Like 1/3 of American sports fans, I couldn’t help myself this morning-I read a column about Tom Brady’s retirement #2. Today’s Daily Herald included a column from Sally Jenkins of The Washington Post.
All the platitudes and flummery aside, what caught my eye were the numbers in “Tom Brady’s unrivaled career.” Considering he played for 23 seasons, it’s hardly surprising he is the career leader in most positive offensive categories for a quarterback: regular season; attempts (12,050), completions (7,753), Yds (89,214), TD’s (649), and wins (251). If you’ve ever followed the NFL, that he holds these and other records shouldn’t be surprising. He is that great.
It’s his postseason totals that boggles the mind-even when you consider he’s won more Super Bowls (7) and made more appearances (10) than any other quarterback in history. Quoting the sidebar/story: Postseason Stats (No. 1 in all categories except attempts). 1,921 Attempts, 1,200 Completions, 13,400 Yards, 88 TD’s, and 35 Wins.
On the face, that all sounds well and good-given the author, newspaper and fact-checking staff. This snafu reminds me of the days of my battles with the Tribune staff. I couldn’t imagine what quarterback could possibly amass more passing attempts than Brady. Think about it for 13 seconds. No quarterback has played in enough games to surpass his totals.
After a quick check with Pro Football Reference.com, I saw that Brady is #1 in career postseason attempts with 1,921 and Peyton Manning is second with 1,027 attempts. This isn’t earth-shattering news, but it shows that the big guys don’t do a great job of fact-checking in the smaller things (sports). I don’t think anyone lost a bar bet based on the poor information, but I also don’t think they’ll apologize any time soon.
If anyone wants proof of this, I’ll send a screen shot.
I'd rather be sitting in a ballpark. 
2 responses to “When the big guys get it wrong..”
Great catch. Before I finished reading your article I couldn’t think of who might be #1 in post season attempts other than Brady but I accepted the Washington Post at their word. You are right and I shouldn’t automatically give the Big Guys a pass ( no pun intended) when it comes to fact checking, but I usually do. Most times I believe that when we catch a mistake like this that it is a proofreading error more than a factual error. And we know that every paper has slashed employees and proofreaders were probably the first to go or among the first. In this case maybe the esteemed Sally saw 2,027 attempts for Manning from the source that she used instead of the correct 1,027. But you would think that she would have stopped and questioned Brady not being #1 in postseason attempts the same way you did. Maybe she had an intern write the whole article altogether. At any rate you will never see a correction in print.
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Actually I was somehow under the impression that Brady was 7-4 in Super Bowls. But just like Sally I should have known better and I would have fact checked before I wrote a story in a nationally known and respected publication stating that Brady had been in 11 Super Bowls.
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