Cardinals wrote:You realize that Brady and Manning have almost identical playoff stats right? But Brady had a great defense and the best kicker of all time during his formative years when he got most of his playoff wins, not to mention film of the other teams practices
Aside from the salary issue that Jake so astutely pointed out (gonna tell us how that's not Peyton's fault), Brady still has only gone one and done in the playoffs twice. Manning did it just last year in Denver, a team that was built specifically to attract him.
Nearly identical playoff stats?
Brady 17-7; Manning 10-11
Manning 21 playoff games, 22 INT, 34 TD
Brady 25 playoff games, 22 INT, 42 TD Better TD rate, better TD/INT ratio and Brady has traditionally had worse offensive weapons around him than Manning has. Fond as I am of Troy Brown and Deion Branch, they're nothing special as WR.
As for Spygate, *yawn*. Try some facts on for a change. Filming hand signals was and is perfectly legal, the only thing that was against the rules was WHERE it was filmed from (the sidelines), which was a rule enacted before that season. The sports media made it into a far bigger deal than it actually was because New York was involved (and anything involving NY has to be a big deal) and NE was involved and they were (and are) the best team around.
Fond as I am of Vinatieri, who I have no beef calling the best kicker of all time, if you've got to get down to talking about the kicker to diss Brady and talk about crutches, you're REALLY reaching. You know he sure as heck wasn't getting propped up by his receivers or running game.
As Jake L said, there is a lot more to winning a game than just the QB. But if you're going to shovel all the credit onto the QB, as many fans, especially Manning fans, tend to do, then the QB gets the blame for the losses. Manning put together brilliant regular seasons and typically capped them out with a quick bow and exit stage left in the playoffs, more than any other QB has ever done.