Peyton Manning's "Legacy!"

I know. I've rolled around in the mud too much and gotten my mind dirty.

 

Just teasing.
I am trying to trace the genesis of this QB record thing.
The speed of an "idea."
I'd bet dollars to doughnuts it was SportsCenter.

 

"He can't win the big one" predates SportsCenter by at least 30 years.

 

That question is separate and irrelative to ticking off QB "wins."
This reached preposterous levels during the Tebow hysteria two years ago.
I mean, holy shit, we had a poster the other day ascribing wins and losses to a wide receiver.

 

Late to the party, but just a few things to toss out:

1. Peyton Manning is one of the best QBs to play the game, but that does not mean (1) he is therefore the greatest ever and (2) that he is never prone to mistakes.

2. With that said, one can't just babble stats to prove a point. To figure out what happened in any football game, it requires looking at the entire game and every factor that came into play. Case in point: An interception can happen because the QB tried to squeeze a ball into tight coverage when there was no chance it would work, but it can also happen because a QB hits a wide-open WR, but the WR lets the ball bounce off his hands and then here comes a defender to pick it off.

3. If you put a qualifier on one QB, you have to do it to every other QB. This applies whether the qualifier works in favor of the QB or against him.

4. Every single QB who goes into the argument of greatest ever has had playoff stinkers. It happens.

5. I think the reason why Peyton Manning tends to get scrutinized so much is because we expect that a QB who belongs in the "greatest ever" debate should have a Super Bowl dynasty. Plus, given that he's so methodical in what he does, we expect he's always going to find a way to pinpoint weaknesses in a defense and overcome the odds. When the truth is, because Peyton is prone to mistakes just like any other player, there will be defenses who can take advantage, particularly when the team surrounding Peyton doesn't have enough quality players to take some of the load off Peyton. And when that happens, Peyton tries too hard to compensate.

6. That being said, the same thing can happen to any QB. You don't think guys like Brady, Rodgers, Brees and Roethlisberger have done the same? Heck, I'm sure you can pull out example of this happening to Joe Montana.

7. Going back to #5, the end result is some people on the quest to dispute the "Peyton is a playoff choker" narrative and they break down all of Peyton's playoff performances. But I haven't read anything in which the playoff performances of other QBs, be it in Peyton's era or before him, get broken down similarly. For some, that's likely because there may not be easy access to all the games (with Montana, there are ways to track down the Super Bowl games but not every single playoff game he had), but for others, they don't get broken down because the narrative works in favor of the QB.

8. The QB is certainly a factor in a team's success, but that doesn't make the QB THE factor. Consider this: Each year the Niners won the Super Bowl under Joe Montana, their defense ranked in the top three in either yards allowed, points allowed or both. That's not about taking away from Montana, but about reminding people that Montana was a factor, but not necessarily THE factor, and it can be argued the defense was just as much a factor as Montana.

 

Parsing out contributions in football is *really* hard to do.

You know what quarterbacks look awesome? The ones who can play with leads and don't get put into situations where they are forced to pass.

You know what defenses look awesome? The ones that get spotted leads and know that the other team is forced to pass.

 

Sports writers are paid to inspect.
Not belch out quarterback records.
Tebow strained and then broke the conceit. It was time to lay it aside for good.
I think on some level, a quarterback should fit the personality of the TEAM he is playing for.

 

We had a joker on this board in the recent past who once condemned Aikman's Hall candidacy, expressing surprise that he didn't have better cumulative numbers.
This genius clearly had no idea what he was watching.
Aikman didn't have to throw 45 times a game.
Manning does, if for no other reason than he is being PAID $20mm a year - to the point where the franchise has to go to the Dollar Store and root through the trash to stock other areas of the team.
That's why he rightly gets castigated.

 

I didn't realize Manning was paying himself.

 

Another comedian.

 

Peyton is to Brady as Romo is to Eli.