If there's one thing nearly all New England Patriots supporters and football fans around the NFL can agree on, it's that Tom Brady is one of the top-five quarterbacks in the NFL right now.
One person who doesn't view Brady as a top five quarterback is NBC Sports' Chris Simms, who is in the process of revealing his top 40 QBs in the league. He has Brady ranked ninth and New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees ranked 10th.
Here's the rest of his list. The top eight will be revealed soon.
Simms' list, as you might imagine, received a fair amount of passionate feedback, including from one of Brady's former rivals. Hall of Fame quarterback Kurt Warner seemed be in disbelief over Brady and Brees being placed so low.
Simms explained his rationale for Brady's and Brees' rankings in the following tweets:
The Patriots do put a great system around Brady, but he's not a system quarterback. How many quarterbacks could have made some of the plays, particularly on third down, that Brady converted late in the fourth quarter and in overtime against the Kansas City Chiefs during last season's AFC Championship Game? The list is very, very small.
Brady is coming off his sixth Super Bowl championship, and oddsmakers like the Patriots' chances of winning a seventh next season.
New England Patriots
He completed 65.8 percent of his passes for 4,355 yards with 29 touchdowns and 11 interceptions in 2018. Those stats are really good, and yet so many people have concluded Brady had a down year. You could make a case that Brady is no longer the best quarterback in the NFL entering 2019, but to say he's not in the top five or seven doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
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