AP

Patriots quarterback Tom Brady recently has found himself in the center of a stat-centric argument over whether he’s still one of the best five quarterbacks in the game. So what does Brady consider to be the more important statistic when evaluating a quarterback?

“Other than wins and losses?” he said, via Tom Curran of CSNNE.com.

Yes, Curran said. And so Brady launched into a monologue that may or may not have answered the question.

“I think that people pay to watch the games on TV because there’s a scoreboard,” Brady explained. “I mean, I think that’s what it’s all about. If there were no scoreboard, then people wouldn’t tune in and watch. There’s only one stat that matters. The competition in the NFL is very high, extremely high on a daily basis. Some individuals compete against other guys and some compete against themselves so even if you don’t have someone you’re competing against, if you’re competing against yourself, you’re always gonna get better because there’s always competition.

“The guys that I’ve been around that find ways to motivate themselves, those are the best players. They don’t have to wait for some Sunday in September to find out if they’re competitive. You find that out in March. You figure that out in February, at the end of February when no one else really is working. The competition of what’s inside of you and how that’s gonna really help your team and build your team to be more competitive. That’s all infectious. . . .

“You can’t sit here and compare one year to another year or compare this player to that player. Winning games is the most important thing certainly for this organization and when you come here you learn that pretty quickly. Whatever matters to you as an individual it’s far distant from what the team goals are. And the team goal is one thing. To score more points than the other team.”

So, basically, it’s wins and losses. For a guy who hasn’t won the ultimate game in a decade, it’s hard to argue he’s still as good as the guy who won three in four years. But the arguing over whether he’s as good as he used to be will continue for as long as Brady keeps playing, and beyond.