Assani,
First of all, you can find Manning's playoff stats
here.
Let's go back over those playoff losses. In 1999 Manning was in only his second year, and his team overachieved in the W-L department to a ridiculous degree (
FootballOutsiders has them ranked 17th that year on a per-play basis, behind six 8-8 teams). Keep in mind that Tennessee was also 13-3 that year, while the Colts' defense was awful. They lost by three points to a superior team.
In 2000, again, they lost to a superior team by one score, this time on the road. The Colts' defense was still very poor at this point, while Manning had a decent game against a very good defense.
In '02, Manning sure did have a bad game against an arguably weaker opponent. However, keep in mind that the entire team got blown the [censored] out, so to pin the loss on Manning is misleading. You don't lose 41-0 because your QB isn't clutch.
In '03, the Colts lost to an excellent Patriots team that went on to win the Super Bowl. Manning threw four INTs in what was his only bad playoff game of the last three years. En route to this loss at New England, he destroyed Denver's very good defense and Kansas City's very poor defense. The Colts' defense finally attains the status of "average" in 2003.
In '04 the Colts again lost to the Super Bowl Champion Patriots, an even stronger team this year than last. The Colts' receivers drop lots of balls, Corey Dillon runs wild through Indy's defense, and Edgerrin James rushes 14 times for 39 yards. Manning has a mediocre day (27-42, 238, 1 INT), but this loss is all about his supporting cast and defense getting destroyed by New England. Note that Manning once again torched a good Denver team to get to New England.
Finally, the '05 Colts lost to the Super Bowl Champion Steelers. It was a game that Indy probably should have won, but Pittsburgh, it's defense in particular, was playing at a ridiculously high level by that point. Despite a slow start, a poorly conceived blocking scheme, and a phenomenal opposing defense, Manning has a pretty good day (22-38, 290, 1 TD, 0 INT). The Colts outplay the Steelers for most of the game, and their idiot kicker honks the game-tying figgie.
Manning's overall QB Rating in the playoffs: 89.1.
Manning's playoff QB Rating over the last three years: 103.1
He's performed well in big games, against some very stiff competition. I don't know, maybe if you go in expecting to see a choker, that's what you see.
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Yes, I most definitely see something that you can't: Clutchness. Brady is clutch. Manning is not. . .
But see thats just too much of a coincidence for me. Eventually the onus has to fall on Manning. Everywhere he has been since college, his teams have looked great when the games aren't all that important, but then his teams have lost the big games. And his stats in the pros in those big games clearly show that a big part of it is his fault. And the fact that his team got better(as you yourself said) after he left college is telling imo.
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I recently read a comparison that made sense to me: this "clutchness" thing is like a religion. There's no way to prove or disprove it, but some people think they can feel it, and there's no point in telling them that they're wrong.
So I'm not going to try to convince that you're wrong about Brady's being clutch. But, please, consider the role that variance and sample size could play in your perceptions. Even if every pro football player was exactly as clutch as every other player, there would still be some players who performed extremely well in their "clutch" situations, and some who performed extremely poorly.
Brady's an excellent QB who has performed superbly in his high-leverage situations. Manning's an excellent QB who has performed only pretty well in his high-leverage situations. Does that say something about their character or abilities, or does it say something about their contexts and random chance? I don't know, but I don't think you do, either.
Edited to add last paragraph.