Are Brady-Montana comparisons unfair?

The numbers say Patriots’ signal-caller stacks up well against ‘Super Joe’
NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE

MAKING PEOPLE THINK ABOUT JOE — New England Patriots’ quarterback Tom Brady (above), complete with three Super Bowl wins since 2001 and a mastermind coach, is reminding a lot of people of former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Joe Montana (left), who won four Super Bowls with the Niners between 1981-1990. Brady, this year’s NFL passing leader, could move to 11-0 as a starter in the playoffs — and get even more comparisons to Montana, likely — if he and the Patriots are able to defeat the Denver Broncos in the AFC Divisional Playoffs on Saturday night. They are the defending champions and the incumbent dynasty, but the New England Patriots are as close to a one-man team as there could be at this stage of the NFL playoffs.

Don’t suggest that to Tom Brady, who never would agree, but it seems clear, notwithstanding their 28-3 victory over Jacksonville last Saturday, that in every area but quarterback, the Patriots are not as good as they were the past two years.

During the 2005 season, their offense was one-dimensional because only Green Bay and Arizona had weaker running games, their defense ranked 26th in the league and permitted more passing yards than any team except the 49ers, and their offensive line and defensive backfield were hit by a run of injuries.

AP File photos Yet, because of Brady, New England still has a chance.

And should the Patriots win at Denver in Saturday night’s AFC semifinal game, Brady not only would run his playoff record to a can-you-believe-this 11-0, but his legend would take another huge jump.

Denver on the road is, arguably outside of the Super Bowls that New England won, the toughest opponent yet in the Patriots’ five-season run at the top of the NFL.

It’s heresy to suggest this around here, of course, but Brady already has done some things Joe Montana did not do during the 49ers’ dynasty years. Montana lost his first three road playoff games, and did not win a playoff game away from Candlestick Park until his eighth season as the 49ers’ starter.

Brady already has been the starter in two AFC Championship Game victories on the road, both at Pittsburgh. And even allowing that Brady was injured in the title game following the 2001 season, he pitched a complete game in last year’s victory at Pittsburgh.

This season, however, he has been mortal on the road.

While leading the league in passing yardage during the regular season, Brady was superb at Foxboro and fairly ordinary everywhere else. Counting the playoff victory over the Jaguars, he had a touchdown-to-interception ratio of 17-to-2 at home and 12-to-12 on the road, which is quite a difference. In one midseason stretch, he threw eight interceptions in three road games during a fiveweek period.

For what it’s worth, however, Brady did not throw any interceptions in an October game at Denver that the Broncos won 28-20 after leading 28-3 in the third quarter. It was the only road game in which he did not throw an interception.

Comparisons between Brady and Montana are becoming unavoidable because both of them won two Super Bowl MVP awards at a relatively young age (Brady by 27, Montana by 28).

Also, success for both quarterbacks came at least in part because of their team ethos, their eagerness to deflect credit to teammates and their reluctance to be singled out as a star.

After the Patriots’ first-round playoff victory over the Jaguars, Brady referred to himself as “the luckiest quarterback in the league” because of the team he has surrounding him.

“This team is about winning football games,” he said. “And nobody cares whether you catch a touchdown pass or make the big block. ... As long as we win, we are all happy. And I think that’s what has been special around here.

“No one stands out above the rest, and no one prefers to. Everyone just kind of lets everyone else take the credit because there’s a lot to go around when you win.”

Both Brady and Montana went to college in the Midwest, but one of them (Montana) grew up in the East and achieved great professional success in the Bay Area, and the other one (Brady) grew up in the Bay Area and achieved great professional success in the East.

Another flip side between the two is that Montana achieved his greatest success and became an all-time icon late in his career and Brady has achieved great success early.

Montana separated himself from others and earned his spot in the Hall of Fame with his work in the late ‘80s, starting after he reclaimed the 49ers’ starting job from Steve Young late in the 1988 season.

After that, Montana began a stretch in which he was 36-6 as a starter, winning two Super Bowls and narrowly missing a shot at a third when the 49ers lost the 1990 NFC Championship Game, in which he sustained an arm injury late in the game.

Brady’s won-lost record as a starter since October 2003, which was early in his fourth NFL season, is 43-8, comparable to Montana’s best stretch that occurred much later.

And if Brady can pull off this three-peat, it won’t seem quite so presumptuous to mention these two quarterbacks in the same paragraph.