California native Tom Brady had to have known the question was coming this week in Foxboro. How does he compare to his childhood idol, Joe Montana?

After all, he grew up in San Mateo, a fan of the San Francisco 49ers. As a 4-year-old, he was at Candlestick Park on Jan. 10, 1982, when “Joe Cool” began a legend by beating the Cowboys in the NFC championship game.

Montana threw a pass headed out of the end zone that miraculously was hauled down by Dwight Clark for “The Catch” and the game-winning touchdown.

Brady and Montana. Those two names are right at the top of any short list of greatest quarterbacks in NFL history. The comparison is as natural as “Tom Terrific” posing with his supermodel wife, Gisele.

How does Brady feel about the comparisons with Montana?

“I don’t think about that much at all. I don’t think about comparisons much. I really don’t,” Brady said four days before taking on his hometown team for just the second time in his career.

Brady was 22-of-30 with two touchdown passes, an interception and a QB rating of 102.9 in his only previous game against San Francisco, a 21-7 Patriots win in the 2004 season finale. At that time he was a quarterback with two rings on his way to a third. Now, he’s a quarterback who’s been to five title games, won two MVPs and is on his way to winning another while leading three of the six highest-scoring teams in NFL history.

Clearly, he wants NO part of this kind of talk leading up to a game that is New England's final major hurdle toward a first-round bye in the AFC playoffs.

That’s fine Tom. That’s why I’m here.

Montana and Brady are two quarterbacks legendary in California for what they’ve done in the NFL. One did his work in the state while the other grew up there and left to become one of the most prolific winners the game has ever seen.

Montana still has Brady in the category many old-timers look at -- rings. Montana won four Super Bowls, never losing in posting a 4-0 record.

By all rights, Brady should’ve passed Montana last February. But instead, thanks to a pair of heart-wrenching losses to the Giants, Brady is on a two-game losing streak in the big game after winning his first three.

Who’s better?

Tom Brady, that’s who.

Brady is the best quarterback in a golden age of quarterbacks. The group of Peyton Manning, Eli Manning, Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees and Ben Roethlisberger is even more impressive than the group of Montana, Dan Marino, John Elway and even Steve Young.

Statistically, Brady holds all the numbers over Montana, and understandably so since this is much more of a passing league than in the 1980s.

Montana completed 63.2 percent of his passes over his 15-year career, amassing 40,551 yards in the process. He threw 273 touchdown passes with 139 interceptions. His career quarterback rating was 92.3. 

Montana was 4-0 in Super Bowls, with 11 touchdown passes, no interceptions and a 127.8 rating.

Brady, in two fewer seasons, is completing passes at a 63.9 percent clip and already has 329 touchdown passes compared to just 119 interceptions. He has thrown for 43,812 yards and has registered a QB rating of 97.0.

Brady is 3-2 in Super Bowls, with nine TDs, two picks and a 93.8 rating. And remember, Brady started his career winning his first 10 playoff games, something no quarterback had ever accomplished. 

As a starter, Montana was 117-47-0 during the regular season, with a 16-7 postseason record. Going into Sunday's game against the Niners, Brady has an almost unthinkable 134-38-0 regular season mark, going 16-6 in the playoffs.

But beyond the numbers, there’s something more compelling -- never has the position been so prominent or so important to the outcome of an NFL game.

Tom Brady is his own offensive coordinator out on the field DURING a game.

Montana would occasionally audible out of a play but nowhere close to what Brady does.

Even the late Bill Walsh, in the recent NFL Network “A Football Life: Eddie DeBartolo” admitted as much.

Brady is to the offense what Bill Belichick is to the defense.

That alone tells you what kind of impact Brady has on the offense. Yes, Josh McDaniels holds the title of offensive coordinator on the sideline and Brady will take advice from McDaniels when the defense is on the field.

Of course, it didn’t always work like that. Brady was a lot more like Montana when he started out in the early 2000s. He managed the offense so Belichick could scheme the defense to stop teams like the Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI.

“You just try to focus on your job,” Brady said when asked about his early days replacing Drew Bledsoe. “There are a lot of players that you count on and depend on you and you depend on them. That’s what makes it a team game. That’s why the best teams win the most important games -- because they’ve got a group of players that are committed to doing their jobs.

“If your role is to play quarterback, your role is to play quarterback and you’ve got to do as best you can. If your role is to play scout team running back, that’s what your role is. Until that role changes, you just do it the best you can do.”

Make no mistake. Brady now is running Brady’s offense. Montana ran the offense of one of the NFL’s greatest offensive innovators in Bill Walsh and his “West Coast” scheme. Brady definitely uses aspects of that system in what he does today, like getting the ball to Wes Welker in space and letting him run after the catch.

Brady is throwing the ball against NFL defenses schemed solely to pressure him. Montana faced many more balanced "base" defenses, split between stopping the run and pass equally.

What Montana had was an uncanny ability to thread a needle with an above-average but not spectacular arm.

Montana’s best strength was his ability to read the field and the defense and anticipate coverage breaks from the most prolific and dependable receiver of all time in Jerry Rice and a spectacular No. 2 receiver in John Taylor.

Montana’s trademark accuracy won him one of those four Super Bowls as he threaded a pass to Taylor with 34 seconds left in Super Bowl XXIII to beat the Bengals, 20-16.

The 49ers also had a much more dominating defense for a longer period of time to support Montana. Brady had that in his three Super Bowl wins. But since 2004, Brady has been called on to shoulder a majority of the burden. Even in 2007, Brady’s video-game numbers made defense an afterthought.

When Joe Montana retired on April 18, 1995, he was considered by many the most precise, big-game quarterback in NFL history.

Brady has surpassed his childhood idol. He’ll never acknowledge it. He doesn’t have to.

To the Trags Bag for a small sampling of followers and their top five quarterbacks of all-time:

@Tbaksays 1. Montana 2. Brady 3. Elway 4. Young 5. P. Manning

@anmis 1. Johnny Unitas 2. Tom Brady 3. Joe Montana 4. Sammy Baugh 5. John Elway There is very little in my mind that separates these five, as well as any I left off the list such as Peyton Manning, Steve Young, Dan Marino, Roger Staubach, Otto Graham. All of them are greats.

@DanWoods19 1. elway 2. Unitas 3. Brady 4. P. Manning 5. tommy Hodson 6. Joe Montana

@0_LayDX 1. Brady 2. Sammy Baugh 3. Otto Graham 4. Montana 5. Fran Tarkenton/Sid Luckman.

@BostonGal4Ever 1. Joe Montana, 2. Tom Brady, 3. John Elway, 4. Otto Graham, 5. Johnny Unitas.

@djddono 1. Brady 2. [Peyton] Manning 3. John Elway. 4. Johnny Unitas 5. Joe Montana

Paul Devlin (via Facebook) 1. (tie) Akili Smith, JaMarcus Russell. 2. Ryan Leaf. 3. Heath Shuler. 4. Browning Nagle. 5. Michael Bishop. [Always love a joker]

Jon Blayne (via Facebook) My top 5 would be Tom Brady, Eli Manning, John Elway, Terry Bradshaw, and Joe Montana.

David Blanchette (via Facebook) Joe Montana, Tom Brady, Roger Staubach, Peyton Manning, Dan Marino

Mark Distasio (via Facebook) 1. Dan Marino 2. Bob Griese 3. Earl Morrall 4. David Woodley 5. Ryan Tannehill. [Always love an unabashed Dolphins fan]