Horse 2811 - Brady Isn't The GOAT At All

 Humans are brilliant pattern finding machines. When it comes to finding patterns and associations, were so good at it that we'll find patterns when there aren't even any there. In addition to being pattern finding machines we are also excellent classifiers and superlative finding machines. Give us a list of stuff and we'll rank them with both sensible and insensible ranking systems. 

When Tom Brady won his seventh Superbowl, American media was prepared to declare Tom Brady as the Greatest Of All Time (GOAT) of American Football. The hype train had so many people jump on board that Twitter was awash with the declaration that Tom Brady was the GOAT of all sports. However, even as a seven times Champion, that simply just doesn't hold up to any major scrutiny.

Owing to the insular nature of American media, sports coverage tends to look inside but not that much further outside America. 

If there is a GOAT of all sports, then people like Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, Lionel Messi, Christiano Ronaldo, Péle, Michael Phelps and Tiger Woods all have pretty good cases for being the GOAT but even Michael Jordan whose fame extended well outside the realm of basketball still doesn't make it close to the top of any list that I might generate¹. You could make claims that people like Martina Navratilova, Margaret Court, Steffi Graf or Serena Williams who won an open while pregnant have a pretty good shot at being the GOAT. They also all have longer careers and have won more important titles than Tom Brady.

If I think about who I'd consider as the GOAT, then the choices that I'd make would baffle most of these commentators I suspect. Tom Brady wouldn't make my list at all.

To wit:

Jackie Stewart only won the Formula One World Championship three times. That puts him equal sixth on the list of World Championship winners. Already it is obvious that I do not think that the title of GOAT is dependent upon mere statistical analysis.

...

Jackie Stewart gave the game away after winning his third championship; in a season which also included the death of his Tyrell team mate and friend Françoise Cevert. He explains in his autobiography that at that particular time, motor racing drivers were being killed at a rate of about one a fortnight and rather than let this continue, he was going to do something about it.

Jackie Stewart was then instrumental in things like track design, having adequate run off areas, adequate crash fencing, changing safety regulation to include adequate fire marshalls, seat belts, position and design of fuel tanks etc. It is one thing to win championships but quite another to go out and make changes to the sport so that paid professionals and the spectators who watch them, get to go home at the end of the day; instead of being wheeled away in a body back, to be buried in the ground.

Jackie Stewart's off the racetrack in championing safety is a very big reason why Michael Schumacher or Lewis Hamilton won seven championships and weren't dead within a decade. Motor racing is still dangerous but at least we're pointing to the deaths of Roland Ratzenbgerger, Aryton Senna² and Jules Bianchi as being three in 30 years and not three in three months.

Also, as motor racing tends to lead the development of motor cars, although the adoption of things like seat belts happened before Formula One adopted them, the idea that cars should be crash worthy and that we should think more about road furniture, is the reason why many more people out here in the real world go on to live boring lives instead of being wiped out in motor accidents. Jackie Stewart in championing safety went out and partly changed a culture.

...

In terms of number of standard deviations above the mean, Don Bradman is statistically the best sportsperson across all sport. With a Test Average of 99.94 in comparison with the nerest who is in the low 60s. Bradman was given a knighthood for his contribution to sport but that's still not enough for me. I have a better reason why he is the greatest sports person of all time.

When Bradman was an administrator for the Australian Cricket Board, he was able to place sufficiently enough pressure on the board to stop Australia from touring South Africa because of the very public reason of Apartheid.

"We will not play them [South Africa] until they choose a team on a non-racist basis."

- Don Bradman, 1971

The next time that someone wants to tell you that sport isn't political, tell them that they are incredibly myopic, small minded and ignorant of history, for one of the people whom Nelson Mandela credited with making the rest of the world aware, was Don Bradman. It is one thing to be statistically the best sports person of all time; it is quite another to change the world for the better using the power that you gained because of it.

...

When it comes to the greatest team of all time, then nothing comes close to the New York Yacht Club. When Real Madrid won La Decima, which was the 10th time that they'd won the European Cup, that was pretty impressive. The St George Dragons won eleven championships in a row; which I think might be a record in most team sports. The New York Yacht Club won the 100 Guineas Cup, renamed it the America's Cup after the yacht which first won it; then went on a winning streak of 132 years.

Challengers from a bunch of nations tried from 1851 until 1983 when the Fremantle Yacht Club threw sufficiently enough money and technology at the sport of sailing to steal the cup away. Nobody in the world was alive when America won the 100 Guineas Cup and still alive to see Australia II win the cup. Colourful businessman Alan Bond managed to get the nation of Australia to care about sailing for a while and that's pretty impressive in itself.

...

I am sure that Tom Brady is very successful but he can't very well be the GOAT if I hadn't even heard of him outside of a once a year mention and even then only because he shares a name with a YouTube journalist that I like. I have never seen a Brady shirt but I have seen people walking around in a Jordan 23 basketball kit, 20 years after he stopped playing.

I think that it is one thing to be statistically brilliant but if nobody outside of the sport cares, then what's the point. Being the one who gets to put your flag on top of the hill of sport, still only puts you on top of a rather smallish hill. However, if you go out and change the world, then that's where greatness actually resides. 

¹The greatest basketball player of all time is probably Chuck Taylor; who never played professionally. His hawking of shoes is probably a bigger contributing factor to the popularity of that sport, well beyond even that of Michael Jordan. 

²Aryton Senna might have deliberately run into Alain Prost at the 1989 Japanese Grand Prix; after previously having Mansell earlier that year. Aryton Senna actually did deliberately run into the back of Alain Prost at the 1990 Japanese Grand Prix after having announced that he "can't be held responsible for my actions" at the drivers' briefing meeting before the race. If you go out and deliberately have the intent of taking out your rival, then that doesn't make you a GOAT but a knave.