Back during the 2004 season, when we launched this little exercise in dominating the world of pigskin analysis, we developed a reputation for washing Tom Brady's balls.

 

Way back then, some "pundits" insisted Brady was no Daunte Culpepper, let alone one of the all-time greats. The Cold, Hard Football Facts, however, declared Brady the best quarterback in the game today.

 

Now that it's obvious to even the Skip Baylesses of the world that (surprise!) the Cold, Hard Football Facts were right, it seems that everybody is washing Brady's balls.

 

Take Sunday night, for example, in New England's 56-10 1995-Cornhuskers-like demolition of a Buffalo team that entered the contest on a four-game win streak.

 

A few minutes before Andrea Kremer blew Tom Brady with her eyes in the postgame interview, NBC analyst John Madden did the same with his words.

 

"Tom Brady is playing better than Joe Montana ever did," said Madden, late in the game.

 

"There's no higher complement," added booth-mate Al Michaels.

 

Madden's words could not have been better timed.

 

He probably didn't know this when he made that statement, but sometime in the first quarter of last night's game those comparisons between Brady and Montana earned quite a bit of statistical validity.

 

It was during last night's game that Brady surpassed Montana on the career passer rating list, to No. 4 all time (among players with 1,500 pass attempts, which is the minimum to qualify for official NFL records).

 

Brady's final numbers Sunday night looked like this:

He is also just a statistical nose-hair shy of surpassing Peyton Manning on the all-time list.

 

And with their seasons going in opposite directions (Manning has a 72.2 rating in five games this year without Marvin Harrison), Brady could leap Kurt Warner and move past Manning into the No. 2 spot during New England's likely destruction of the Eagles in Foxboro next Sunday.

 

	Comp.	Att.	Yards	TD	INT	Rating
Steve Young	2,667	4,149	33,124	232	107	96.809
Peyton Manning	3,349	5,237	40,135	291	150	93.894
Kurt Warner	1,769	2,714	22,116	136	89	93.394
Tom Brady	2,146	3,402	24,623	185	82	92.891
Joe Montana	3,409	5,391	40,551	273	139	92.258

 

Among the many interesting items that jump out from this collection of players is the fact that Brady is the only cold-weather quarterback on the list. He's played more than half his games in New England, Buffalo and New Jersey. Young and Montana played in the same system in the forever springlike atmosphere of San Francisco, with road trips each year to New Orleans, Los Angeles and Atlanta (the members of the old NFC West).

 

Manning and Warner, of course, have spent either all or most of their careers in domes which, as we've seen in the past, makes it easier for quarterbacks to pass the football consistently.

 

Another cold-weather quarterback is poised to crash the party, by the way. Ben Roethlisberger boasts a career passer rating of 91.941, but with 1,299 pass attempts is still 201 tosses shy of qualifying for the official list.

 

For now, though, it's all about washing Brady's balls. So out of the way, Ms. Kremer.

 

Montana and Brady are essentially in a statistical dead heat. Here's how they stack up in the four key components that comprise passer rating (we also added in TD:INT ratio).

 

Brady: 63.08 percent

Montana: 63.24 percent

 

Brady: 7.24

Montana: 7.52

 

Brady: 5.44 percent

Montana: 5.06 percent

 

• 271 for 386, 70.2%, 3,521 yards, 9.1 YPA, 26 TD, 8 INT, 112.4 rating

• 250 for 338, 74.0%, 3,059 yards, 9.1 YPA, 38 TD, 4 INT, 134.0 rating