Peyton Manning's "Legacy!"

Wait. Wait just a gosh-darned minute.

You seem to be implying that things *besides* a single quarterback may have some sort of impact on the result of a football game. What the hell are you, some kind of soccer-loving commie?

 

Howard Mudd, reputed to be the best offensive line innovator in NFL history.
But even that's a reach.

 

Whether or not people are consistent in how they make arguments has nothing to do with how good of a quarterback Peyton Manning is or isn't.

 

"Winning the game" is a major, major factor in "game-winning drives."

 

I've made this point before, but Brady has gotten way too much credit for those three Super Bowls early in his career and not nearly enough grief for the past nine years.
If Manning gets tagged as the greatest regular-season quarterback of all time, Brady ought to be tagged as the best divisional playoff round QB of all time. He's been very good when playing that first playoff game at home. After that, or on the road? Not so much.
Some of Brady's playoff failings are just as bad as, or worse than, Manning's.

 

It's an interesting combination of cognitive biases. It comes up often in sports, but the quarterback position seems to be a high-intensity focal point.

The first cognitive bias is our tendency to overrely on inherent attributes to explain results. Our minds want to believe that if something happened involving a person, then something about that person must have caused it to happen.

This is known as the fundamental attribution bias: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_bias#Fundamental_attribution_error

In short, the fundamental attribution bias is what causes us to believe that in sports, some players are just winners and clutch, and other players aren't. It's the flaw in our brains that makes us believe in "winners win."

This causes people to make all sorts of bad, illogical arguments as to why the QBs who won are winners and the ones who didn't, aren't. And when faced with the illogic of these arguments, we see the second cognitive bias come into play:

The backfire effect
http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/06/10/the-backfire-effect/

Once someone believes that Peyton Manning is a losing loser who loses, evidence to the contrary will only serve to strengthen their belief.

 

Are you nuts?

New England's last touchdown in the 21-17 loss to the Giants came with 11:20 remaining . . . in the third quarter. Of course, Brady would have only needed a FG (hooray!) to beat the Giants except for that pesky safety he took in the first quarter for intentional grounding in the end zone.

In the other loss, his defense let him down. And "he" lost the game. Sound familiar?

 

Jake Plummer
Jake Plummer
Trent Green
Trent Green
Steve McNair
Tom Brady
REX GROSSMAN
Joe Flacco
Mark Sanchez
Philip Rivers
Tom Brady

~

Steve McNair
Jay Fiedler
Chad Pennington
Tom Brady
Tom Brady
Ben Roethlisberger
Philip Rivers
Philip Rivers
Drew Brees
Mark Sanchez
Joe Flacco
Russell Wilson

 

Tyree's catch and a Welker drop from having 5.

 

Montana had Walsh and Holmgren.
Elway had Shanahan
Young had Shanahan, Mariucci and Walsh
Brees had Payton
Favre had Holmgren, Reid, McCarthy, Gruden, Mariucci, Bevell
Aikman had Norv
Brady had Weis, O'Brien and McDaniels
Rodgers had McCarthy and Clements...

By my count, Manning hasn't had anybody at the level of those guys...

 

And minus the greatest clutch kicker of all time, perhaps he has zero.

It really is a damn fine line.

 

Nobody is seriously using a "winners win" argument and nothing else. However, postseason success IS a factor, even though I know you don't believe in "clutch." That's why, all other things being equal, Montana ranks ahead of Manning.

Another example (and I actually want your thoughts on it):

I believe LeBron James is every bit as good a basketball player as Magic Johnson. But, all other things being equal, I rank Magic No. 2, right behind Jordan, and I put LeBron probably No. 6.

One of the major reasons for that is because Magic has more rings.

That's one of the best ways to differentiate among the top 5 or 10 players who ever played whatever sport you're debating.