Peyton Manning's "Legacy!"

[NHMafia]

Would anybody really take Eli over Peyton?

This is why I tend to just throw out rings. I think we can agree Eli Manning isn't a great regular season quarterback. There is a huge sample of regular season games that say he is a meh QB, but he has two rings. Playoffs are more or less a **** show.

 

[LongTimeListener]

Would anybody really take Eli over Peyton?

This is why I tend to just throw out rings. I think we can agree Eli Manning isn't a great regular season quarterback. There is a huge sample of regular season games that say he is a meh QB, but he has two rings. Playoffs are more or less a **** show.

If you are discussing who is the single greatest player ever to play the single most important position in all of team sports, taking into account what happens in the biggest games is fairly vital to the discussion.

 

[joe king]

Would anybody really take Eli over Peyton?

This is why I tend to just throw out rings. I think we can agree Eli Manning isn't a great regular season quarterback. There is a huge sample of regular season games that say he is a meh QB, but he has two rings. Playoffs are more or less a **** show.

No, the playoffs are where your opponent is always at least a pretty good team, and usually a very good team. As opposed to the regular season.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

The reasons people give to denigrate Manning say a lot more about them than him. He's one of the greatest ever at his position and a lock first-ballot Hall of Famer. What more does any player have to be? As far as the postseason goes, Manning is one of 10 or 11 QBs to start in three or more Super Bowls. He had to have won some playoff games to get there.
Knocking great quarterbacks is as old as the sport. Otto Graham didn't call his own plays, etc. It's always been stupid, too. But in Manning's case, it's like he drives his critics crazy for some reason. It seems so personal, and frankly, I never thought he had enough personality to rub people the wrong way like that.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

I think one of the biggest issues with Manning is that he's never had a truly great offensive coach to work with him. The argument can be made that he never really needed one, and his play in the regular season supports that.

But in the postseason, he probably could have benefited from having a Walsh, Shanahan, Holmgren, Charlie Weis, Sean Payton, Andy Reid, Gruden or someone like that in his ear.

 

[joe king]

The reasons people give to denigrate Manning say a lot more about them than him. He's one of the greatest ever at his position and a lock first-ballot Hall of Famer. What more does any player have to be? As far as the postseason goes, Manning is one of 10 or 11 QBs to start in three or more Super Bowls. He had to have won some playoff games to get there.
Knocking great quarterbacks is as old as the sport. Otto Graham didn't call his own plays, etc. It's always been stupid, too. But in Manning's case, it's like he drives his critics crazy for some reason. It seems so personal, and frankly, I never thought he had enough personality to rub people the wrong way like that.

I suspect a lot of it is because he's done commercials for every product under the sun and he's always being talked about as this brilliant orchestrator of the game. Over-the-top exposure and hype can tick people off, or at least make them sick of hearing about him.

 

[poindexter]

The reasons people give to denigrate Manning say a lot more about them than him. He's one of the greatest ever at his position and a lock first-ballot Hall of Famer. What more does any player have to be? As far as the postseason goes, Manning is one of 10 or 11 QBs to start in three or more Super Bowls. He had to have won some playoff games to get there.
Knocking great quarterbacks is as old as the sport. Otto Graham didn't call his own plays, etc. It's always been stupid, too. But in Manning's case, it's like he drives his critics crazy for some reason. It seems so personal, and frankly, I never thought he had enough personality to rub people the wrong way like that.

I like this post. For the life of me, I don't understand the almost obsession about it.

 

[MisterCreosote]

The reasons people give to denigrate Manning say a lot more about them than him. He's one of the greatest ever at his position and a lock first-ballot Hall of Famer. What more does any player have to be? As far as the postseason goes, Manning is one of 10 or 11 QBs to start in three or more Super Bowls. He had to have won some playoff games to get there.

No one is saying he sucks. He's just not THE greatest of all time. He can stand behind Montana, the guy who has four rings and was every bit the regular-season quarterback Peyton is.

 

[Dick Whitman]

The reasons people give to denigrate Manning say a lot more about them than him. He's one of the greatest ever at his position and a lock first-ballot Hall of Famer. What more does any player have to be? As far as the postseason goes, Manning is one of 10 or 11 QBs to start in three or more Super Bowls. He had to have won some playoff games to get there.
Knocking great quarterbacks is as old as the sport. Otto Graham didn't call his own plays, etc. It's always been stupid, too. But in Manning's case, it's like he drives his critics crazy for some reason. It seems so personal, and frankly, I never thought he had enough personality to rub people the wrong way like that.

The debate is whether he's the greatest to ever play the game. So the bar is pretty damned high, by definition.

 

[Dick Whitman]

I think one of the biggest issues with Manning is that he's never had a truly great offensive coach to work with him. The argument can be made that he never really needed one, and his play in the regular season supports that.

But in the postseason, he probably could have benefited from having a Walsh, Shanahan, Holmgren, Charlie Weis, Sean Payton, Andy Reid, Gruden or someone like that in his ear.

I really think you're right. In this era, it seems strange to have a QB with that much control over the play-calling. Frankly, even the best of them aren't as good at it as a great OC who doesn't have to spend any time on physical preparation. Manning is doing two jobs, and maybe it catches up to him.

 

[joe king]

I think one of the biggest issues with Manning is that he's never had a truly great offensive coach to work with him. The argument can be made that he never really needed one, and his play in the regular season supports that.

But in the postseason, he probably could have benefited from having a Walsh, Shanahan, Holmgren, Charlie Weis, Sean Payton, Andy Reid, Gruden or someone like that in his ear.

Supposedly, though, Manning is his own great offensive coach. Once he established that part of his game, I wonder how well he would have worked with a coach with strong offensive opinions and a strong system.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

I think one of the biggest issues with Manning is that he's never had a truly great offensive coach to work with him. The argument can be made that he never really needed one, and his play in the regular season supports that.

But in the postseason, he probably could have benefited from having a Walsh, Shanahan, Holmgren, Charlie Weis, Sean Payton, Andy Reid, Gruden or someone like that in his ear.

Supposedly, though, Manning is his own great offensive coach. Once he established that part of his game, I wonder how well he would have worked with a coach with strong offensive opinions and a strong system.

That's how he likes it. It's probably a big reason he chose Denver over San Francisco (even though SF didn't have the cap space to sign him for anything close to what Denver did...)

I think some of that is on him if he didn't want to work with someone who is seen as a great offensive mind.

Even the best players need to be coached up from time to time...

 

[Michael_ Gee]

If the question is greatest ever, it's Unitas and Montana among the ones I've seen, and Baugh and Graham of the ones I was too young to see. Manning's in the "pretty much tied for third" category with Brady, Marino, Elway, Sonny Jurgensen, Bart Starr, etc. Any of that group can quarterback my team in the Great Beyond in perpetuity and I'll take my chances, thanks.

 

[Big Circus]

Aside from Jim Plunkett, isn't every multiple Super Bowl-winning QB connected with an exceptional coach or architect?

Not necessarily Hall of Fame caliber, but exceptional.

Starr and Lombardi, Bradshaw and Noll, Montana and Walsh, Aikman and Johnson, Brady and Belichick.

Peyton has never had that guy.

Elway and Frank Gehry...

 

[BTExpress]

And Tom Brady has more game-winning drives in the Super Bowl than Peyton has in his entire playoff career.

Still waiting for that Brady touchdown drive to win a playoff game.

Much, much, much harder to do that. Just ask Kaepernick the past two seasons. If all the 49ers needed were field goals, they would have beaten the Ravens last season and the Seahawks this season.

 

[RickStain]

Winners. They win.

 

[RickStain]

Wait. Wait just a gosh-darned minute.

In each of his team's last two Super Bowls, Brady did exactly that before Eli matched it and left Brady no time.

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?

 

[3_Octave_Fart]

Aside from Jim Plunkett, isn't every multiple Super Bowl-winning QB connected with an exceptional coach or architect?

Not necessarily Hall of Fame caliber, but exceptional.

Starr and Lombardi, Bradshaw and Noll, Montana and Walsh, Aikman and Johnson, Brady and Belichick.

Peyton has never had that guy.

Elway and Frank Gehry...

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

 

[RickStain]

If people laud Manning for being a coach on the field when he wins, what should they say when he loses?

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.

 

[MisterCreosote]

And Tom Brady has more game-winning drives in the Super Bowl than Peyton has in his entire playoff career.

Still waiting for that Brady touchdown drive to win a playoff game.

In each of his team's last two Super Bowls, Brady did exactly that before Eli matched it and left Brady no time.

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