FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady spoke passionately Monday about the statistics that mean the most to him, his remarks coming one week after media-generated buzz that he could be slipping from the ranks of the NFL's elite quarterbacks based in part on analytics.

"I think that people watch the games on TV because there is a scoreboard. I think that's what it is all about," he said. "If there was no scoreboard, then people wouldn't tune in and watch. There's only one stat that matters, and that's because the competition in the NFL is very high, extremely high on a daily basis.

"You can't sit here and compare one year to another year or compare this player to that player. I think winning games is the most important thing, certainly for this organization. When you come here, you learn that pretty quickly. Whatever matters to you as an individual, it's far distant to what the team goals are. And the team goals are one thing -- to score more points than the other team."

Brady's remarks came after an appearance at a community-based event at Gillette Stadium in which owner Robert Kraft presented $200,000 to New England-based nonprofit organizations. Brady wasn't specifically asked about a story posted on ESPN Insider last week that declared he no longer belonged on the Mount Rushmore of NFL quarterbacks, a piece that sparked a flurry of reaction over multiple days on local talk radio and various websites and publications.