Surely, we said, with another year of evidence behind us, people will now realize that Brady is the better quarterback. The Cold, Hard Football Facts could not be so clear and obvious.
The “pundits” however, seem flummoxed and flustered when faced by the awesome power of the Cold, Hard Football Facts, choosing instead to place the full weight of their beliefs on the rickety old rotted wood posts of opinion. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, they’ve insisted throughout the 2005 offseason that Manning is the better QB. In fact, every major profile, preview and “pundit” has named Manning the best quarterback in football.
We’re at a loss to explain their stupidity. We can’t understand how they so quickly seem to have forgotten about the 2004 playoffs – or every other playoff season for the past several years. We simply don’t know why they’re so impressed with Manning’s play in the halcyon days of October, yet choose to ignore his meltdowns in the pressure-packed evenings of wintry playoff football.
So, we come here to do what we always do: We carve up the cancerous opinions of the “pundits” with a scalpel of gridiron wisdom called the Cold, Hard Football Facts. It’s all here for you to read, admire, praise and worship in “The Complete & Unabridged Guide to Why Tom Brady is Better than Peyton Manning, Vol. II” – updated with complete 2004 regular-season and postseason data.
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Peyton Manning is a great player – a certain Hall of Famer – who puts up some nifty numbers. We have never disputed his greatness. What we have disputed are his merits relative to Tom Brady’s. Manning fans insist that his gaudy stats of the past two seasons are a sign of his superiority.
But there is far more to quarterbacking than surrounding yourself with hall-of-fame talent and tossing a record number of touchdown passes.
Every time we look at Tom Brady, meanwhile, we find ourselves discussing his accomplishments in the most remarkable historic terms: youngest QB to win one, two or three Super Bowls, engineer of the longest win streak in NFL history, leader of the only walk-off scoring drive in Super Bowl history, owner of the best winning percentage by a QB in modern NFL history and best overtime record in NFL history, and one of just four players to boast multiple Super Bowl MVP awards.
And for those “pundits” and Manning fans who are sticklers for pure stats, well, you’re in for quite a surprise when you see what Brady has done. Brady boasts the seventh best passer rating in NFL history, better than Marino, Favre, McNabb and many of the other modern-era QBs mentioned among the all-time greats. He’s done it all without a single offensive player by his side who’s been voted to the Pro Bowl. No quarterback in NFL history has posted stats that compare to Brady’s without a bevy of Pro Bowlers and Hall of Famers surrounding them.
Wipe away the dusty layer of incredulity that seems to mar Brady’s career in certain circles, especially among the “pundits,” and you’re left staring at a sparkling diamond of unmatched brilliance. You’re left staring, in other words, at the best quarterback in football today. Here’s why Brady’s better than every “pundit’s” choice for the honors, Peyton Manning.
Brady > Manning
