Mark L. Ford wrote:Thank God that he managed to avoid having another cervical disc surgery. For those last four seasons, he's been one hit away from a paralyzing or fatal injury. I'm glad he gets to go out with another Super Bowl ring, but he could have had a very tragic forced retirement. Doing haiku for Nationwide Insurance will be a lot safer.
Amen to that! That's the first and most important thing I think of in all of this. You don't mess with neck surgery. He should have retired right then and there after the 2011 campaign. Of course winning another Ring and riding off into the sunset was a much better way to end it, but after eight consecutive double-digit-win seasons (just '03 & '10 being a mere 10 wins; all other seasons in-between at least
12) your team goes...
2-14 the year you're out?? It wouldn't have been a bad 'final statement'. A very valuable bit of 'artillery' in the he-vs-Brady debate (Pats, under Cassel, 11-5 in '08). Yes, thank God he made it through Denver unscathed; and ending with an above-500 post-season record to boot.
mwald wrote:I'd put Manning toward the tail end on the list of greats.
Already mentioned, he was the rare player whose influence on his team was greater than that of his head coach. That's the highest compliment I could give a player.
But --like most people depending on the situation in which they find themselves --his greatest strength was also his greatest weakness. The qualities Manning possessed--the intelligence, the force of personality--that saw him run a team like a coach was his downfall in big games. In terms of style of play, Manning lacked nuance. His style was all 100 percent aggression. When he found himself in a pickle he often resorted to more aggression: throw harder, throw faster, come at you with more of the same thing, just more intense. In the playoffs that approach was often putty in defenses' hands. And as both coach and quarterback, the coach didn't rein in the player. Ironically, it took an ex-quarterback in John Elway to finally call his BS, and he was rewarded with a second SB title as a result.
Comments above are relative to the greats, of course. One of the best of all time. But for me, not close to THE best.
I don't think that he - nor Brady - are the 'best ever' either but at the very least, 'one of' the bests as well as certainly being the indisputable
Top 2 these last 15 years which
certainly says a lot considering the other real great QBs of this era. "Tail end of the list of greats", as you say, is well put to me. As for your take on Peyton's lack of 'big-game' success, most of what's to blame IMHO is simply the system he played under for most of his career - have an offense that can open up a lead and a defense simply designed to
preserve that lead instead of being a 'shutdown' one. It's a recipe for plenty of regular-season wins, 1st-round byes, but no championships. Hardly ever having had a real defense most of his career - nor a running game - he was often put in a position where he felt he had to do too much - play too aggressive as you say - perhaps preparing too hard, studying too hard, overthinking at times, etc.
Not to say that Peyton is fully blameless in this which is why I agree with your assertion that he was too full-throttle in critical situations. Perhaps he could have turned it down a notch at times, but in the end it may have only averted those one-and-done upsets in the divisional round (specifically those Charger defeats) considering what I already said about his teams simply never being built for going all-the-way (not
balanced as Brady's early-'00s teams were under Hoodie). When Peyton slumped in the '06 post-season (2nd half of AFCC notwithstanding), his D that was putrid vs the run down the stretch suddenly "came to life" as Addai at RB played well-enough. That very thing (and, yes, playing vs Rex Grossman didn't hurt) helped him get that first Ring and then this year an
even better defense
and running game helped him to his 2nd. Look at his boss's (Elway's) career - trying to do "too much" in the '80s then getting help later on (O-line, TD, defense), taking a slight step back, and letting those other key-contributors contribute along with him. If only Marino would have had that one year (or simply a
post-season) or two of having a real run-game and D. These last few sentences are what oldcapecod11 pretty much alludes to...
oldecapecod11 wrote:Yeah, but Jeremy, in order for some future scorer to view the marks beside his name, the marks have to be there -
regardless of how they got there.
If you consider mwald's view of his aggressiveness and agree it was a detriment, then one must also realize that he overcame
that tendency during his last rodeo. Okay! He played not to lose. But when you don't lose, what happens? You win.
The Newton child came to the corral looking for a duel with the sheriff but the deputies gunned him down.
Near the close, it was his unwillingness to put it all on the line that contributed to his downfall and silenced the Panthers' roar -
something PM has never done.
Why play the Brutus in his final act?
The Eternal Manning-VS-Brady Debate? I really don't know the answer for sure. To try figuring that out, I feel that one must first do what is very notorious on this site and that's doing a what-if/hypothetical. How would Peyton have done as a Patriot under Belichick? How would Brady have been as a Colt throughout the '00s and then as a Bronco these past four years? I would guess that Brady would have garnered up bigger numbers/stats at the expense of a couple Rings as Peyton may have been allotted a slightly lesser role, not as much a 'coach-on-field' with Hoodie already on the sideline, lesser stats but a couple more Rings end of day. A pretty simple hypothetical, maybe
too simple, but it only shows why it's one of the great, dead-even sports debates (a la Magic-VS-Bird) of all-time. In such a hypothetical, I think it would
still be dead-even amongst the masses.