Phil Simms Kid's Explanation for Why Brady is His 9th Best QB Will Make You Dumber For Having Listened to It

Ummm … what? I appreciate the restraint and professionalism it had to have taken for Tom E. Curran to take the high road when Phil Simms’ Kid tried to explain his bizarre, twisted, indefensible pretzel logic here. I guess it’s what you do when someone who works for the same company calls ranks Tom Brady and Drew Brees the 9th and 10th best quarterbacks in football Because I don’t see any way I would’ve gotten through the interview without this response:

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So how does Phil Simms’ Kid defend ranking eight QBs ahead of Brady, who led the 4th highest scoring offense in the league with only 12 games of Julian Edelman, Gronk as basically a blocking tight end, Josh Gordon for like two months, Phillip Dorsett as his No. 2 receiver and a running attack that for a time had Cordarelle Patterson as its lead back? How does he put Brady 9th after winning his sixth Super Bowl and beating Kansas City on the road with three touchdown drives and 180 passing in the 4th quarter and overtime alone, with a fricking laser frying his eyes?

For that matter, how does PSK justify putting nine guys ahead of Brees when he not only was the worst non-call in history away from meeting Brady in the Super Bowl, but led the league in Passer Rating and broke the record for Completion % previously held by … Drew Brees, 2017?

As hard as it is to crack the Enigma Code used by and understood only by Chris Simms, it appears to come down one word. He uses it himself. And we’ve heard it before.

It’s not Tom Brady. It’s the … system.

I think of all the fake narratives around this Patriots Dynasty, the “Brady is a system quarterback” might be the one we’ve been hearing the second longest, after only “Belichick is an asshole.” The latter goes back to Belichick abandoning the sinking ship that is the Jets. This former goes back to 2001, when Brady first took over from Drew Bledsoe. And for a while it might have even had some merit. Early on in that season when he was getting his legs under him. In his first two starts against Indy and at Miami when he didn’t have 50 passes combined. But any notion he was a caretaker QB should’ve died in the crib the next week when he threw 54 times for 364 yards against San Diego. Or the next week when he lit Indy up again for a 148.3 Passer Rating. To me the moment he truly arrived was Bledsoe’s first game being activated when Belichick stuck with his new QB and the former Franchise QB staring over his shoulder on the sidelines. Brady obliterated New Orleans with a 143.9 Passer Rating with 4 Touchdowns and zero INTs. Running the same “system” as Bledsoe had the year before when they went 5-11.

But the bigger question I have is, what is this “system”? What is this secret formula in the Patriots playbook that transforms this otherwise average quarterback into a superhero like the Super Soldier Serum they injected into Steve Rogers to make him Captain America? Consider this:

So the better question would be which “system” does it?

–From 2001 to about 2006, the system was supposed to be a “Run First” offense, predicated on power running backs, led first by Antoine Smith, then Corey Dillon and later Lawrence Maroney. With that, Brady won three Super Bowls.

–By 2006, they’d abandoned the wide receiver position almost altogether, with Troy Brown at the end of the line and Brady’s top two options being Reche Caldwell and Jabar Gaffney. That year he got them to the AFC championship game where the Pats scored 34 points on the road at Indy. And only the defense giving up 17 points in the 4th kept them from another Super Bowl.

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–In 2007 they added Randy Moss and Wes Welker, threw the ball more than ever before and put together the most prolific passing attack in NFL history to that point. And for 3 1/4 years, which is how long it took for Moss to blow a gasket and get sent out of town, the offense was run through the receivers.

–In 2010, they drafted Gronk and Aaron Murdnandez and developed the 2-tight end “Joker” offense that the rest of the league immediately began to try and emulate. And a new generation of hybrid “move” tight ends like Jimmy Graham and Travis Kelce was born.

–In 2016-present, the Patriots have been built around slot recievers, a primarily blocking tight end opposite Gronk, a power running game behind James Develin and have gone to three straight Super Bowls. Winning one without Gronk. And almost winning one without their primary receiver, Julian Edelman.

Oh, and so I don’t forget to mention, this has all been done under Offensive Coordinators Charlie Weis, nobody, Josh McDaniels, nobody, Bill O’Brien and Josh McDaniels again.

So tell me what exactly is this magical system? This spell woven into the pages of their schemes like a Harry Potter spell to make Brady be supernaturally good enough to crack Phil Simms’ Kids Top 10. But not be as good as Deshaun Watson, Matt Ryan or Cam Newton? And if it’s so foolproof, why didn’t any of PSK’s coaches use it to make him into a decent quarterback?