Why Tom Brady Won’t Just Walk His Way Into Getting His 6th Ring

Tom Brady has done very well in his career and has 5 Super Bowl rings to show for this. This year he is the only quarterback left in the playoffs that is a franchise quarterback. In fact, he is the only quarterback left in the playoffs that even won a playoff game before this season. Besides the fact that his competition is backup quarterbacks and Blake Bortles, he will not be able to just walk to his 6th Super Bowl ring.

In the NFL, in order to win a Super Bowl a lot of things needs to be in place. Typically, two common trends that seem to be apparent in order to win one is you need an elite quarterback, you need top defense, or both. Just look at the past Super Bowl winners, all of the teams have elite quarterbacks, and the ones that don’t had a top defense in the NFL. Non-Elite quarterbacks that were backed up by monster defenses include Joe Flacco, arguably Eli Manning depending on who you ask, Russell Wilson when he was still young, and Peyton Manning with the Broncos. All these guys were not playing like elite quarterbacks at the time of their Super Bowl victories, however their teams prevailed. The reason for this is due to the stellar defenses they had.

Looking at the 3 other teams left, none of them have elite quarterbacks. However, all three have very very solid defenses that can shut anybody down at any time. Looking at the Jaguars, half of this year’s Pro Bowl is practically made up of their defense alone, and they have shown week after week they are not afraid of any offense, even with a 5 time champ at quarterback. The Eagles play touch football and seem to use their talent to hang with other teams’ offenses. Even though there’s nothing too flashy about this defense they get the job done and they get it done well. Finally, the team that could be the biggest headache for the Tom Brady is the Minnesota Vikings. This team has a dominant defense that has given other offenses headaches every week. Additionally, if the Vikings make it, they will be the first team to ever to play in the Super Bowl on their home turf. A hyped up team with the fans on their side could result in problems for the New England offense.

Just because all of the elite quarterbacks, other than Brady, are eliminated from the playoffs, doesn’t mean these teams don’t have what it takes to stop him and the Pats from winning back to back Super Bowls.

Written by Casey Spilka