Your bolded quote sounds similar to the BB description of Brady, the one where Brady explains the five events of a given play and that description is accurate.
And conversely does Mac not do that?
I can't find any pertinent quotes, due to the fact that the internet is choked with quotes about Mac's injury, but I know he has praised similar things about
Mac's ability to learn and process everything, his high intelligence, multiple times, but I can't prove it.
That "sees the game" paragraph made me think of a quote from Bill on a rookie Brady where he had asked him about a play that had happened a while before and Brady supposedly detailed
every bit of it and Bill had a somewhat different recollection and went back and watched the film. He was impressed to find that Tom was correct. That made an
impression on the Boss and he did what he does when he wants to show he is pleased with a player paying careful attention or having unusually good smarts by allowing
himself to be quoted. He loves it when a kid works as hard as he can and doesn't when he doesn't. No question about it.
The subtext of it, to me, was that a lot of rookie QBs can't really "see the game" and I wouldn't read much more into it than that. Certainly not anything like
"Zappe is smarter than Mac". Just that they are both bright.
Whenever he praises a player, opponents included, you can bet that it'll get back to the guy and he'll feel like if he impressed Bill than he
must be on the right track. He tossed way more than the usual share yesterday, especially towards Rhamondre. It was interesting to me that he didn't note the
49-yard run, like a lot of people would, but the first downs he ground out to help kill the clock on our final drive as well as the blitz pickups. He called him a
"football player" (his highest praise) and said "I love him", which floored me. It made me think of Stevenson getting trucked in pass pro early last season and
how much he has improved in a year.
Sometimes a word or two of praise towards you from somebody you look up to is the greatest feeling in the world.