If he stays reasonably upright - if he has time to throw without his timing being disrupted/shattered coming from the blind side he can play until he's forty.
He had four journeymen and Whitworth here for his first year - and look how he played.
Tom Brady would have retired early if he had the protection Stafford did in Detroit. Stafford, with the protection and hidden bennies Brady was favored with in New England, would have outstripped Brady's records by quantum peaps. Stafford came into the league with more arm and better talent overall, and was
and still is a
football playerA football player doesn't throw whiny-assed fits or come unglued when he gets hit or things don't go his way. He reached deep inside himself and gets up, and keeps throwing. Brady, quite simply, couldn't reach that deeply inside himself because there wasn't the same depth there to dig.
Brady, to his credit, could handle a different kind of pressure, the presure of being in a close game and keeping his steely-eyed focus to pull out a win, but he did it knowing he would be afforded plenty of time to throw because Tom Light would be allowed to hold a rusher while he had seven seconds to throw.
Stafford, Warner, Marino, Montana, Favre, Bradshaw, Kelly, Young, on and on, had to face what the D was bringing AND keep their cool, quite often take their hits, and STILL reach inside themselves and find what it took to bear down and win it - or give their team a chance to win. I daresay Brady could have traded places with any of those football players and not done as well. The could all get the snot knocked out of them and still played winning football.
