Pyle of List

They play this weekend so we simply must have the annual debate. Who’s better?

Now, let me preface this by saying that amongst my group of friends I am a well known Boston/New England hater. I have labeled myself a west coast fan, and as such I tend to try to offset the seeming east coast bias of mainstream sports media. But this region has a special place on my list of things that get way too much credit. Sadly, recent history seems to enjoy tormenting me by bestowing championships on these teams.

General hatred aside, being a west coast fan, specifically an LA fan, causes a strange phenomenon during football season. Having no home team to root for on Sundays has turned us into a tribe of nomadic fans. Some choose to keep their loyalties close to home and gravitate to San Diego or San Francisco depending on whether they are a fan of great players that won’t win the big game or of basking in passed glory days and pretending you were around to support them.

There are even those die hard fans that are still loyal to the Raiders who called our city home for a time. Sadly, we have no excuse for these people. And on behalf of LA, I apologize for any visitor who had to sit in our traffic and stare at the giant Raiders sticker, usually paired with some profanity, plastered on the truck/astro van in front of them.

For me, it has lead me to follow those players that have graced the rosters of my fantasy teams over the years. What this has done, is made me a fan of good players who produce. And one of my running arguments with many people is who is the better quarterback: Peyton Manning or Tom Brady?Now we all know the Patriots post season accolades of the last ten years because we get beaten over the head with it every November and December when the regular season starts to wind down and the post season predictions start rolling in. Now a lot of people seem to credit most of this success to Tom Brady himself saying that he may be the greatest quarterback ever to play the game. Hyperbole aside, he is not even the best guy playing the game currently. Peyton Manning has week in and week out dissected his way up and down fields yet still seems to get overshadowed by the playboy in the AFC east. This my friends, is a tragedy.

My argument begins with the beloved postseasons everyone loves to flaunt. Yes, Brady has three rings and Manning only has one, but football is a team sport and as much as everyone would like to say that one guy, especially a QB, can be the difference maker, well one man can only do so much. The defenses on those championship New England teams were beasts. Opposing teams averaged less than three hundred yards of total offense and less than two touchdowns a game in the championship seasons. The offense didn’t have a whole lot to do with those teams winning. They would pound teams with the run and depend on their defense to win games. Brady himself was only expected not to lose them for the team. Manning on the other hand would have to go out and try to outscore other teams to make up for the soft, undersized, speed defense that Indy seems to be so in love with. They were giving up just over three hundred and giving up around twenty one points a game. So were Manning had to overcome, Brady just had to maintain. (Side note: I cannot dispute that the patriots owned the colts in the postseason there for a while and that the colts and Manning are a dome team)

That outta the way lets talk stats. Yes, Brady had a huge year in 2007. But it’s funny how everybody seems to forget that he was throwing to a rededicated Randy Moss. which was a pretty scary thing. While Manning has had good offensive weapons at his command for most of his career, I don’t know if I would put any of them in the same league as Moss when he chooses to give a damn. Now Manning has almost five whole seasons on Brady so I won’t compare career numbers because that would be unfair. But averages on the other hand show Manning having the advantage, granted slight.

Career avg.         pass yards/season        TD’s/season        INT’s/season        Passer Rating
Manning              4148                             30                        15                         94.7
Brady                  3778                            28                        12                         92.9

And to go ahead and be unfair (and why not? I do hate Brady) Manning has nine 4000+ yard seasons to Brady’s two, four years with 30+ TD’s to Brady’s one, and six years with a passer rating of over 95 to Brady’s paltry one.
(note: Manning has missed exactly zero games with significant injury starting 174 consecutive games. Eat it Brady)

Lastly, I would like to look at these players impact on the game and their attributes other than what goes in the box score. Peyton Manning is a true field general. He reads the defense and call the plays at the line. He is partially responsible for every gain and loss that offense makes. That is leadership. He also has many highlight drives where he marches his team 70+ yards in under two minutes to put one in the end zone for a win. Including one against the good old Patriots in the playoffs of the 2006 season. Tom Brady on the other hand is the guy that will protect a lead and if you need him to, maybe drive his team 30-40 yards so that Adam Veniteri could kick a game winning field goal. But when the margin was bigger than three, Brady lost to both Manning brothers with failed game winning drives with short time left. Also I would like to note that Manning is not the cause of any rules nearly as stupid as the “tuck rule”(don’t get me started) as well as the “no tackling from the ground rule”(cause QB’s aren’t already way overprotected babies) and while he was accused of a vicious prank on an equipment manager in his time at the University of Tennessee, he has never sullied a smoking hot actress by getting her pregnant and then walking out. And let’s face it. Peyton Manning has the best commercials of any athlete on TV. The guys is hilarious. Which he proved by pegging kids in the stomach with laser passes on SNL.

So to finish with some unofficial stats:

Peyton has more hilarious TV appearances than we can count, has no dumb, useless rules attributed to him, has only sullied one woman (allegedly) and has only touched his ass to one forehead.(allegedly) Brady has almost no TV appearances and only gives us homoerotic Stetson adds, is responsible for two dumbass rules, has sullied two smoking hot women, and has probably placed his asshole on millions of foreheads to make people feel bad about themselves.(allegedly)

(note: I count Giselle ruined as well just for being with Brady and I can’t say that the poor equipment manager from UT isn’t emotionally scarred from having allegedly met eye to brown-eye with Manning)

In closing, Manning = Good.  Brady = Bad.