Could Justin Lamson Be the Next GOAT?

Montana

In the 1992/1993 season, a legendary year for you “kids” who follow the history of skiing now known as free ride. It was the days of Doug Coombs, Air Force and Teton Gravity Research, rival gangs marking their territory in the Jackson Hole back and side country.

I was newly married and my wife was a pastry chef at the Bistro, not the new one, the original one in grand old white house which stood to the left of the still standing Blue Lion.

Sort of rivals too. But that story is for another post.

Oh how I long for the “Good Old Days” when we ripped Corbett’s on 205CM GS skies wired for speed but devilishly hard to turn.

You actually had hammer the camber and reverse it to create the ‘side cut’.

An inverse arching of the ski camber.

But, I am getting way off track with coloring this story picture.

One night she walked to the grocery store for more flour, white dust on her coat, the cold humming. A tall, easygoing man brushed her on the narrow and then still wooden I believe plank “sidewalk”.

Montana cool Joe smiled in his signature and just kept right on walking.

She came back to the restaurant and said to the line and wait staff, “I think I just saw someone famous… but I don’t know who.”

Laughing burst out when she described him. Everyone else knew. Joe Montana was in town.

Obviously, she was not and still is not a football fan.

Now Tom, she would recognize because we hail from the great State of Maine.

Maybe that’s why Montana feels familiar to me. I hail from Maine — the northern edge of the East — while Montana holds the northern line out West.

Both states touch Canada across their entire top border.

Both hover right around a million people. The difference is scale: Montana is roughly four Maines laid side by side.

And here’s a detail most people don’t know — despite all that latitude, January in Portland, Maine is actually a couple degrees warmer than Bozeman.

The Atlantic Ocean softens the cold just enough.

Different forces, same toughness.

That’s the thing about real greatness: it doesn’t announce itself. It moves quietly.

It smiles, walks the wooden sidewalks alone.

A soft brush of motion, a hint of flour in the air — swirling briefly like Bridger Range cold smoke — then settling back into the early evening, already cooling.

At the end of her telling, she softly added “He had a really nice smile.”

Starstruck with no idea why.

Last night in Bozeman, that same energy showed up again.

Montana football, Montana calm.

Montana State just won a national championship. The town knows what that means.

Will there will be a parade? There will be stories.

There will be kids with sparkling eyes at hotel desks saying, “Can you feel it?”

You can.

And at the center of it all stands Justin Lamson—not as a myth yet, not as a prediction, but as a pattern.

This post is not saying Lamson is the next GOAT.

It’s asking the better Montana question:

What if the traits that made Montana and Brady great are showing up again—right here, right now?

First principles: how the great ones actually play

Let’s clear the fog.

Great quarterbacks are not defined by:

highlight sprints,
arm-angle circus tricks,
or viral clips.

They are defined by:

pre-snap clarity
post-snap calm
movement within chaos, not away from it

That’s Montana.

That’s Brady.

That’s Lamson’s game.

Lamson → Montana (the mental rhythm)

Montana’s magic was never raw power. It was timing.

The ball left his hand before receivers looked open.
His feet slid just enough.
His eyes never panicked.

Lamson shows the same rhythm:

He stays in structure.
He trusts the concept.
He steps up, resets, and throws on time.

Montana had supernatural touch. That’s rare.

Lamson has something else that scouts quietly love:

He doesn’t rush the moment.

That’s a Montana thing.

Lamson → Brady (the discipline)

Now let’s go there.

Tom Brady was never the fastest, strongest, or flashiest quarterback on the field.

What Brady had:

a ruthless internal clock,
elite anticipation,
and a refusal to abandon the pocket early.

Lamson plays with that same discipline.

He:

doesn’t bail when pressure might arrive,
keeps his eyes downfield,
lets the play finish.

That is teachable football at the highest level—and also the hardest thing to teach.

The Brock Purdy bridge (the modern proof).

If you want a modern case study, look at Brock Purdy.

“Limited” measurables.
Elite processing.
Right system.
Right moment.

That’s the pathway.

Not likely.

But possible.

And that’s all Montana ever asks of you—possible.

The environment matters (Bozeman, energy, and “blowing high”)

Bozeman right now is blowing high.

That’s not intoxication. That’s collective momentum—the kind athletes talk about when everything feels lighter, cleaner, sharper.

Montana has always understood this:

You don’t force greatness.
You align with it.
You feel it, then you intend and send.

That’s why champions come from places like this.

And skiing aside (because Montana understands flow).

At Bridger Bowl, the best skiers aren’t chasing danger. They’re chasing the perfect turn.

Like a golf swing, you never finish learning it.

Quarterbacking is the same:

It’s not about going bigger.
It’s about going cleaner.
Smoother.
More efficient.

That’s how longevity is built.

That’s how Brady lasted.

That’s how Montana stayed calm.

That’s how Lamson plays.

Numerology (a muse, not a prophecy)

Montana State last won it all in 1984.

That’s 42 years ago.