Peyton Manning’s prominence in the history of the NFL is easily apparent to anyone who has seen a Packers game during Brett Favre’s impressive string of record-breaking performances. Nearly every time Favre sets a new NFL mark for wins, touchdown passes, yards or any other of a host of statistical passing categories the announcers cannot be quick enough to indicate that Favre is merely holding the spot until Manning has an opportunity to break the record.
All of this has led to frequent comparisons of Manning and Dan Marino, the former holder of many of the records Favre is now breaking. Marino, despite his statistical legacy, will be forever discounted from contention for greatest quarterback ever due to his inability to win a Super Bowl. This same criticism plagued Manning until the Indianapolis Colts Super Bowl victory over the Chicago Bears last season. Thanks to his much-deserved Super Bowl ring, Manning’s many other accomplishments can now be brought to bear in his near constant comparison to the New England Patriots’ Tom Brady.
This comparison is a critical one, as fans of over great sports rivalries know. One cannot discuss Magic Johnson without Larry Bird .Just as this generation asked their parents about the 1979 title game that established this legacy, future generations will ask us to recount the meetings of two of the greatest NFL quarterbacks ever. With that in mind, one should be sure to view both Manning and Brady in terms of their achievements as well as the context in which they earned those achievements.
Since he entered the NFL as the first overall pick in the 1998 draft, Manning has been the face of the Indianapolis Colts. He has been the focus nucleus of the franchise and the centerpiece of future roster plans. In light of this, Manning has been given an amount of responsibility and power on the field that few other players, even quarterbacks, have enjoyed. He is asked to make decisions at the line of scrimmage that frankly most offensive coordinators are incapable of making. In light of this, it is easy to see that Manning deserves more credit for his Super Bowl ring than your typical quarterback.
Brady entered the league as a successful but relatively unknown quarterback from the University of Michigan. He became a starter after an injury to Drew Bledsoe during the 2001 season. Since then, he has won three Super Bowls, an impressive feat, but in each instance Brady was far from the catalyst for the season. To put it in a more accessible context, name as many defensive starters for the Patriots’ Super Bowl squads as you can. Without much effort many can name Richard Seymour, Ty Law, Tedy Bruschi, Mike Vrabel, Asante Samuels and maybe a few others. Now name all the Colts’ defenders you can. So, Dwight Freeney? This pretty clearly illustrates a substantial difference in the quality of defense playing the other half of the game for both Manning’s Colts and Brady’s Patriots.
The obvious objection is that Manning has had a better set of weapons at his disposal on offense. This may seem to be the case but the difference may not be as significant as Brady supporters would have you believe. Brady has had a very respectable running game behind him his entire career. Whether it was Corey Dillon or Laurence Maroney, a viable ground game has always been a part of the Patriot’s offense.
Manning has also had an above average run game at his disposal for his entire career with Edgerrin James headlining the attack. Fortunately for our purposes, James left the Colts and is now part of a less than impressive ground attack for the Arizona Cardinals. One extremely probable explanation for this is the pass first mentality of the Colts, which forced defenses to play extra defensive backs which led to a more user friendly environment for James while he was in Indianapolis.
In terms of receivers, the recent departure of Brandon Stokely again provides a useful case study. While Stokely was with the Colts he was the third wide receiver and had immense success in that role. So much success that in fact people often speculated that he could become a starter on another NFL roster if he chose to leave Indianapolis for a lesser offensive unit. Well, three years after catching 10 touchdowns from Manning, Stokely departed for the Denver Broncos. In Denver, Stokely was again slotted as a third wide receiver, only this time instead of being stuck behind Marvin Harrison and Reggie Wayne, he was sitting on the bench behind Javon Walker and Brandon Marshall until a recent Walker injury.
Bearing these two instances in mind, it is hard to believe that if their situations were reversed that Brady would have been able to match the success of Manning over the last decade. Manning on the other hand seems more than capable of performing the duties of Brady. Manning has provided the Colts with more offense than Brady has been capable of in every season but this one and Brady’s sudden surge of offensive productivity can be easily traded to the off season acquisitions of Randy Moss, arguably the most physically talented player in the NFL, along with a slew of other offensive tools including Donte Stallworth and Wes Welker.
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