I understand I am in the minority here, but I was truly heartbroken last Sunday night when after a very close, down-to-the-wire, record-setting rematch of Super Bowl XXXIX, the Philadelphia Eagles emerged victorious.

Now, despite not quite accepting both of those controversial TD calls, I can say congratulations to them and to Doug Pederson and Nick Foles especially. But the idea I’ve heard circulating recently, that the game proved Brady does not have what it takes to be considered the Greatest Of All Time, is misguided and unfounded.

Yes, it’s fun to say Brady had less receptions than Foles, but we don’t judge Michael Phelps’ greatness by how good his golf game is. There are countless stats to throw around to show that Brady is the best, but arguably the most important is that he has five rings all for the same team and is the only person on the team to have all five.

The discussion about who is the greatest football player of all time is a grand, sprawling one, and one only a lifetime of football knowledge would allow a guess at. It is simply too hard to look at the differences between what it means to play a position over the history of the NFL. The discussion on the greatest quarterback of all time, however, is much easier. I would even say that the discussion on the greatest quarterback in the game right now is self-evident. Tom Brady is so good he has to be compared to players from the pre-Super Bowl era like Bart Starr (five NFL Championships including two super bowls).

Now, I’m a Bears fan, so I love to talk about how Chicago actually has 9 NFL Championship wins if you count pre-super bowl, but in reality, I admit that’s a bogus stat. The year before the super bowl started, there were only 14 teams in the NFL, less than half than are in the league now, meaning any given team was over twice as likely to win the championship in any year.

Sure, to get back to the point of the article, you could say that Brady and the Pats’ loss to the Eagles changes his Super Bowl record, and that is a valid and correct point. But then you have to back up. Super Bowl record? That’s incredible. No one else in the game has the luxury to worry about their Super Bowl record.

I don’t mean to hit you over the head with what you already know, but Brady has the most Super Bowl appearances (eight) and is tied for the most wins (five) with JMU’s own Charles Haley. And he did it all on the same team, the only one to be in all eight appearances and five wins. That means the only common factors of those eight super bowl teams are Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, and the Patriots franchise.

It’s also worth mentioning that it’s much harder to get to a super bowl than win it, statistically speaking. If you ask any coach, they’ll tell you it’s more important to win, but when analyzing how great a player is, super bowl appearances are at the least a very underrated stat. Getting to the super bowl requires winning game after game in the regular and postseason, whereas winning it only requires winning one game.

The two times the Giants beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl, they were not the best team in the league, no one disagrees about this. But they won the game that mattered most.

If you don’t believe Tom Brady is the greatest already, ask yourself, what would make him the greatest? What else would he have to do that no one else has done that would make him the greatest of all time? It was after Super Bowl LI that the debate was over. If you didn’t believe Brady was the best after he came back from 28-3 to win his fifth ring, you never will.