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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.
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They lost at home coming off a bye. That's a bad loss.
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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.
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However, they got behind huge early due in part to his poor play. Then they simply quit, which certainly isn't a testament to his in-question leadership skills.
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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.
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So somehow this game didn't exist?
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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.
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No, the loss was all about Mr 49 TD's inability to move the offense. The defense gave the team more than enough opportunity to win. Heck it was 13-3 til midway through the 4th quarter! This was in some people's opinions the greatest offense of all time. Yet they only scored 3 points, and it should've been 0 since the play preceding the pre-halftime FG was a dropped interception. Was the D supposed to pitch a shutout for the greatest offense ever? He was simply awful, far worse than the stats indicated.
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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.
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First, "the Colts outplay the Steelers for most of the game". WTF were you watching?? By all rights the game should've been a 4 score blowout. That was as thorough an ass-kicking as one will ever see given how misleadingly close the final score was. Again, a massive 2-TD favorite at home, he lays an egg. Given an amazing opportunity to salvage the season of a team that some thought good enough to go undefeated, he completely mismanages the 2-minute drill and leaves them with a longer than desireable FG attempt. Also telling, he doesn't even really attempt to try and actually win the game.
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He's performed well in big games
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Um, I guess we have different definitions of "well". This isn't Trent Dilfer. This is arguably one of the best QB's of all time. 27/42 0TDs, 1INT is not a "mediocre" day for him. It's horrid. 22-38, 1TD, 0INT at home as a 2TD favorite when trailing and trying to come from behind isn't a "pretty good day", it's poor.
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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.
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See, we get carried away with crap like "variance" because this is a poker forum. It is not difficult to observe Manning, how he acts, his mannerisms, his decisions, etc. and see the difference in his performance in these games relative to his normal excellence. Phil Mickelson wasn't "unlucky" to have not won more majors earlier in his career. He made bad decisions. He started playing more conservatively, and he suddenly starts winning. He gets a brain cramp and reverts to the "old Phil", and he blows a major. That stuff ain't variance. It's in his head. Same with Manning. The dude is way, way too talented to need all these convoluted excuses. And the reason he does, isn't because of bad luck. It's because he's a nervious, can't handle the pressure choker.