictory statements.
Brady's résumé is not only unmatched in league history, he has created enough distance between himself and his competition, via championships and statistics, that it could take decades before anyone even challenges him.
But his retirement will not parallel Michael Jordan's, or Wayne Gretzky's. His retirement will not damage the league he dominated.
Basketball requires star power and personality, and Jordan became the most magnetic American athlete since Muhammad Ali, and unlike Ali he performed every two or three nights.
Gretzky made hockey entertaining even to those who didn't like hockey.
What Brady did was operate at a ridiculously efficient level while playing for good teams.
Brady was math. The quarterbacks who are taking his place on the NFL canvas are closer to art.
Even as he burnished his résumé the past two seasons with Tampa Bay, winning a Super Bowl in his first season and leading the NFL in passing yards and touchdowns in his second, Brady did so in the manner of an evolved robot, operating almost exclusively from the pocket, reading defenses as quickly and brutally as the way bots read Tweets.
Rank the most accomplished quarterbacks of all time, and Brady tops the list.
Rank the most entertaining quarterbacks in the NFL this season, and Brady barely cracks the top 10.
We have been treated to exceptional and exceptionally dramatic quarterback play this season and postseason. Patrick Mahomes' duel with Josh Allen might have set a new standard, and Joe Burrow's rally to beat Mahomes on Sunday stands as a promise that the current generation of NFL quarterbacks may be the best ever.
Who would you rather watch play football? I'd take Mahomes, Allen and Burrow over Brady. I'd take Aaron Rodgers, despite his dopey disinformation campaigns.
I might also take Lamar Jackson, Justin Herbert, Dak Prescott, Russell Wilson and Kyler Murray, and I would take Deshaun Watson if he hadn't been accused of such heinous behavior. I might even take Matthew Stafford, because he plays like a poor man's Mahomes, flipping odd-angle passes all over the field.
Mahomes makes plays every week that Brady never could. Brady was a pocket passer; Mahomes is more like a Picasso passer, making his milieu look different than it should.
Sunday, Mahomes' creativity bit him, causing him to throw a silly pass at the end of the first half and to scramble wildly at the end of regulation. Entertainment and efficiency are not the same thing.
Running and scrambling quarterbacks make the game more dynamic, even when the runners and scramblers make mistakes, as Mahomes did on Sunday in an overtime loss to Burrow's Bengals.
Remember, it wasn't long ago that if you suggested that an NFL team draft a mobile quarterback, you were slapped down by observers who believed that everyone needed to look and play like Brady or Peyton Manning.
Brady and Manning dominated the NFL for so long they created the false impression that the position could only be played as they played it. Stay in the pocket. Make your reads. Run only as a last resort.
Runners, it was believed, were more injury-prone and less reliable, and limited the passing game.
That was before NFL executives realized they had erred by assuming that the best athlete on the field shouldn't play the most important position.
The Bills would not have put themselves in position to beat Kansas City without Allen's running and scrambling. Mahomes would not have beaten Allen without his running and scrambling. Burrow would not have upset Mahomes on Sunday without running and scrambling.
Early Sunday afternoon, Burrow and Mahomes made anything seem possible. Sunday night, Stafford and Jimmy Garoppolo played like lesser versions of Brady.
Burrow beat Mahomes in overtime in another playoff classic. Stafford beat Garoppolo in a game that was far less interesting.
Give me the cool young scramblers, every time.