Does anyone still think Manning is better than Brady?

Sincere Guy Stu | Saturday Night Live - Yahoo Screen

 

Those commercials are great. The guy can laugh at himself, and that's endearing. Manning is by far the more likable from the outside.

 

Super Bowl rings shouldn't come with asterisks. If they do, then Brady's first one -- when he was 16-of-27 for 145 yards and one touchdown, yet inexplicably named MVP; the Pats scored a defensive touchdown; and the Rams shit the bed every bit as much as the '06 Pats you mentioned — should as well.
And considering Manning has made the Super Bowl two other times besides his victory, I'd say he had a couple of shots at one. Last year was a disaster, but the '09 Colts had an excellent chance to win.

If you want to play the "a play here or a play there" game, you could easily do that both ways. If Brady is a play or two away from competing for his seventh ring, he's also a play or two away from never having won one.
The breaks Brady has had fall his favor are many: the tuck rule, Vinatieri's field goals, Troy Brown being Superman on multiple occasions, and that ending against Baltimore in the 2011 AFC championship. He's also had his share of awful playoff games on par with anything Manning has done. Brady has been awesome in the divisional round, but more often than not he's been pretty pedestrian in the conference championship games and Super Bowl.

 

That is exactly what I thought of when somebody mentioned Montana being willing to laugh at himself.

 

That all sounds familiar.

That is the problem with the "a play here or a play there" game. So often, people look at only one direction, the games that could have been won, and ignore the close losses. To your point, Brady even needed Bledsoe and the special teams to rescue him in his first AFC Championship game. He wasn't playing well at all before getting hurt, but Bledsoe led the offense to a touchdown and the special teams scored twice (I think both were Troy Brown in one of those superhuman efforts you mentioned.)

 

Manning was inexplicably named SB XLI MVP.

 

I posted this hot take on another thread, but it seemed appropriate to post it here. I disagree with the overall point, that Tom Brady is the most overrated QB of his generation, but the article does state some salient points regarding Manning v. Brady (I haven't fact-checked everything, but I'm assuming he is using correct figures). Tom Brady: The Most Overrated QB Of This Generation

The biggest takeaway is that, as good as Brady has been, the Patriots as a team have simply been better than Manning's teams. The Patriots defense has only been ranked outside the top 10 three times in Brady's career, while the Colts/Broncos have ranked outside the top 10 seven times during Manning's career. During Brady's career, the Patriots' defense has on average been ranked eighth in the league, while Manning's have been ranked 15th. The Pats' running game has also been consistently better.

So those are all factors into why Brady's teams have fared better than Manning's. As much as Brady fans would like everyone to think he's better by a wide margin (by virtue of an extra two rings), choosing one over the other is really splitting hairs among two of the greatest quarterbacks I've ever seen.

 

To me, the playoff meltdowns are the biggest cause for the dislike as well the biggest knock against Manning.

 

Yeah, OOP, I wrote that without looking at the rest of the thread first.

The fascinating thing with Brady, to me, is the disparity between his performances in the wild card/divisional round and the conference championship/Super Bowl since they won the last one 10 years ago.
WC/Divisional round (7-3 record): 63.4 percent completions, 2,820 yards, 24 TD, 11 INT; either 300 yards or multiple touchdowns in nine of the 10 games
Championship/SB (3-4 record): 61.8 percent, 2,045 yards, 11 TD, 10 INT; either 300 yards or multiple touchdowns in four of seven games

His career splits are about even for both rounds, but it's amazing how they've separated since 2004.

 

I know, Batman. Just a little friendly teasing about it.

 

Brady also had home cooking (cheating) on his side from the very first playoff game ever.

First half: 6-13, INT, 0 points

Second half/OT: 26-39,

The teams he plays in the first round are worse.

AND he's almost always at home where they can pull out their bag of tricks. It started happening with his very first playoff game, when he was 6-13 with an INT and zero points in the first half and 26 for 39 with no INTs and 16 points in the second half and overtime.

 

I get really sick of certain athletes when they're all over the place in commercials.

That is not the case with Manning because most of his commercials are pretty damn funny.

By comparison, every time I see a Russell Wilson commercial, I think, "Oh STFU already..." because, it seems like he takes himself too seriously.