The number that was everywhere on Sunday was large and pleasingly round. Tom Brady had surpassed 100,000 yards passing, the latest milestone in his long and storied career.
Or did he? It really depends on how you count.
A look at Brady’s statistics will show you that he has passed for a still impressive figure that has one fewer digit: 87,067 yards. That’s because North American professional sports normally do not count postseason results in career totals.
It’s only Brady’s long playoff career (47 games!) that swells his passing yards total beyond 100,000.
Yet in N.F.L. history, the 45-year-old Brady ranks No. 1 in passing yards no matter how it’s counted. He has 6,000 more regular season yards than second-placed Drew Brees on the regular-season list, the total that most people cite as the measuring stick for league records. But Brady’s playoff figure of 13,049 yards — nearly double that of runner-up Peyton Manning — makes him look even look more impressive. And sometimes the role of a statistic is to look impressive, not necessarily illuminate. After all, 100,000 looks a lot better than 87,067 in a headline, and on Sunday, at least, it created an extra moment for Tampa Bay (and anyone else) to celebrate him.
Include the playoffs, after all, and all of Brady’s stats look better: 247 wins becomes 282; 634 touchdowns becomes 720; 7,523 completions becomes 8,688. Indeed, his “700th” touchdown pass was celebrated last December, even though he has not yet reached that total in the regular season.
The traditional method of counting career totals, omitting the playoff numbers, is a way of being fair. Some players get far fewer opportunities in postseason, possibly through no fault of their own, or expansions to the format. The counterargument, of course, is that playoff games are vital, and memorable, career-makers, and that ignoring them in the statistical record is irrational, or at the very least diminishes habitual winners who make deep playoff runs year after year.
Many of the legendary totals in every sport, though, look quite unfamiliar with the players’ postseason numbers added. Suddenly, Babe Ruth hit 729 home runs, not 714. Rickey Henderson had 1,439 steals, not 1,406. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had 44,149 points, not 38,387. And Wayne Gretzky … hold on, there’s the whole question of whether to include his World Hockey Association stats. We’ll let that one rest.
Plenty of ink was spilled about Alex Rodriguez’s coming up just short of 700 career home runs. But his 13 postseason home runs lift his oh-so-close total of 696 to a comfortable 709.
College sports are an exception to the traditional methods. Bowl games and postseason tournament games are normally counted in career totals, a bonus for players on teams like Alabama football squads and Kansas or North Carolina basketball teams that always seem to pick up some extra games. (Pete Maravich of L.S.U. remains the career leading scorer in men’s basketball with 3,667 points in three years, despite playing in a total of only four postseason games, all in the N.I.T.)
Brady’s milestone came Sunday in a 16-13 win over the Super Bowl champion Rams. The victory came after a 44-second, 60-yard drive that was widely reported as Brady’s 55th game winning drive. For whatever reason, in this case, his playoff comebacks weren’t included. If they had been, that total would be 69.
The Bucs improved to 4-5, and are tied for the lead in a weak N.F.L. South. The New York Times Playoff Simulator now gives them a 53 percent chance to make the playoffs — where Brady’s stats will, or maybe will not, count toward his growing career totals.
And what does Tom Brady think about all this? After Sunday’s game, he didn’t seem to care if he was at 100,000 yards or a million.
“It’s all about the win, man,” he said. “Never cared about that.”
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