Tom Brady’s quarterback contemporaries can blame him for something other than keeping their trophy cases mostly empty.

“Brady changed the expectations for how long quarterbacks should be great,” one NFL defensive coach told Post Sports+. “Before he did it into his 40s, no one would’ve expected all these other guys to still be great in their late 30s. Now we act surprised when they struggle, and it leads to these awkward endings.”

If Matt Ryan, 37, didn’t already look sufficiently out of place this season in the Colts’ blue-and-white uniform instead of the Falcons’ red and black colors, the sight of him sitting on the bench last week as Sam Ehlinger made his first career start sealed the deal.

It was the type of moment that “only a Giant” Eli Manning desperately wanted to avoid, even though he finished his career at 38 years old on the bench in 2019 while the team he led to two Super Bowls started rookie Daniel Jones. Manning was first benched for one game in 2017 – the culmination of months of chatter behind the scenes that it “wasn’t going to be a happy ending,” said a source who was then with the team – but made another 22 starts before his second benching.