Tom Brady Grieves
Tom Brady fun fact: Tom Brady is 2-5 against Archie Manning’s spawn in the playoffs, and it’s a 5 game losing streak.
Not gonna lie, pretty pumped to see Denver win that game, if solely for the fact that we won’t be subjected to a Patriots Super Bowl again till at least next year. Honestly Brady probably wanted this one so he could shove it in Goodell’s face but it can’t hurt that much when he has 4 rings and just won it last season.
I have a lot of respect for Brady as a player but Peyton will always be my #1 QB ever. It’s pretty much 1a and 1b, and honestly if someone thinks Brady is a better QB, I won’t hold that against them. If you go by postseason success and championships, I don’t think anyone beats Brady. He’s been to 6 Super Bowls, won 4, and got within a game of like 3 more. No QB is ever going to touch that kind of success.
But for me at least, I don’t put as much value on postseason wins and championships for individuals. Wins, and especially postseason wins, are a team accomplishment. It feels weird to give Peyton all the blame for things like Vanderjagt missing kicks while giving Brady all the credit for Vinatieri making them. Peyton does seem to have a tendency to play worse in the playoffs where Brady doesn’t, but still. Peyton always seemed to drag the Colts kicking and screaming into the playoffs but you can only carry a team by yourself so far. It’s telling that Peyton’s one ring came on a year that the Colts actually played defense. Brady had a good defense each time he won the Super Bowl, especially the first 3. Brady as we know him didn’t really seem to become Tom Goddamn Brady until 2006-2007. Before then he was just a good to great QB. since 2007, he’s been one of the best ever. Peyton has been Peyton pretty much every year since he came into the league (outside this season and half of last year).
My argument for Peyton is pretty much this:
-Tom Brady has had the benefit of the same coach (who is the best coach ever) for his entire run. That kind of consistency is something players dream of. Him and Belichick probably don’t even have to talk at this point, they just know each other so well. Peyton has never been afforded that level of consistency. He’s gone to the Super Bowl 4 times now, with two teams, and a different coach every single time. He can win with anybody, he’s proven that. We don’t know if Tom can. He’s never had to. He’s had the best organization one could ask for behind him every step of the way.
-Peyton has a reputation as a playoff choker but he’s still right behind Brady in most postseason categories. He has a lot of negative stats, but when you go to the playoffs all the time you’re gonna rack up losses too.
-Eli has two rings, does anyone actually legitimately think Eli is better than Peyton? That Dilfer is better than Marino? So why does Tom Brady’s postseason success get used as a barometer against Peyton?
-Peyton has actually won the majority of head to head matchups in the playoffs. For being called a “regular season QB” he comes out on top of Brady in the playoffs. If you want to count wins and directly compare the two that way this has to count for something. He’s 3-2, 3-1 in the AFCCG and Brady hasn’t actually beaten Peyton since the 2004 season playoffs. Also, the home team has always won. I feel like that sort of stat goes in favor of it being a team game, which also bolsters Peyton’s argument. Brady has a lot of post-season success but he rarely has to travel. In a home field like Foxboro, that matters.
-Peyton has won the MVP 5 times compared to Brady’s 2. MVPs are probably a better direct individual comparison point than team sport championships. In this case the ratio is flipped. Brady has 3 more rings, Peyton has 3 more MVPs.
-Peyton has thrown an obscene amount of TDs and Yards.
-The Broncos collapse against the Seahawks was bad but I don’t think that Patriot team beats the Hawks either. I think it’s funny that both previous record setting offenses (2007, 2013) actually lost in the Super Bowl.
-Brady is much better at taking care of the ball, I’ll give him that
-Peyton has more rush TDs lol that’s hilarious to me actually
Point is, if your main reason why Brady is better is because he’s won more Super Bowls, and that’s it, you should take a longer look at the wider context. I think Peyton’s been in tougher positions with his teams, and he serves as a better example of how hard it is to win everything in a team sport, even when you are one of the best players to ever play the game. Peyton’s success mostly feels like his own accomplishments, where as to me Tom Brady’s success feels tied to the Patriots organization as a whole. The Patriots, under BB, are the best team of all time. We may sigh of relief now as they go home, but we all know they’ll be back next year, because they are the goddamn Patriots.
Also Peyton is going to lose in two weeks. Carolina is so good. I don’t think it’ll be the shellacking it was last time because this is a different Broncos team, but the Denver offense isn’t going to put up points on Carolina even if the Denver D can probably keep it close. But then again, three years ago so many people wrote off the good D mediocre O Seahawks and look what happened. I’m not picking Denver to win, but people aren’t giving Denver enough credit here.
I’m the sole reason mario isn’t a top 5 qb of all time (peyton, brady, Montana, Unitas, and Steve young/farve/Tarkenton/ that fucking horse are probably better than Marino in that order. With a ring he moves past Montana)
Also, fuck archie manning
Graham, Montana, Elway, Unitas (forgot him in my long post, because derp), Brady. Manning, Young, Roethelsomething, and the others I listed, all better than Favre. Favre really only had one thing going for him: Longevity. He was exciting, but he wasn’t particularly reliable, and for all the flack Manning and Marino get for not post-season choking, Favre wasn’t really all that great in that respect. (2 4QCs, 2 GWDs), 30 Ints to 44 TDs… Favre was just as likely to be excitingly awful as he was to be excitingly good. He’s so over-blown, because he had enormous stats. But I’ll take Brady’s 1.9% INT vs. Favre’s 3.3 any day of the week and twice on Sundays. Favre was an enormous liability to his team’s post-season efforts. The only reason I hope Manning comes back, is because I don’t want Favre to keep Games Won as a record (and I hope Manning comes back for one play each drive, just to get the win credit and to hose Favre, because man, Favre had so many illlegitimate plays– including tanking for Strahan).
So, this is a really rough subject to really parse. When we talk about greatness, everyone has different metrics.
But the reason that I don’t think you can discount Brady’s personal accomplishments on this end– and why Manning can largely be blamed– is when you look at one stat in particular. Well, two. Not Super Bowl wins, or total play off wins… look at their 4th quarter come backs (6 vs. 1), and game winning drives (9 vs. 2). Yes, the Patriots have had a better defense than the Colts had, or than the Broncos had until the last two years. But I will call anyone a liar who says the Patriots had consistently better offenses than Peyton Manning had with the Colts. But, even with opportunities on the line fairly often, Peyton didn’t get the conversions. He didn’t get the touch downs. He just didn’t win. And in at least four cases that I can think of, his turn overs have directly cost his team the opportunity to push those drives– one fumble, three INTs.
Winning the AFC South was never particularly hard, except a couple years in the early 2000s when the Titans were good. Winning the AFC West hasn’t been particularly hard, either. I’m not saying the Patriots have had a mammoth glut of divisional opponents, mind you– I think the AFC East has been on the whole better than the AFC South or AFC West, but not significantly enough so to make a difference). There’s a reason that the AFC West has been dominated by the Broncos since 1997 (the Chargers were competitive for a while, the Chiefs were, the Raiders were, but the Broncos have been the most consistent), the South has been dominated by the Colts, the East by the Patriots, and the North has been the only legitimately competitive division: contrary to the myth that it’s hard to maintain a dynasty in the post-salary cap era, it’s really not, because the same GMs and Coaches who could assess talent back then can assess talent now, and if you don’t have talent, you aren’t going to win games. It’s pretty much that simple. Peyton through up enormous numbers during the regular season, sure, but he did it against incredibly bad teams, and he struggled against good teams– that shouldn’t be a shock; all good players do better against scrubs, and do worse against real teams.
But when you break it down really hard– when you go back and look at how well Peyton does vs. Playoff teams, and how well Brady does, Brady comes ahead by a small but significant margin. Not just in W/L, but in key stats, and especially in 4QCs and GWDs– areas that are so largely dependent on a QB that they really do deserve credit (yes, even when it’s a FG to win it– Vanderjagt only missed two post-season FGs; Vinatieri missed 3 in 2003 alone).
If I have to compare Brady and Peyton to anyone, I compare them to Elway and Marino. Elway always had controversy around him; Marino was pretty much always squeaky clean. Elway had the WINS; Marino had the stats. Elway never made excuses for failure; everyone always made them for Marino– if he only had a defense, if he only had a running game. But Marino had a running game, he had a defense, both better than Elway’s until 1995. And Elway just got it done in the post season… and then he squared off against the Giants, Redskins, and freaking 49ers of the 1980s, three of the best dynasties and semi-dynasties in NFL history. Elway had some of his best games– period– in the post season. The Drive is the game legends are made of; his game the following year against the Browns was just as good. Time after time, with Elway, you were surprised when he didn’t win. With Marino, you expected the choke. You expected the team to fall flat… and time after time, they did.
With Manning and Brady… if the Patriots lose, they just got beat. That’s just the way it is. No excuses. If Manning loses, it’s… the defense, it’s the lack of running game, it’s the lack of coaching consistency, it’s the…. at some point, I’m sorry, Peyton’s the common denominator. Yes, Marino was great. Yes, Peyton was great. But forget the sports nuts not treating the comparison like they know it’s a team sport: Peyton and Dan both *seemed* to act like *they* didn’t know it was. Like it was all about them. When John Elway took a pay cut (and he did, for all the finangling about the finances that wasn’t quite above board, it was still a cut), to bring in talent, Marino was demanding a raise. Peyton, this year, finally *FINALLY* took a pay cut… and Denver was able to bring in the needed talent to shore up the defense. If Peyton had done that in 2013, imagine where that season might have ended differently; I hope it’s not too late. Brady has restructured his contract more than once to help the Patriots.
Some more criteria: Peyton Manning lost *twice*to Ringless Rivers. *TWICE*. The only Instant Classic post season games I can think of with Peyton were the 2006 AFC Championship game (Which was Peyton doing his absolute best in an incredible game), MAYBE the 2003 Colts/Chiefs (The Game No Defense Played), and this last one. The rest? Mostly blow-outs one way or another, or entirely forgettable… and I think we can agree that Peyton was not the cause for the epicness of this year’s AFCCG. With Brady, on the other hand, we have 6 (SIX) Super Bowls all within one score, with multiple game winning drives. We have the Pats/Ravens, we have Pats/Chargers, we even have Pats/Broncos in 2005 (I love you forever, Champ, even if you did fumble out of the end zone). Pats/Raiders in 2001. It’s not fair, but it is part of the mythos, and that Brady has so frequently and so consistently come ahead in those games… and with him and Belichick the only two consistent parts (well, that and the Man Behind the Belichick), at some point, you have to say, “Maybe Brady’s part of the reason why”.
There’s a lot more than won Super Bowls: there’s all the things that Brady’s done to get to those, and the way he’s done it differently from Peyton. I still don’t think Brady’s the Greatest of All Time. Otto Graham still gets that for me, followed by Montana, and Elway, and then Brady (and no, the Elway > Brady isn’t homerism, or at least not all homerism). Manning comes in somewhere between Bradshaw, Bart Starr, Roethlisburger (Yes, Big Ben is up there), Aikman, Staubach, Tarkenton… probably in the high end of that grouping, all of whom, except maybe Tarkenton and Aikman, are above Marino. I honestly have no idea how to place Gilman, and Kenny Stabler probably deserves more credit than I give him, but he was a Raiders, so naw.
I typed way too much.
instant classic postseason games with Peyton: 2012 Broncos-Ravens?
2006 AFC Championship comes to mind
I guess, kinda? Denver played so badly in that game, the play-calling was so putrid, and the officiating ruined it for me. It was certainly an example of how a team absolutely laden with talent can be beaten by absolutely horrible coaching. It was close, but it shouldn’t have been. I like the Ravens as much as I like any team that’s not Denver, and I don’t blame the Ravens, or mean to take anything away from them. It didn’t have the same degree of feel as “BETTIS GETTING HIS RING IN HIS HOME CITY EVERYONE, ‘CAUSE DID YOU KNOW HE’S FROM DETROIT?!” and I’m probably super jaded as a Broncos fan. But I wasn’t thrilled by that game at all… I was angry at the idiocy of it, and livid that there was never a coaching change to put Harris on Smith, and move Bailey to Boldin. A minor coaching change would have made that a Broncos blow-out, but Fox is a moron the likes of which I cannot describe, no matter how needlessly verbose I might be.
ah man i fully read you as a similarly jaded broncos fan- agree with the fact that Fox was the largest reason we didn’t win- kneeling at the end of regulation, the playcalling for the whole 4th quarter, letting champ get torched
was more just commenting on the fact that many an NFL fan regards that game as a top-15 all time playoff game
Yea, the whole “Brady had only one coach for his entire career” argument can easily fade considering the “Brady never had a consistent receiving corps” whereas Peyton had Marvin Harrison and Reggie Wayne for most of his career. Give Brady Randy Moss and Gronk early on and I’m willing to betcha there’d be a couple more rings alongside those 4.
I think you could also make the argument that Peyton turned Harrison and Wayne into elite receivers, whereas Tom Brady didn’t start to become an offensive juggernaut until he was presented with the two greatest talents of a generation in Moss and Gronkowski.
Yea that’s also true (regarding Manning and his guys) but Brady already had 3 rings by the time his 2 (only) major weapons showed up. It’s true that he also had a pretty good D, but you don’t get to >420 passing tds and only 150 interceptions only with Moss’, Gronk’s and the defense’s help. Brady was a pretty great QB even before that. The only other good WR that comes to mind is Deion Branch but he only stayed for a few seasons.
Oh, certainly Brady was a very good quarterback during his first 3 Super Bowl wins before Moss and Gronk showed up. I just think people tend to forget just how well rounded those Patriots championship teams were, and instead act like Brady alone carried them to their titles.
Well i don’t think anybody said that about any SB winning team :)). Team effort and all that…
I realize that QBs can make wide receivers look better, but i still think Marvin Harrison and Reggie Wayne were much better receivers than Troy Brown, Deion Branch, and Reche Caldwell. (I still have nightmares about Reche Caldwell)
I do think Peyton has had better wide receivers to work with during his career than Brady has, which is easily a point in Brady’s favor. However I think Manning was asked and did more with them than Brady was asked to do with Branch and the lot. Once Brady got an all-star WR he turned on god mode, but he’s had pretty good targets to work with since Moss.
So many asterisks missing from this strip.
Point is, if you’re main reason
lol
Peyton’s best coach ever was the guy they fired in Tampa Bay where they won a Super Bowl the very next year. Tony Dungy is one of the most overrated coaches in history, because everyone likes him so much as a person that they overvalue him as a coach. Meanwhile, TB12 has the best coach ever and always has.
I feel like Peyon’s legacy as a ‘playoff choker’ is built around a few poor performances in New England literally a decade ago, and then to be fair he also got lit up by the Seahawks a couple years back. But there isn’t any QB past or present that would have stood a chance in that game against those maniacs on defense.
Game winning drives can be a misleading stat, too, because you can lead what would be a game winning drive only for your defense to give it up. I remember one game in particular where Peyton took the lead against one of those crazy Jets defenses (he had 3 possessions in the 2nd half and put up points on all 3) only for the Colts to literally let Mark Sanchez (Mark EFFING Sanchez) march down the field to kick the game winner. How is that Peyton’s fault?
If you want to say Brady is the best ever, that’s a perfectly defensible position and I don’t have a problem with it. I personally think Peyton is the best ever, for many of the reasons Dave stated, but honestly there’s never going to be any way to prove it. One of the few fun discussions that Google hasn’t ruined yet 🙂
The absolute best part is the NFL’s appeal of Deflate-gate will send Brady out for another revenge driven season next year.
Whenever I look at the whole Manning vs Brady thing, I don’t even bother. Both guys have so many arguments for their side it’s actually astonishing. Manning’s rediculous stats, Brady’s ability to work with nothing, Manning’s ability to handle coaching changes, Brady’s consistency in the postseason, etc. Obviously looking at my username you know which guy I’m gonna roll with (plus it actually makes sense now), but if you think Peyton is better, I’m not gonna argue against it.
The only give Brady the nod because of his ability to work with so little. You said he has Belichick, but that’s the only consistent thing Brady’s had his entire career. It shows especially when he’s given someone talented. Remember what happened when he got Moss? And that was only for ONE SEASON. Welker leaves and you’re stuck with a bunch of random guys no one’s even heard of? No problem, I’ll just make Edleman my number receiver. Every talks about Edleman now, but before 2013 he was just a special teams player (returned punts and kicks), and I remember seeing him for the first time in 2011 when returned that punt against KC. Didn’t hear about him again until 2012 when he had I guess what you could consider a breakout game against the Jets on Thanksgiving.
You could even argue he made Gronk into the baller he was but that’s a stretch considering Gronk’s a freak of nature.
That’s beside the point, both guys are great and us bickering about who’s better isn’t gonna change the fact that they’re both first ballot HoF’ers.
If Peyton had Belichick as his head coach, I think they’d get AT LEAST 6 rings together since Brady got his first. Peyton has always done more with less, but the talking heads always seem to insist Brady is better because of his rings. Just read Skip Bayless’s twitter, he’s so up on Brady’s nuts that you’d be amazed that he was actually a Cowboys fan.
I’d rather drink Draino then read Skip Bayless’ twitter
“Peyton has always done more with less”
Laughable.
For all his success Peyton nor his many coaches have ever been investigated for cheating. (mic drop)
Yeah, except for that whole HGH flap.
The HGH thing isn’t being investigated, because the “witness” recanted his story after it was demonstrated that he had lied to/misled the reporter about when he had worked at the clinic. It was such horrible reporting, that there are whispers that AJA was throwing out a Hail Mary to try and bring themselves the attention they needed to stay fungible in the US, but the blowback has cost them any chance.
I’m a Broncos fan, but I’m not particularly a huge Peyton fan (the 2000 aughts hurt too much), but not only does the evidence presented not pass the smell test, the eyes don’t pass it either. He had one and a half great years after that surgery; if he’d been on HGH (and if that had been a factor), he would still be having a great year.
It’s being investigated by every governing body except the NFL, because “integrity.”
lol
Look. The guy who fed the story to Al Jazeera didn’t work at the clinic when Peyton’s wife was supposedly receiving the HGH. He has flat out said he lied to them, when he realized he was being recorded without his permission and wanted to screw them over. He came up with his story because he remembered someone had once said that Peyton and his wife used to be clients at the institute.
The NFL will investigate, but there’s nothing to finds.
And don’t get me wrong, I have no reason to believe Peyton is a cheater, but those allegations should be taken at least as seriously as a discrepancy of 1 PSI in a football.
He didn’t ‘recant’ anything. He was caught on film admitting to breaking federal law, and then when the video came out, he claimed he was lying to save face. Peyton is a cheater.
The HGH thing is absolutely still being investigated. NFL has even come out and said they’re investigating.
With the loss on Sunday, Brady is now 16-9 for his career when throwing 50+ times.
No other QB in history is over .500
Brady >
Man remember how sad Peyton was on that bench earlier this year? Now look how happy is in that top panel what a difference 6 months make
I’m pretty sure your write up on today’s comic came straight from my brain. Get out of my head, Dave! 🙂
think Peyton’s been in tougher positions with his teams
Thats’s for sure with defines but he’s been surround by great offenses unlike Brady who only had Moss and Gronk. Brady could’ve easily won with those Colt’s offense. Manning could also win the the Patriots teams of 01, 03, 04 and 14 though.
The Broncos had a better overall team than the Pats in ’14. Manning cost them that one.
You severely misspelled “John Fox”.
So it was John Fox throwing ducks all over the place against the Colts? Interesting. I’ll have to review the film.
It was John Fox who drew up (consistently, throughout his entire career, in Carolina and in Denver, and now in Chicago), the most predictable, mindless game-plans with the worst preparation of any team in the NFL. Fox pushed a game plan that called for a weak Manning to rely exclusively on throws he couldn’t make, rather than focus the team around what strengths Manning had. So, yes. John Fox cost them that game, and the game against the Colts, and the Super Bowl against the Seahawks. The fact that John Fox has a job is both singularly depressing, and hopeful for everyone in America, because if that no-talent, ignorant hack can have a job of ANY sort, then anyone can make it.
Agreed. Fox’s system was just number-padding against inferior opponents; whenever we played someone our equal or better we got destroyed. People can rag on Kubiak all they want but I’d rather win the important ones in an ugly way with him than lose with pretty stats under Fox.
Plus Kubiak brought Phillips with him, who is such an upgrade at defensive coordinator compared to JDR that you could measure the distance from Earth to Pluto in inches and it still wouldn’t accurately illustrate how much better of a coordinator he is.
Anyone with less rushing TD’s than Peyton has a sad career
Peyton got to play in a dome for most of his career, and the AFC south has two warm-weather teams. This helped pad his regular season stats.
And maybe Peyton did make Marvin Harrison and Reggie Wayne into HOF or near-HOF receivers, but could he have turned the likes of Jabar Gaffney and Reche Caldwell into receivers of that caliber? I don’t think so… I can still see Caldwell’s drop of what would have been the game-winning td in the AFC championship against the Colts.
I think Brady makes receivers great, Manning makes receivers dead, only the greatest ones reached retirement age under Manning, while Brady always had his “best” receivers yanked out and traded from him and he’d have to go back to page 1 with the new recruits, and they were always phenomenal
How does manning make receivers dead? He turned Emmanuel Sanders into an all-pro caliber player, and did simililar with Austin Collie. Julius Thomas was a beast with Manning, but in Jacksonville, he’s been just above average. And don’t get me started with Dallas Clark.
I’m a Brady guy, personally but I think all but one of your points is valid. I never understood how Brady having Belichick helped the Manning argument. Bill was 5-13 in NE with essentially the same team and Bledsoe at QB, his overall record was 42-68 when Brady took over. Now he’s the winningest coach ever and the best of all time? He’s 26 games under 500 without a top 3 QH ever…..there is no way you can hold Belichick against Tom.
Also saying Brady won because of his defenses is easily countered by saying Manning’s numbers are better pre 07 because of the offensive talent he had….the number of pro bowler each has played with is almost even.
Your argument is the exact reason why I think Brady is the most underrated/overrated and in my opinion best QB of all time.
People use the rings argument for Brady and use the fact that he had belichick as a negative for his legacy. But Brady is the most underrated regular season QB in NFL history his post season accolades are so cartoonish that his regualry season contributions get ignored. If peyton is the greatest regular season QB of all time Brady is second. You can use Peytons 5 MVPs as an indicator to his regular season greatness but i can say that from 2007-2012 and 2015 Brady has had 5 MVP seasons (2007,2010-2012,2015) but circumstances caused him to lose to other players, like in 2011 Brady could’ve been the MVP in any other season but Rodgers threw 45 TDS and went 15-1, in 2012 He could’ve won the MVP in any other season but AD ran for 2K and this season Brady is an MVP in any other season. The most underappreciated QB in terms of statistic ever he’s essentially drew brees with 4 rings
So basically what you’re doing is he could have been the most valuable player of the league but he wasn’t….