Ahead of Super Bowl 52, there’s one fun question: For the remainder of their careers, do you want Tom Brady or Carson Wentz leading your football team?
Since the NFC Championship Game was wrapped up early in the second half, silly hypothetical questions began to enter into our minds. Todd and Dan pestered their friends with gems pertaining to the future of the quarterback position of the teams battling for a championship in Super Bowl LII. They ranged from being nearly 100 percent jokes to being only like 50-50 a joke.
1. Who do the Philadelphia Eagles start at quarterback next season if Nick Foles torches the Patriots and wins the Super Bowl? (98 percent joke)
2. Would the New England Patriots trade their first-round pick to get Jimmy Garoppolo back? (75 percent joke)
3. Who would you rather have for the remainder of their career, Tom Brady or Carson Wentz? (half joke, half dead-serious query)
The first two questions don’t need much analysis. Our focus is on No. 3. If you asked a Patriots fan this question, as we did, the answer is an insta-Brady. If you asked an Eagles fan, as we also did, the answer is instantaneous in the opposite direction. But what about an unbiased observer? Where does that person turn?
Two brothers from New York, Dan Salem and Todd Salem, debate Super Bowl LII in today’s NFL Sports Debate.
Todd Salem:
This question comes down to how many more years Brady has left versus the level of uncertainty contained in Wentz’s return from a torn ACL. Another version of this question is which quarterback a team would rather have for the 2018 season. Is Brady still ironclad? Will Wentz be healthy for Week 1?
As for long term, Brady is 40 years oldwith no end to his career in sight. The Patriots traded away future Hall of Famer Garoppolo, revealing how confident they are in Brady’s future moving forward. Wentz is 25 and coming off a season in which he probably could have won the league MVP award. However, he is also coming off a torn ACL and less than one full season of being an elite NFL passer.
Even if Wentz comes back at full health, will he retain that scrambling ability that made him seem like the next Aaron Rodgers? If he can’t scramble as well, is his arm good enough? We only have 13 games that say it is. 13 games isn’t enough. We all thought Jameis Winston was joining the elite group of quarterbacks after a larger sample than that.
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And yet, how many more years can Brady actually play? There is already no precedent whatsoever for his success at his age. He received a dozen stitches in his throwing hand days before the AFC championship and was no worse for the wear. Brady remains the best player in the sport at age 40. He is the same age as Randy Moss and Steve Hutchinson, and one year older than Brian Urlacher, who have all been retired long enough to be finalists for the 2018 Hall of Fame class.
That is what makes this stupid hypothetical so interesting. There are enough unknowns about Wentz to plausibly select the 40-year old competitor for as long as he may remain at the top of his game. And forced to choose, I think I actually would take Brady. I don’t have enough evidence that Wentz will be elite year after year, whereas Brady will be exactly that as long as he stays upright.
Dan Salem:
How quickly you forget that a player’s ability will fall off a cliff without warning. The longer they play, the more likely and unexpected this cliff becomes. Peyton Manning fell off the cliff, due in no small part to an injury he was too old to recover from. Brett Favre hit a wall as well, remaining good but not great and more susceptible to injury because of his advanced age. Quarterbacks have the uncanny ability to keep playing, because they take far fewer hits and are protected by the league rules. Yet the cliff is always waiting. Where is Tom Brady’s cliff?
Despite the Patriots’ decision to trade away Garoppolo, I do not believe Brady has three years left. If New England wins again this year, making it back to back championships and three in four years, he could retire on top. Being able to do so is a rare opportunity and the only way Brady can once again top Manning on the field. Perhaps he comes back to try and win a third straight, or perhaps the Eagles win and he wants to return in order to go out on top. Regardless, I give Brady three more seasons at most. He is poised to retire at any moment, much like Ben Roethlisberger and Drew Brees, to name a few.
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I can’t imagine a season where Brady is not great, therefore he must retire before he hits the wall. Wentz has a long career ahead of him and a high probability of returning at a high level. ACL surgery is scary, but Brady himself came back stronger from it. My pick is Wentz because his MVP caliber season was not a fluke and he is literally 15 years younger. Tom Brady will be in the hall of fame before Carson Wentz is done playing. Case closed.