Manning Brady

[Ronfitch]

It's funny to not even see Brett Favre's name mentioned at least once in this thread. I wouldn't put him on the all-NFL team, but I feel like he was at least a top-ten all-time QB.

Some have him number three ... on the list of Packer QBs (Starr, Rodgers, Favre).

[Jeremy Crowhurst]

One interesting point I read that favors Manning. Brady is just more of a cog in the Patriots machine. Now, that's not to say that just anyone could step in and have the same success he's has, especially at age 41. But Belichick runs the Patriots, and Brady just fills a role. Now, he works extremely hard at that role and fills it well.

Manning, on the other hand, has always exercised more direct control and he always ran more of the show, serving as de facto offensive coordinator. That proved to be the case with two franchises.

I think this argument may be valid, if you look at how each team responded when they lost their QB for the entire season. In 2008, the Patriots, after losing Brady early in the opening game of the season, still went 11-5, but the 2011 Colts without Peyton Manning dropped from 10-6 to 2-14.

Wins and losses don't tell you anything. The 1990 49ers went from 14-2 to 10-6 when they lost Joe Montana. The 2006 Bears went from 13-3 to 7-9 when they lost Rex Grossman. Does that make Rex Grossman a better quarterback than Joe Montana? Backups matter. Matt Cassel had the benefit of being in the Patriots system for three years before he took over. The broken and charred remains of Kerry Collins had been in the Indy system for two weeks before he took over. Cassel played all sixteen games, getting progressively better as the year went on. Collins played 2 1/2 games and then was replaced by Curtis Painter, and then Dan Orlovsky, two absolutely wretched QBs who were known to be wretched when they were thrown in to action. Both of them started off badly, and then got worse as the season progressed.

A better measure is probably the difference in points scored. The Patriots went from 589 points scored to 410, a difference of 179. The Colts went from 435 to 243, a difference of 192. That's obviously pretty close, and I suggest is more attributable to the relative gaps in QB quality between Manning & Brady and their replacements, rather than between Manning and Brady themselves. In addition, I think also that there is at least some merit to the argument that Bill Belichick is a better coach than Jim Caldwell, and was in a better position overall to deal with the loss of his stud QB, making statistics like the win-loss records pretty much irrelevant.

[conace21]

One interesting point I read that favors Manning. Brady is just more of a cog in the Patriots machine. Now, that's not to say that just anyone could step in and have the same success he's has, especially at age 41. But Belichick runs the Patriots, and Brady just fills a role. Now, he works extremely hard at that role and fills it well.

Manning, on the other hand, has always exercised more direct control and he always ran more of the show, serving as de facto offensive coordinator. That proved to be the case with two franchises.

I think this argument may be valid, if you look at how each team responded when they lost their QB for the entire season. In 2008, the Patriots, after losing Brady early in the opening game of the season, still went 11-5, but the 2011 Colts without Peyton Manning dropped from 10-6 to 2-14.

Wins and losses don't tell you anything. The 1990 49ers went from 14-2 to 10-6 when they lost Joe Montana. The 2006 Bears went from 13-3 to 7-9 when they lost Rex Grossman. Does that make Rex Grossman a better quarterback than Joe Montana? Backups matter. Matt Cassel had the benefit of being in the Patriots system for three years before he took over. The broken and charred remains of Kerry Collins had been in the Indy system for two weeks before he took over. Cassel played all sixteen games, getting progressively better as the year went on. Collins played 2 1/2 games and then was replaced by Curtis Painter, and then Dan Orlovsky, two absolutely wretched QBs who were known to be wretched when they were thrown in to action. Both of them started off badly, and then got worse as the season progressed.

A better measure is probably the difference in points scored. The Patriots went from 589 points scored to 410, a difference of 179. The Colts went from 435 to 243, a difference of 192. That's obviously pretty close, and I suggest is more attributable to the relative gaps in QB quality between Manning & Brady and their replacements, rather than between Manning and Brady themselves. In addition, I think also that there is at least some merit to the argument that Bill Belichick is a better coach than Jim Caldwell, and was in a better position overall to deal with the loss of his stud QB, making statistics like the win-loss records pretty much irrelevant.

The problem with your example is that the Patriots has just enjoyed the highest scoring season in NFL history. History, logic and statistics all indicated that the points scored would drop year over year. Heck, for all their success this decade, they've only come within 70 points of that 2007 total once.

Another factor to look at: Ranking in points scored/yards gained
2007 Patriots: 1st, 1st (granted, by a large margin)
2008 Patriots: 8th, 5th

2010 Colts: 4th, 4th
2011 Colts: 28th, 30th

So the Patriots went from being the best offense ever to being in the top 5th, while having plenty of weapons still in Moss and Welker.

The Colts went from top 5 to bottom 5.

Again, this is not meant to examine the quality of each QB as it is the role that they played in their organizations. Brady was a cog; Manning ran most of the show.
Quality of the backups did matter. But I recall Bill Polian saying (to Peter King) that it was very difficult to get a quality backup quarterback to sign there. Peyton never missed a game, hardly ever missed a snap, so they were never going to get to play, or have too much input in the game plan since Peyton ran the show.

[Jeremy Crowhurst]

Wins and losses don't tell you anything. The 1990 49ers went from 14-2 to 10-6 when they lost Joe Montana. The 2006 Bears went from 13-3 to 7-9 when they lost Rex Grossman. Does that make Rex Grossman a better quarterback than Joe Montana? Backups matter. Matt Cassel had the benefit of being in the Patriots system for three years before he took over. The broken and charred remains of Kerry Collins had been in the Indy system for two weeks before he took over. Cassel played all sixteen games, getting progressively better as the year went on. Collins played 2 1/2 games and then was replaced by Curtis Painter, and then Dan Orlovsky, two absolutely wretched QBs who were known to be wretched when they were thrown in to action. Both of them started off badly, and then got worse as the season progressed.

A better measure is probably the difference in points scored. The Patriots went from 589 points scored to 410, a difference of 179. The Colts went from 435 to 243, a difference of 192. That's obviously pretty close, and I suggest is more attributable to the relative gaps in QB quality between Manning & Brady and their replacements, rather than between Manning and Brady themselves. In addition, I think also that there is at least some merit to the argument that Bill Belichick is a better coach than Jim Caldwell, and was in a better position overall to deal with the loss of his stud QB, making statistics like the win-loss records pretty much irrelevant.

The problem with your example is that the Patriots has just enjoyed the highest scoring season in NFL history. History, logic and statistics all indicated that the points scored would drop year over year. Heck, for all their success this decade, they've only come within 70 points of that 2007 total once.

Another factor to look at: Ranking in points scored/yards gained
2007 Patriots: 1st, 1st (granted, by a large margin)
2008 Patriots: 8th, 5th

2010 Colts: 4th, 4th
2011 Colts: 28th, 30th

So the Patriots went from being the best offense ever to being in the top 5th, while having plenty of weapons still in Moss and Welker.

The Colts went from top 5 to bottom 5.

Again, this is not meant to examine the quality of each QB as it is the role that they played in their organizations. Brady was a cog; Manning ran most of the show.
Quality of the backups did matter. But I recall Bill Polian saying (to Peter King) that it was very difficult to get a quality backup quarterback to sign there. Peyton never missed a game, hardly ever missed a snap, so they were never going to get to play, or have too much input in the game plan since Peyton ran the show.

The problem is that now you're going from something that is directly related to the players' performances -- points scored -- to something that is less related to the players' performances -- points scored compared to other teams in the league. You're trying to find precision in stats that are pretty fuzzy.

I don't really like being on this side of the argument, Manning is my favourite QB of all time, I always rooted for him to beat Brady. I do think Brady wins the "greatness" debate. But I see this "10-6 to 2-14" argument all the time, occasionally here but often on other sites (not to suggest that other sites matter anywhere near as much as this one), and it's a little ridiculous. I see Jim Caldwell as being far and away the worst coach to ever get a team to the Super Bowl. That he was unable to deal with the loss of Manning (though they lost a lot more players than just him) and end up with a near-total collapse is no surprise at all. That doesn't make Manning greater; it just makes Caldwell what he is -- a guy of limited ability who was in way over his head. It just doesn't make any more sense than me arguing, "Well, Brady is better, just look at Wes Welker - he went from Brady to Manning and his production took a big hit" without acknowledging any of the obvious other factors besides the QB.

I also just don't get this whole Brady-as-cog/Manning as puppet master thing. It's pretty easy to run the show when you have 11 seasons with Marvin Harrison, 8 seasons with Reggie Wayne, and then you finish your career with Demaryius Thomas. Brady having 6 seasons with Wes Welker and 5 with Deion Branch just doesn't have the same kind of oomph. Brady's offense is far more complicated than Manning's; it has to be. They have to rely on scheme and timing and out-thinking the opponent because the talent level has, one season excepted, never been there.

[Rupert Patrick]

Wins and losses don't tell you anything. The 1990 49ers went from 14-2 to 10-6 when they lost Joe Montana. The 2006 Bears went from 13-3 to 7-9 when they lost Rex Grossman. Does that make Rex Grossman a better quarterback than Joe Montana? Backups matter. Matt Cassel had the benefit of being in the Patriots system for three years before he took over. The broken and charred remains of Kerry Collins had been in the Indy system for two weeks before he took over. Cassel played all sixteen games, getting progressively better as the year went on. Collins played 2 1/2 games and then was replaced by Curtis Painter, and then Dan Orlovsky, two absolutely wretched QBs who were known to be wretched when they were thrown in to action. Both of them started off badly, and then got worse as the season progressed.

A better measure is probably the difference in points scored. The Patriots went from 589 points scored to 410, a difference of 179. The Colts went from 435 to 243, a difference of 192. That's obviously pretty close, and I suggest is more attributable to the relative gaps in QB quality between Manning & Brady and their replacements, rather than between Manning and Brady themselves. In addition, I think also that there is at least some merit to the argument that Bill Belichick is a better coach than Jim Caldwell, and was in a better position overall to deal with the loss of his stud QB, making statistics like the win-loss records pretty much irrelevant.

The problem with your example is that the Patriots has just enjoyed the highest scoring season in NFL history. History, logic and statistics all indicated that the points scored would drop year over year. Heck, for all their success this decade, they've only come within 70 points of that 2007 total once.

Another factor to look at: Ranking in points scored/yards gained
2007 Patriots: 1st, 1st (granted, by a large margin)
2008 Patriots: 8th, 5th

2010 Colts: 4th, 4th
2011 Colts: 28th, 30th

So the Patriots went from being the best offense ever to being in the top 5th, while having plenty of weapons still in Moss and Welker.

The Colts went from top 5 to bottom 5.

Again, this is not meant to examine the quality of each QB as it is the role that they played in their organizations. Brady was a cog; Manning ran most of the show.
Quality of the backups did matter. But I recall Bill Polian saying (to Peter King) that it was very difficult to get a quality backup quarterback to sign there. Peyton never missed a game, hardly ever missed a snap, so they were never going to get to play, or have too much input in the game plan since Peyton ran the show.

Alas, there are going to be so many great arguments, not to mention books, written about Brady vs. Manning in the years to come, but the 2010-2011 Colts have always interested me in how a team can totally collapse upon losing a single player. Using a coding system I developed for letter grading teams on their different aspects of play, I have found 14 occasions when a team went from the top fifth in the league in points scored one season to the bottom fifth in the league in points scored the following season. Most were the famous collapse teams, the 1963-64 Giants (loss of YA Tittle), 1977-78 Colts (loss of Bert Jones and Lydell Mitchell), 1993-94 Oilers (loss of Warren Moon), along with the 2009-10 Vikings (Favre's disastrous final season) and 2014-15 Cowboys (loss of Romo and DeMarco Murray), and the 2010-11 Colts were of course on the list also. But also on the list of the biggest offensive point collapses, is the 1955-56 Cleveland Browns, whom people forget because they finished 5-7 after Graham retired. Other teams on the list 1949-50 49ers (kind of an asterisk on this one), 1965-66 Bears, 1966-67 Bills, 1984-85 Cardinals, 1988-89 Jets, 1995-96 Cowboys and 2012-13 Giants. Many of the great collapses were due to losing a great QB.

[Bob Gill]

... Most were the famous collapse teams, the 1963-64 Giants (loss of YA Tittle) ...

Just to be nitpicky, Tittle was still with the Giants in 1964, as that famous photo proves.

[Ronfitch]

... Most were the famous collapse teams, the 1963-64 Giants (loss of YA Tittle) ...

Just to be nitpicky, Tittle was still with the Giants in 1964, as that famous photo proves.

I believe "nitpicky" is in the by-laws.

[TanksAndSpartans]

I've always been interested in the extent to which the AAFC "counts" when recognizing teams and players (championships, statistics, etc.). I guess the 1949-50 49ers could be used to argue that essentially the same team went from 9-3 to 3-9 because of better competition, right? Or was there another factor? Rupert you mentioned an asterisk. What's your view?

[Rupert Patrick]

I've always been interested in the extent to which the AAFC "counts" when recognizing teams and players (championships, statistics, etc.). I guess the 1949-50 49ers could be used to argue that essentially the same team went from 9-3 to 3-9 because of better competition, right? Or was there another factor? Rupert you mentioned an asterisk. What's your view?

They switched leagues, and they were clearly the second best team in the AAFC but nowhere near Cleveland, but when moving to the NFL, I guess it took them a year to adjust to the new league, or that 1950 was an off season. They dropped from first in the AAFC in rushing (5.3 average in a 4.2 average league) to fifth in the NFL in 1950 (4.3 in a 4.2 average league). There was a decline defensively in 1950 but the offensive decline was greater, their points scored declined by 203 offensively and 73 defensively.

[TanksAndSpartans]

Thanks Rupert.