How great do you have to be to be the greatest?

Published 8:27 pm Sunday, February 11, 2018

<p class="p1">Just a guess, but when that pass whizzed through Tom Brady’s hands in Super Bowl LII, we were all spared an excruciating debate. </p><p class="p1">Speaking of which, the NFL needs to drop the Roman numerals for the Super bowl moniker until the “L” phase runs its course. Face it, it just doesn’t work; looks painfully awkward.</p><p class="p1">But that’s another discussion, another day.</p><p class="p1">For now, let us breathe a deep sigh of relief that a flaw was found in Brady’s game.</p><p class="p1">And, no, this isn’t a Brady tirade in the making.</p><p class="p1">Nothing against him. Seems like a decent enough fellow no matter how jealous the mere mortal world is of his life. In the end, if deflating a couple of footballs is the worst crime against you, you’ve lived a good and honorable life.</p><p class="p1">But the sports world — with the media as guilty as any faction — sometimes runs out of superlatives.</p><p class="p1">When that happens, you go straight to Defcon 1 on talk radio, newspapers, even bar stool arguments.</p><p class="p1">Social media goes nuclear.</p><p class="p1">Make no mistake. That’s what had happened, that was the dilemma, with Brady leading up to the Super Bowl.</p><p class="p1">What to do with him?</p><p class="p1">The well of superlatives had run bone dry.</p><p class="p1">And maybe it was just collateral damage from the two weeks of dead football time between the conference championships and the big event.</p><p class="p1">Too much time on too many people’s hands, many of them with national platforms.</p><p class="p1">It was no longer enough to proclaim Brady the best quarterback in the NFL. That was old news.</p><p class="p1">It was no longer enough to declare him the best “player” in the NFL. Not many would argue.</p><p class="p1">The discussion wasn’t over, perhaps, but they’d already declared Brady as the best “quarterback” in NFL history (all 98 years of it).</p><p class="p1">They’d moved seamlessly, with very little floor debate, to brush-block a lot of legends and decide that Brady was now the greatest single “player” in football history (must have been thousands of them).</p><p class="p1">There you go. There it was. The ultimate accolade, right?</p><p class="p1">And yet, there was still several days of downtime until Super Bowl LII, and meandering minds went to work.</p><p class="p1">So all the chips were shoved on the table. Not sure where they came from, but they were all out there, amidst the three wisps of smoke forming on yonder horizon.</p><p class="p1">Simply: Tom Brady is the greatest single athlete in any team sport anywhere ever in the history of recorded time.</p><p class="p1">Wow. Let that sink in. Best in any “team sport” takes in a lot of territory, including cricket and curling, not to mention Wayne Gretzky.</p><p class="p1">For now, it seems, we can take a chill pill and put the dreaded argument on hold.</p><p class="p1">Brady mistimed his jump, such that it was, and grew a pair of alligator arms. What might have been the defining play of the Super Bowl became something of a curious chuckler, like watching Jack Nicklaus yip a 2-footer.</p><p class="p1">But I would posit that the Greatest Team Sport Player of All Time makes that catch.</p><p class="p1">Philadelphia quarterback Nick Foles, who hardly ever gets mentioned as the greatest player on his own team, would likely agree. It didn’t seem that tricky when he did it.</p><p class="p1">The Patriots would still have had to win the game. No guarantees there. And the Eagles were pretty scrappy.</p><p class="p1">As I understand it, that was part of the bargain before Brady could be properly enshrined.</p><p class="p1">He had to win one more Super Bowl, apparently, as the final dagger.</p><p class="p1">And he will likely have more chances. So we’re not out of the woods yet.</p><p class="p1">But if he had made that easy catch and the Patriots win, the Superlatives would have thrown in the towel and bowed toward Brady. </p><p class="p1">Game over — there it is, ladies and gentlemen, The Greatest Team Sport Player of All Time.</p><p class="p1">OK — and, again, nothing against Brady — but there’s a bigger question here.</p><p class="p1">Who makes these decisions?</p><p class="p1">Where does this cabal meet? I know you and me never seem to get an invitation.</p><p class="p1">Why is it you have to have a Washington Monument these days — Mount Rushmore is tough enough.</p><p class="p1">Also, should such a monumental decision have been made in a fit of passion following yet another Super Bowl victory for Brady?</p><p class="p1">One more thing: Does Michael Jordan get a vote?</p><p class="p2">l</p><p class="p3"><strong>Scooter Hobbs</strong> covers LSU athletics. Email him at</p><p class="p3">shobbs@americanpress.com</p>