Tom Brady Best QB Ever!!!!!!

[VarlosZ]

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The fact remains that hes always been "just not good enough" to be the best.

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Again, there's a big difference between Manning and Manning's team. He has, IMO, been the best for a while now. His team, as a whole, has yet to be good enough.

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And you still havn't addressed the fact that as soon as he left his team was suddenly able to beat Florida. How do you explain that?

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Can I take a shot? I haven't studied those teams, but I'm going guess it was some combination of Tennessee's being better, Florida's being worse, and variance.

[TheRover]

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FTR, according to footballousiders.com, NE's defense in 2k4, 2k3, and 2k1 was ranked 6th, 2nd, and 13th.

[/ QUOTE ]Theres a lot of ways to measure defense. I think that I was looking at yardage allowed.

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Yardage allowed is the widely accepted way of ranking defenses. Most usually if you hear an annoucer say that a team is the "xxxth" ranked defense and they don't explain what stat they're referring to then its yardage allowed.

There are a lot of ways to rank a defense, good job at picking one of the worst.

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Perhaps this stat is points allowed or something else.

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LOL

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Announcers say stupid [censored] all the time, BFD.

This thread sucks.

[jstnrgrs]

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jstnrgrs,

4.5?

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My high school football team was co-league champs during this time.

[jstnrgrs]

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" Also, it was the greatest field goal in the history of football. "
Are you being nit about the technical defintion about hyperbole, or are you suggesting that you weren't exxagerating.

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I am suggesting that I wasn't exagerating.

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About the both hands on the ball thing.
"When a Team A player is holding the ball to pass it forward, any intentional forward movement of his arm starts a forward pass, even if the player loses possession of the ball as he is attempting to tuck it back toward his body. Also, if the player has tucked the ball into his body and then loses possession, it is a fumble."
In my opinion having both hands on the ball qualifies as having tucked the ball into the body.

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I disagree that having both hands on the ball qualified as having tucked the ball ineo the body. I guess it is just a matter of interpretation. Evidently the ref that day agreed with my interpretation.

[Assani Fisher]

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Second, you say that winning champiopships is the most important measure of a QB's success, and by that measure I could see how you might say Brady is the best ever. But why? Football isn't an individual sport. It's not even a team sport like basketball, in which one great player can carry a merely competent supporting cast to a title. The QB, though the most important player on the field, is still just one of 22 starters, he doesn't play special teams, and he's not part of the huge coaching and training staffs that NFL teams employ.

In fact, even saying that he's just one out of 22 understates the number of contributors. Teams need production from the aforementioned special teams, from specialists like slot WRs, blocking TEs, pass-rushing DEs, and nickel and dime DBs. And, this being football, they always need plenty of qualified injury replacements.




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VarlosZ, I agree with a lot of what you said. But I do think that quarterback is the one position in football that can change an entire team. Like you said, its not like basketball where one superstar can completely carry a team, but it stil is significant imo. And the thing is that I really don't believe that Brady's cast has been any better than Manning's. Certainly you'd agree that Brady has had nowhere near the weapons on offense that Manning had, no?

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So, yes, Manning and the Colts have not had a lot of postseason success. But how much of that is Peyton Manning's fault, and how much has to do with the fact that they've faced some excellent teams in the postseason (being knocked out by the eventual champ three years in a row)? How much of it has to do with the fact that the Colts' defense only last year reached the status of "above-average"?

It's hard to say, but we do have a boatload of statistics that can help us sort through these questions, and every one of them says that Peyton Manning has been superb, even in the postseason. Brady's statistics suggest that he's been a somewhat less superb player on somewhat superior teams.


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You ask me how much of that was Manning's fault? Well lets take a look at how hes done in their playoff losses:

In 1999, the Colts were one of the best teams in the league. They went 13-3 and had a first round bye. They lost their very first playoff game, which was at home. Manning went up against a Titans team that was 15th in points allowed and 18th in yards allowed, and he could only lead his well rested team to 16 points. I searched but I couldn't seem to find his stats for that game.

In 2000, the Colts opened up the playoffs on the road against Miami. Miami had a good defense: #3 in points allowed/#6 in yards allowed. Peyton led his team to 17 points in a game that included an overtime session(and the Colts did get a possession and a chance to win in OT). Manning had less than 200 yards passing and only one TD pass.

In 2002, the Colts faced the Jets in the first round. The Jets were #14 in points allowed and #24 in yards allowed. Manning led the Colts to ZERO points. Manning finished with just 137 yards and 2 INTs.

In 2003, the Colts made it to the AFC Championship before losing to the Pats. The Colts managed 14 points that game. Again, I wasn't able to find Peyton's numbers for this game, but I wouldn't think they would be too great with only 14 points.

In 2004, they again lost to the Pats. They scored 3 points. Enough said.

And then you remember last year how they lost in their first playoff game at home against the #6 seed Steelers. They scored 18 points and Manning played very poorly imo.

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I don't know, maybe you can just see something in these QBs' performances that I can't, but both the numbers and my eyes tell me that if you replaced Tom Brady on the Pats with Peyton Manning, or Daunte Culpepper, or maybe even Trent Green, the Pats probably would have had a similar level of success over the past five years, while Brady probably would have been unable to carry those players' teams to championships.

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Yes, I most definitely see something that you can't: Clutchness. Brady is clutch. Manning is not. You want some statistical proof? Here are Brady's overtime stats:

20 out of 24 passes completed. 130.2 QB rating. NO interceptions of fubmles lost. Perfect 6-0 record.

Or just go watch some of his game winning drives and you'll see how flawless he is in the clutch. Thats what you're not seeing.

[Assani Fisher]

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The fact remains that hes always been "just not good enough" to be the best.

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Again, there's a big difference between Manning and Manning's team. He has, IMO, been the best for a while now. His team, as a whole, has yet to be good enough.

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And you still havn't addressed the fact that as soon as he left his team was suddenly able to beat Florida. How do you explain that?

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Can I take a shot? I haven't studied those teams, but I'm going guess it was some combination of Tennessee's being better, Florida's being worse, and variance.

[/ QUOTE ]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.

[VarlosZ]

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.

[tolbiny]

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Bill Belicheck has a losing career record in games in which Tom Brady is not his Quarterback.

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The cleveland browns were 3-13 the year before Belicheck took over and went 6-10, 7-9, 7-9, 11-5 and 1-1 in the playoffs. Thats a pretty good run for a rookie head coach (he was 5-11 the next year they were 4-3 i believe when the move to Baltimore was annoucned which made winning virtually impossible that year).

EDIT: Otto Graham for best QB ever.

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How does announcing that your team is moving make winning impossible? Do the players no longer want to win because they'll be playing somewhere else next year? I don't understand that sentiment.

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Impossible is obviously an exaggeration, but the rest of the year became a circus. Quite a few players had moved to cleveland with their families and were pissed at the owner for moving them to another city. The media stopped asking questions about games and only about the move/how could it be avoided/lawsuits by the city ect. The coaching staff was uncertain of their future with the team (turns out they had none), in general there was a lot more stress and focus on things other than winning football games than would normally accompany a team.

[cdxx]

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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 run 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.


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to add to this, wasn't this game played in the snow at Gillette?

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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.

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clutch obviously exists in massachussets. you automatically become clutch when you play massachussets. massachussets is the fountain of clutch.

[Assani Fisher]

Fair points here. I can't argue that we can't prove clutchness for sure, but last year really put me over the edge on Manning....that was the year that he finally had a defense and all the weapons, and he still lost in his first game. And no, they shouldn't have won that game. Remember that the refs messed up and the STeelers made a bonehead fumble to even let the Colts be somewhat close.