I don't claim he's Montana. Never have. Certainly not an all time great. Nobody is an all time great after 7 seasons. I just disagree with the folks who say he's never won a big game. Or that Sunday was a choke. He threw for almost 100 more yards, one less TD and one more interception than Brady did who by all accounts had a great game. I'm just trying to stay consistent.
And I also admit to having a real dislike for continually moving the target. For some reason, it's been that way his whole career that I've followed. If he had beaten Florida in the regular season at Tennesee, the cry would have been that he's never won a National Championship. I guarantee you if he'd beaten the Patriots Sunday, we'd still have people talking about anyone could have beaten a secondary that banged up. Just like he was a choker who couldn't win on the road. Then when he beat KC in January in Arrowhead, that doesn't
really count becuase KC is an all time basket case defense or something like that.
I've come to accept it that for some people, it'll just be that way until maybe one day if he's able to win a Super Bowl. He'll have to do it as a strong underdog and play a great game and have the other team a heavy favorite and be at full strength. And it would help if it was snowing. But even then I'm sure there will be some good reason why it wasn't really his doing then too so I won't hold my breath.
With regard to the ring thing, I think people put way too much emphasis on Super Bowl wins - (Dan Marino vs Trent Dilfer) but I understand that's how many people think. I do agree though that until he wins some Super Bowls, he won't be up in the Favre / Montana league.
J
JI'll cut you some slack b/c I view as a very astute student of the game and you've somehow been roped into the role of Peyton's Defense Attorney against a variety of charges rendered him on this board, ranging from:
#1 Peyton choked on Sunday which is the reason that the Colts lost to the Pats
#2 Peyton will never be a "great QB" until he wins a Super Bowl
#3 While Peyton is a good QB (who puts up really big stats), he can not yet be considered a "great QB" because he continues to play well below "average" in big games, especially when his team faces adversity.
I agree with you that charges #1 and #2 are spurious and you have defended Manning well.
I'm not sure what point you were trying to make in the above post when citing passing stats from the 20-3 game between Manning and Brady, but it clearly reads as if you are using those stats to contend that Manning played at or close to Brady's level. The yardage advantage that you quote is completely without compartive value -- Manning generated 75 yards and quite a few completions on the last drive of the game against a defense that was dropping between 8 to 10 guys into the softest of deep zones. Meanwhile, Brady rightfully turned to handing the ball off in the 2nd half to "work the clock" as smart teams do with a lead. To try to draw some conclusion from comparing passing stats between the two in this context is IMO, completely without meaning. Brady outplayed Manning on Sunday by a significant margin -- if this issue is in doubt, post a poll and we'll see what the answer is.
For now, Peyton Manning is somewhere in the Jim Kelly neighborhood. I don't judge QB's simply by Super Bowl rings, but rather in big game performance against quality opponents. Peyton and Billy Volek can both light up the KC defense. Jake Delhomme and Steve McNair received "good grades" in my book for their performances ("conditions-adjusted" in the case of McNair) against last year's Patriot team which featured stronger personnel on defense (Law, Poole, Seymour). I expect McNabb to be able to put up better production than Manning did last week, as well. If Peyton was consistently playing on par with Delhomme, McNair and how I expect McNabb to perform, I would completely agree with you and not point to the fact that his team lost those games. But he has not, he outperforms this peer group when much less on the line, but underperforms them in comparable games when he faces adversity.
Four times in five years, Manning has played his single worst game of the season in the playoffs. In Indy’s victories he’s been stupendous. In Indy’s losses he’s been stupefied.
In those fives losses, Manning has completed 100 of 195 passes (51.3 percent) for 1,033 yards, 2 TDs and 7 INTs. His cumulative passer rating in the five losses is 55.4.
Sunday’s performance against New England was Manning’s worst of the season (69.3 passer rating, 0 TD passes, 1 INT). But it was his second best statistical performance in a postseason loss.
Indy’s high-powered regular-season offenses over the years have averaged just 10 points per game in five playoffs losses. Folks can finger the Indy defense all they want. But it’s hard to beat champion-caliber teams when you put just 10 points on the board.
I'm sorry, but I find him not guilty of charges #1 and #2, but I do find him guilty of charge #3
That's definitely part of it. But do you really think 238 yards, 0 TDs and 1 INT is just a matter of not raising his game? We can subtract out the garbage time INT if you want to subtract out the garbage time yards; the numbers are still so far off his regular season average - or even off his worst regular season game.
