All Things Go, But Nothing Goes Faster Than Sports Glory Goes

GOAT(FAFY,M) = Greatest of All Time (for a few years, maybe)

Here’s a podcast with Derek Thompson and Bill Simmons that begins by talking about whether Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes is already, at 28 years old, “the GOAT,” the greatest quarterback of all time.

There’s nothing particularly objectionable about the conversation, and in fact it’s just one of a vast number of recent discussions regarding this exact question. Many believe that Mahomes is already the greatest, and most of those who don’t concede that he will likely take the crown in short order. The trouble is that these conversations are all based on the same flawed, unspoken assumption - that “greatest of all time” means anything. It doesn’t, for a simple reason: even if he clearly takes over the mantle in the next few years, Mahomes will no longer be considered the GOAT seven or ten or twelve years after that. There will be a new person that the entire sports media breathlessly declares the greatest, by then, and more pressure to give way to the new generation. And so the words “of all time” imply a longevity and meaning that simply isn’t there; to call someone the greatest of all time when they’re destined to carry that title for a bare handful of years undermines the whole conversation. All that’s left is the empty hype that makes sports media such a wasteland, the usual shouting and self-importance.

Put it this way. Simmons and Thompson compare Mahomes to the man who was, until very recently, the consensus greatest of all time, Tom Brady. Tom Brady, he of the seven Super Bowl trophies, he of the perfect (regular lol) season, Tom Brady the ultimate winner. You may note that Brady only retired a year ago. And yet here he is, already losing a title that includes the words “of all time”! Isn’t that strange? Shouldn’t the greatest OF ALL TIME be the greatest for, I don’t know, longer than it takes someone to get through med school? It amazes me how often people use this GOAT construct without ever asking whether there’s something disingenuous about it, about playing off of the implication inherent to the words “of all time” while knowing very well that in their own lifetimes that title will change hands over and over again. This seems like both a very fair and a very obvious question: what is the value of the concept of the greatest of all time if that title is going to constantly change hands, sometimes in a matter of a handful of years? What can “of all time” mean if the designation often changes in no time at all?

Sports writers and pundits love the concept of the GOAT because it sounds so portentous and monumental - the greatest OF ALL TIME! But the term itself is fundamentally dishonest. Greatest of all time seems to imply that the title will be held for all time, or at the very least, for a long time. While Brady was becoming the GOAT, the guy who is now getting GOAT love was already in the league! Shouldn’t “all time” mean a little more than that?

Simmons and Thompson mention Mahomes, Brady, and Peyton Manning. They don’t mention 1960s Green Bay Packers quarterback Bart Starr. Bart Starr!, you might say. Why would they mention Bart Starr?? Well, why not? It’s true that his raw numbers don’t look good compared to today, but we’re talking about two completely different leagues. Starr had the second highest quarterback rating of the 1960s, at 87.7; the leader, Greg Cook, had an 88.3. In 2023 twenty-one different QBs surpassed those figures. Clearly, it would be stupid to blame Starr for failing to reach the standards of the modern NFL, which has just about banned playing pass defense. If you don’t make adjustments for era, then of course the new shiny object is going to be called The Greatest of All Time. Starr’s career postseason passer rating of 104.8, in comparison with his era, is truly remarkable. And it goes a long way towards explaining why he did something that neither Brady nor Mahomes nor any other NFL starting quarterback has ever done, which is to threepeat, win three league championships in a row. (His first was the NFL championship game rather than a Super Bowl, but obviously that’s not his fault.)

So why not Bart Starr? Why doesn’t he get mentioned? Why not Sammy Baugh, who in terms of production relative to the era that he played in had seasons that would be like a modern QB throwing for 500 yards a game? (As well as being maybe the best punter of all time and a Pro Bowl caliber defensive back.) Guys like that don't get mentioned because they’re old, and old is boring. Because nobody who's writing thinkpieces or shouting on ESPN today saw them play. Because one of the most powerful biases in human life and thus in human media is presentism, the obsession with the present and the reflexive assumption that we live in a unique and special time and that everything now will be remembered as the best/worst/most/least, forever. And that presentism is why we can’t actually ever have anything like an objective perspective on this question; there’s always going to be intense natural pressure from our unconscious narcissism and from the financial dictates of the sports media that militates towards looking at the next great thing as the next great thing. I don’t think the concept of the “greatest of all time” makes any sense given that making responsible historical comparisons between athletes of different eras is impossible. (Unless two athletes overlapped in the same league by at least five years, I simply do not trust historical comparisons between them.) But also, we can’t trust ourselves to make these distinctions. We just can’t.

In ten years, people will be breathlessly declaring that a different quarterback (Caleb Williams?) is already the “greatest of all time.” And those who push back and say, hey, Patrick Mahomes was really good!, will be derided by many as old fogies who can’t get with the times. (Try and argue that Joe Montana had a better career than Mahomes online and watch the eyes roll, despite what they did relative to the standards of their eras.) All of which is fine; the stakes could not possibly be lower, and the point of sports is to be pointless in this way. The heaving exaggeration that’s common to that wing of the media will invent a new GOAT if one does not organically arise on his own. But just for the record, when someone loudly insists that Patrick Mahomes is already the GOAT, maybe stop and consider how briefly Tom Brady got to hold that title. It’s remarkable, just how short a span of years “of all time” can be.