Who’s the Greatest? Who Cares
If a tree falls in the forest, and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Everyone at some point in their life has debated this question, but we all come to eventually realize that it is pointless because there is no right or wrong answer and there never will be. So for all these people who want to talk about who the greatest QB in NFL history is, may I ask why?
This gets brought up of course because Peyton Manning lost on Sunday afternoon which moved his record in the playoffs to 11-13 all time. Doesn’t matter that he was hurt, doesn’t matter that the Broncos D couldn’t shut down a 1 dimensional Colts offense, all that matters is he lost apparently. People who want to bash Peyton Manning’s career because of what he’s done in the playoffs are just ridiculous to me.
Is he the best ever? In my opinion no. And I’m not criticizing anyone who has an opinion whether you agree or disagree with mine. The people I’m taking aim at here today namely are the ones who can’t WAIT to tell you their opinion. And most of these people seem to hate Peyton Manning. So any time Manning loses a big game they can’t WAIT to jump on twitter and say “seeeeeeeeeee!” Please shut the f*** up.
They somehow believe that this justify’s their position. You can literally poke holes in any QB’s resume. Joe Montana? He was surrounded by amazing talent, especially for his last 2 Super Bowls having Jerry Rice to throw to. He also had one of the best coaches of all time coaching him for 3 of his 4 Super Bowls in Bill Walsh. Montana even lost his job to Steve Young, and this was prior to being out for most of the 91 and 92 seasons. In 88 Young and Montana were neck and neck in the race to be the Niners starter. In the 1987 playoffs, Young came in for Montana vs the Vikings and nearly led the Niners to a comeback win. THIS is the best QB of all time?
Tom Brady? Well, he won 3 Super Bowls early. But he won them being a game manager. His 3 Super Bowls were the equivalent of Kobe Bryant winning 3 rings when Shaq was so dominant. The success of the Pats was because of Bill Belicheck and putting together an elite D. Belicheck was ahead of the curve in managing the game and getting his guys to buy into the concept of turnovers. Force them and don’t give them up. It might seem really simple, but at that time there were far too many teams who were sloppy with the ball. Brady obviously deserves credit, but he wasn’t carrying those teams all by himself, not even close. Since Brady had the reigns loosened so to speak and started putting up similar numbers to Manning…Brady is 0-2 in Super Bowls, 10-8 post season record heading into this weekend since 2004. Oh, and 0-2 vs Peyton Manning in the playoffs in that time. That doesn’t seem so amazing.
How about John Elway? Well, he only went 2-3 in Super Bowls, and didn’t win until Mike Shanahan showed up, Terrell Davis showed up, Neil Smith showed up, Gary Kubiak’s zone blocking scheme showed up, etc. Wait a minute here…I’m starting to see a theme with the 3 guys I’ve brought up! They have other area’s of the game where there teams were elite when they won! Shocking, I know.
Look at Tony Romo this season. It is so fashionable to rip on Tony Romo and talk about how Romo is going to lose it for Dallas and on and on and on. What happened this season? Dallas built an elite running game, Dallas had a defense that all of a sudden wasn’t a nightmare, and Romo looked amazing all season with the exception of maybe 2 games where his back was giving him issues. 12-2 in games he played start to finish, 1-1 in the playoffs and maybe should be 2-0 heading into Seattle this weekend.
Why do so many intelligent people try and make it black and white when it comes to QB’s? There is so much to football, not to mention in single elimination the best team isn’t always going to win.
Is Manning the best ever? Again, not in my opinion but I could absolutely make a case for him. Is there 1 guy who you could point to that is without question? HELLLLLLL NO! “Playoff record. Playoff record. Playoff record.” Right, he is under .500 in the playoffs. He also won a Super Bowl with basically nothing around him when compared to other Super Bowl winners.
If I could make one argument in favor of Manning it would be that both Bill Polian and John Elway, as great of football men as they are, both used far too much of their cap space and draft picks over the years on getting Peyton weapons. He doesn’t need to have 2 stud WR’s and a stud TE. He makes guys great. What he needed was a great running game and a great defense.
Not to say that he didn’t have that this season, but he was hurt the last month of the season and couldn’t throw. But hey, if you’re the greatest of all time then you shouldn’t get hurt, right? I’m sure some moron somewhere has actually made that argument.
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