How Boston.com readers voted in our #GOATMadness bracket of the city’s best athletes
Tom Brady won, but the margin was exceptionally close.
When the voting finally closed on Boston.com’s #GOATMadness bracket, a familiar face stood atop the field of 64. Tom Brady, as he’s done so many times, staged a late comeback to pull off a dramatic win.
The final between Brady and Bill Russell saw the closest vote out of any GOAT matchup. Perhaps that was fitting, considering the inherent difficulty of the choice. Rarely more than 50 votes apart, the two Boston legends went back and forth. In the end, Brady’s margin of victory was just four votes:
Tom Brady: 2,308
Bill Russell: 2,304
Had Russell won, it would’ve created an interesting outcome in a statistical sense. Unless he prevailed by more than 2,000 votes, it would’ve meant Russell won the final while losing the overall vote throughout the bracket.
Here’s a look at the overall #GOATMadness top 10:
- Tom Brady: 32,506
- Bill Russell: 30,302
- Ted Williams: 25,500
- Larry Bird: 23,870
- Bobby Orr: 22,481
- David Ortiz: 19,440
- Pedro Martinez: 18,221
- Carl Yastrzemski: 16,890
- Ray Bourque: 14,076
- John Havlicek: 12,481
Brady and Russell received more votes partly due to the fact that they made it to the final, ensuring the most opportunity to receive votes (while Bourque and Havlicek, eliminated in the Round of 16, had three fewer rounds to receive votes).
That said, success begets success in a bracket determined by votes, and it’s not as if Brady and Russell only won the overall vote because they were in additional rounds. The only round in which Brady didn’t finish as the most popular choice was the Round of 8, where Russell edged him by 91 votes.
A few other leftover stats:
- In total, 433,045 votes were cast in #GOATMadness from March 15 through April 2.
- Other than facing Russell, Brady was dominant throughout the bracket. His second closest matchup came against David Ortiz in the Round of 8 by a wide margin: 4,617-719.
- The only No. 1 seed who failed to advance to the Final Four was Bobby Orr, who lost to Larry Bird (3,009-2,321).
- The closest matchup other than the championship between Brady and Russell was the first round matchup between Randy Moss and Gino Cappelletti. Moss barely won in a fascinating clash of Patriots eras, 3,803-3,687.
- Interestingly, Brady was the only Patriots player to make it past the Round of 32. Meanwhile, seven Red Sox finished in the top 15, though none made it to the championship.
Brady’s victory in #GOATMadness appears to confirm his status as the GOAT. Of course, winning by only four votes means the debate is far from settled.
