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Goatseye said:
Neodegenerate said:
Realistic or not, greats are measured by championships. Some say Tom Brady is the greatest quarterback of all time because he has been to six Superbowls and won four of them. However, people argue that Joe Montana is better because he won four without losing any. They discount the fact that Brady took his team to two more because he lost them. Peyton Manning continues to have his story rewritten because a defense won him his second Superbowl, so now the "greatest regular season quarterback" is his tag.

Look at the most recent NBA Finals. People were saying losing and going 2-5 in the Finals, despite being there 7 times, would knock LeBron out of a lot of top 5/top 10 players of all time lists. But, going 3-4 by winning suddenly puts him on the same level as Michael Jordan.

Winning is more important in the general eye than talent when it comes to placing people on their sport's Mt. Rushmore. It is a bit sad, but is what it is.

It's just a bad way to see it. Joe Monatana didn't win the championship by himself, Brady didn't win championships without some well rounded Pats teams.

Sorry I missed this one initially.  I agree that it is a terrible way to see it.  Staying in the NFL sphere here I think Barry Sanders is one of the greatest running backs of all time, and he actually transcends the argument because that is a rather prevalent opinion.  However, he still has that classification of "best to never win it all."

In any team sport I think it is foolish to try to measure singular individual greatness by the number of titles you were a part of.  There are tangibles in each game/match/event that can lend to the argument for individual greatness.