FOXBOROUGH — Tom Brady will have a chance to add to his most unassailable record a week from Sunday when he takes the field in the divisional round. The Patriots quarterback will get the call as New England’s starter for that one, and it will stretch his string of career playoff games started to 38, an NFL record.
It’s a ridiculous mark on a number of levels, not the least of which is the fact it represents two-plus additional seasons of work for the veteran signal-caller. Then, there’s the fact he’s almost doubled-up his nearest active competitor, Ben Roethlisberger (he has 21 career playoff games under his belt). Devin McCourty (19), Julius Peppers (18) and Haloti Ngata (17) round out the top 5, among active players. (Among all players, Brady passed Jerry Rice’s 29 a few years ago. Peyton Manning made 27 career playoff starts. Brett Favre and Gene Upshaw ended up tied at 24.)
You can make a perfectly good argument that this is a record that’s changed over the years because the league has changed the playoff format — for example, Otto Graham and Dont’a Hightower are tied with 12 career playoff starts. But in this case, the sheer number of playoff starts For Brady is impressive in and of itself. And when you compare it to the rest of the playoff quarterbacks, it stands out even more. Brady’s 37 career playoff starts are almost three times as the second-place finisher, Drew Brees, who has 13. Russell Wilson has 12, while Philip Rivers has nine and Andrew Luck has made six career postseason starts. (In all, the 11 other playoff quarterbacks have started a combined 46 postseason games.)
If you’re looking for someone capable of at least threatening Brady’s mark, it might be Wilson. The 30-year-old has already made a dozen playoff starts (by way of comparison, Brady made 14 career playoff starts before the age of 30), but the Seattle signal-caller would have to hit on the same combination of good health a competitive roster for the next decade or so if he wanted to end up in Brady’s neighborhood.
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