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.
He only had one game in the playoffs where he played below average and the team won. That was the 2010 NFC championship againist the Bears. The rest of the playoff win he was good or better. While Brady had a lot more game where he played below average and win. The other games where Rodgers was below average and team had a good chance is winning is 2014 Seattle and 2021 49ers. Those are games in which teams that Brady played won while Rodgers did not. This gave Brady second chances in the playoff to perform better in next game while Rodgers rarely got a second chance. Football is a team sport as should be judged that way as judging players by Super bowl wins and team success is just bad. Fans should judge players by performance as that is better way of judging players. Fans also need to know that winning does not mean great performance and not winning means a players does not play well.
Appreciate it! One of my favorite stats not included in this breakdown is that Rodgers’ defenses allowed an average of 32.9 points per game in his 10 playoff losses - half his postseason career (which would make them a historically bad defense in nfl history - bottom 3 I believe).
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.
Brady had an 82.7 passer rating in conference championship games. He accounted for 0 points in his very first AFC Championship, team still won. Had two other conference championships game wins where he threw 3 INTs. Had another with 0TD/2INT. Yet his record is 10-4 in those games. So what accounts for that difference? Defense is the obvious answer. Brady’s defenses have allowed 21.64 points per game in the conference championship round. Green Bay’s defenses have allowed a whopping 30.8 points per game (and 35 per game in those 4 losses). Every QB has games where they miss a throw here or there, but if the team plays well enough to win, we ignore those throws. If they lose, suddenly those throws are the reason. You're free to view the game and judge individual players by the team outcome in the quintessential team sport. I don't think it's that simple
9 TDs to 8 INTs dude, can't pretend it was enough to win the biggest games. He had plenty of opportunities but simply did not live up to his potential when it mattered most.
I realize your blind hatred for Rodgers isn’t going to allow you to do anything other than blame him for everything his team did poorly. Just hope you don’t lose any sleep over it. Enjoy your weekend
The fact that the entire article concentrates on stats to prove a point is the real 'false narrative' here. To be a 'great playoff QB' you can't get beat over and over and over and over again in the big games. He didn't do enough when it was needed, that is the true story of A-Rod's playoff career. For a player of his ability the playoff results are a HUGE disappointment.
The fact that the entire article concentrates on stats to prove a point is the real 'false narrative' here. To be a 'great playoff QB' you can't get beat over and over and over and over again in the big games. He didn't do enough when it was needed, that is the true story of A-Rod's playoff career. For a player of his ability the playoff results are a HUGE disappointment.
Interesting. Defense was historically bad in his playoff losses and conference championship games especially. Tough to say he didn’t do enough when D allowed 35 PPG games. The article doesn’t just talk stats. Goes through the losses as well…
The flip side- when you have the most prolific and talented QB in NFL history the expectation is you will outscore the opponent. There are numerous plays and missed opportunities in every single game, at the end of the day the great QBs are judged on results, like it or not. The ability to get.it.done
He only had one game in the playoffs where he played below average and the team won. That was the 2010 NFC championship againist the Bears. The rest of the playoff win he was good or better. While Brady had a lot more game where he played below average and win. The other games where Rodgers was below average and team had a good chance is winning is 2014 Seattle and 2021 49ers. Those are games in which teams that Brady played won while Rodgers did not. This gave Brady second chances in the playoff to perform better in next game while Rodgers rarely got a second chance. Football is a team sport as should be judged that way as judging players by Super bowl wins and team success is just bad. Fans should judge players by performance as that is better way of judging players. Fans also need to know that winning does not mean great performance and not winning means a players does not play well.
Agreed
This was completely thorough fair and accurate. Well done. Added a couple of my notes.
Aaron Rodgers has a passer rating of 100.1 with 5894 yards, 45 touchdowns and 13 interceptions in 22 games in the playoffs in his career.
Top 5 QB of all time in playoffs.
Aaron Rodgers' playoff losses through last count:
1. D gave up 45 points
2. D gave up 37 points
3. D gave up 45 points
4. Led game-tying drive, never got ball again
5. Led game-tying drive, never got ball again
6. Led game-tying drive, never got ball again
7. D gave up 44 points
8. 13-10 loss to Niners special team debacle, blocked punt and missed field goal
9. Detroit - not good agree there also retool was on
Appreciate it! One of my favorite stats not included in this breakdown is that Rodgers’ defenses allowed an average of 32.9 points per game in his 10 playoff losses - half his postseason career (which would make them a historically bad defense in nfl history - bottom 3 I believe).
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.
5 NFC Championships, 9 TDs/ 8 INTs, 83.7 rating...'false narrative' not so false, defence not the only problem. Congrats on the MVPs.
Brady had an 82.7 passer rating in conference championship games. He accounted for 0 points in his very first AFC Championship, team still won. Had two other conference championships game wins where he threw 3 INTs. Had another with 0TD/2INT. Yet his record is 10-4 in those games. So what accounts for that difference? Defense is the obvious answer. Brady’s defenses have allowed 21.64 points per game in the conference championship round. Green Bay’s defenses have allowed a whopping 30.8 points per game (and 35 per game in those 4 losses). Every QB has games where they miss a throw here or there, but if the team plays well enough to win, we ignore those throws. If they lose, suddenly those throws are the reason. You're free to view the game and judge individual players by the team outcome in the quintessential team sport. I don't think it's that simple
9 TDs to 8 INTs dude, can't pretend it was enough to win the biggest games. He had plenty of opportunities but simply did not live up to his potential when it mattered most.
30+ points allowed per game in those games. Take care
Also in the biggest game of his career, he was lights out. Tough to make the argument he didn't live up to his potential when it mattered most...
Agree it's very hard to beat a team scoring 30+ pts when you're throwing an INT for every TD lol. Bye bye.
I realize your blind hatred for Rodgers isn’t going to allow you to do anything other than blame him for everything his team did poorly. Just hope you don’t lose any sleep over it. Enjoy your weekend
2 sides to every argument my friend, and those NFC championship stats are impossible to dismiss in a discussion about 'playoff greatness'.
The fact that the entire article concentrates on stats to prove a point is the real 'false narrative' here. To be a 'great playoff QB' you can't get beat over and over and over and over again in the big games. He didn't do enough when it was needed, that is the true story of A-Rod's playoff career. For a player of his ability the playoff results are a HUGE disappointment.
The fact that the entire article concentrates on stats to prove a point is the real 'false narrative' here. To be a 'great playoff QB' you can't get beat over and over and over and over again in the big games. He didn't do enough when it was needed, that is the true story of A-Rod's playoff career. For a player of his ability the playoff results are a HUGE disappointment.
Interesting. Defense was historically bad in his playoff losses and conference championship games especially. Tough to say he didn’t do enough when D allowed 35 PPG games. The article doesn’t just talk stats. Goes through the losses as well…
Also, if the losses were close it suggests the other team's defence was also terrible, no?
The flip side- when you have the most prolific and talented QB in NFL history the expectation is you will outscore the opponent. There are numerous plays and missed opportunities in every single game, at the end of the day the great QBs are judged on results, like it or not. The ability to get.it.done