Peyton Manning calls it a career

[Jeremy Crowhurst]

So right now, I think when looking at Peyton's career, there's a "yeah, but..." that goes with his two rings. How long does it take for that "yeah, but..." to go away?

What is the "yeah, but...?" Are you referring to his lack of playoff success relative to his regular season success, the allegations that have dogged him recently, or something else?

"Yeah, but he didn't play that well in the first one, and his team won despite him in the second one." Mostly the latter. He was a spectator on a team where the defense won the game.

[JWL]

So right now, I think when looking at Peyton's career, there's a "yeah, but..." that goes with his two rings. How long does it take for that "yeah, but..." to go away?

One would think it went away already but kids and adult blowhards (Steven A. Smith, Bomani Jones, etc.) these days...

The "yeah, but" stuff should only matter or be a point of discussion when attempting to rank the top 20 quarterbacks of all-time. To be on the safe side, I went with "20" there because I suppose it is possible for someone not to rank Manning in his/her top 10.

[oldecapecod11]

Yeah, but Jeremy, in order for some future scorer to view the marks beside his name, the marks have to be there -
regardless of how they got there.

If you consider mwald's view of his aggressiveness and agree it was a detriment, then one must also realize that he overcame
that tendency during his last rodeo. Okay! He played not to lose. But when you don't lose, what happens? You win.

The Newton child came to the corral looking for a duel with the sheriff but the deputies gunned him down.
Near the close, it was his unwillingness to put it all on the line that contributed to his downfall and silenced the Panthers' roar -
something PM has never done.
Why play the Brutus in his final act?

As for the mwald allusion to the extension of the coccyx, it should be noted that it is very, very short.

[74_75_78_79_]

Thank God that he managed to avoid having another cervical disc surgery. For those last four seasons, he's been one hit away from a paralyzing or fatal injury. I'm glad he gets to go out with another Super Bowl ring, but he could have had a very tragic forced retirement. Doing haiku for Nationwide Insurance will be a lot safer.

Amen to that! That's the first and most important thing I think of in all of this. You don't mess with neck surgery. He should have retired right then and there after the 2011 campaign. Of course winning another Ring and riding off into the sunset was a much better way to end it, but after eight consecutive double-digit-win seasons (just '03 & '10 being a mere 10 wins; all other seasons in-between at least 12) your team goes...2-14 the year you're out?? It wouldn't have been a bad 'final statement'. A very valuable bit of 'artillery' in the he-vs-Brady debate (Pats, under Cassel, 11-5 in '08). Yes, thank God he made it through Denver unscathed; and ending with an above-500 post-season record to boot.

I'd put Manning toward the tail end on the list of greats.

Already mentioned, he was the rare player whose influence on his team was greater than that of his head coach. That's the highest compliment I could give a player.

But --like most people depending on the situation in which they find themselves --his greatest strength was also his greatest weakness. The qualities Manning possessed--the intelligence, the force of personality--that saw him run a team like a coach was his downfall in big games. In terms of style of play, Manning lacked nuance. His style was all 100 percent aggression. When he found himself in a pickle he often resorted to more aggression: throw harder, throw faster, come at you with more of the same thing, just more intense. In the playoffs that approach was often putty in defenses' hands. And as both coach and quarterback, the coach didn't rein in the player. Ironically, it took an ex-quarterback in John Elway to finally call his BS, and he was rewarded with a second SB title as a result.

Comments above are relative to the greats, of course. One of the best of all time. But for me, not close to THE best.

I don't think that he - nor Brady - are the 'best ever' either but at the very least, 'one of' the bests as well as certainly being the indisputable Top 2 these last 15 years which certainly says a lot considering the other real great QBs of this era. "Tail end of the list of greats", as you say, is well put to me. As for your take on Peyton's lack of 'big-game' success, most of what's to blame IMHO is simply the system he played under for most of his career - have an offense that can open up a lead and a defense simply designed to preserve that lead instead of being a 'shutdown' one. It's a recipe for plenty of regular-season wins, 1st-round byes, but no championships. Hardly ever having had a real defense most of his career - nor a running game - he was often put in a position where he felt he had to do too much - play too aggressive as you say - perhaps preparing too hard, studying too hard, overthinking at times, etc.

Not to say that Peyton is fully blameless in this which is why I agree with your assertion that he was too full-throttle in critical situations. Perhaps he could have turned it down a notch at times, but in the end it may have only averted those one-and-done upsets in the divisional round (specifically those Charger defeats) considering what I already said about his teams simply never being built for going all-the-way (not balanced as Brady's early-'00s teams were under Hoodie). When Peyton slumped in the '06 post-season (2nd half of AFCC notwithstanding), his D that was putrid vs the run down the stretch suddenly "came to life" as Addai at RB played well-enough. That very thing (and, yes, playing vs Rex Grossman didn't hurt) helped him get that first Ring and then this year an even better defense and running game helped him to his 2nd. Look at his boss's (Elway's) career - trying to do "too much" in the '80s then getting help later on (O-line, TD, defense), taking a slight step back, and letting those other key-contributors contribute along with him. If only Marino would have had that one year (or simply a post-season) or two of having a real run-game and D. These last few sentences are what oldcapecod11 pretty much alludes to...

Yeah, but Jeremy, in order for some future scorer to view the marks beside his name, the marks have to be there -
regardless of how they got there.

If you consider mwald's view of his aggressiveness and agree it was a detriment, then one must also realize that he overcame
that tendency during his last rodeo. Okay! He played not to lose. But when you don't lose, what happens? You win.

The Newton child came to the corral looking for a duel with the sheriff but the deputies gunned him down.
Near the close, it was his unwillingness to put it all on the line that contributed to his downfall and silenced the Panthers' roar -
something PM has never done.
Why play the Brutus in his final act?

The Eternal Manning-VS-Brady Debate? I really don't know the answer for sure. To try figuring that out, I feel that one must first do what is very notorious on this site and that's doing a what-if/hypothetical. How would Peyton have done as a Patriot under Belichick? How would Brady have been as a Colt throughout the '00s and then as a Bronco these past four years? I would guess that Brady would have garnered up bigger numbers/stats at the expense of a couple Rings as Peyton may have been allotted a slightly lesser role, not as much a 'coach-on-field' with Hoodie already on the sideline, lesser stats but a couple more Rings end of day. A pretty simple hypothetical, maybe too simple, but it only shows why it's one of the great, dead-even sports debates (a la Magic-VS-Bird) of all-time. In such a hypothetical, I think it would still be dead-even amongst the masses.

[mwald]

As for your take on Peyton's lack of 'big-game' success, most of what's to blame IMHO is simply the system he played under for most of his career - have an offense that can open up a lead and a defense simply designed to preserve that lead instead of being a 'shutdown' one. It's a recipe for plenty of regular-season wins, 1st-round byes, but no championships. Hardly ever having had a real defense most of his career - nor a running game - he was often put in a position where he felt he had to do too much - play too aggressive as you say - perhaps preparing too hard, studying too hard, overthinking at times, etc.

The no defense and no running game was the result of Manning's personality suffocating his team(s) to the point that they were built entirely around him. In other words, he wasn't put in a position where he felt he had to do too much, he put himself into that position--and no one was strong enough to stand up to him. In the playoffs that one-dimensional house of cards usually came falling down. For all of Manning's obvious intelligence he wasn't smart enough to realize that you don't step on the gas when you go through a snow drift. You ease off the pedal. John Elway figured it out. The rumors of the Manning-Elway relationship souring this past year came as no surprise to me. Manning wanted a title for Manning. Elway wanted a title for the Broncos.

Still, one of the greats. But debating their place in the pecking order is what we do, apparently. That's my nib's worth.

[JohnR]

His mention of Unitas at the press conference sure was unexpected...and a pleasant surprise. But, could one imagine Johnny U accepting a game trophy and then exclaiming how comfy he'll rest that evening "in my Lay-Z-boy recliner"?

[JohnH19]

Okay, so we have the almost universally acknowledged QB Mt. Rushmore of Baugh, Graham, Unitas and Montana. I think most of us agree on that. If Manning and Brady aren't the fifth and sixth heads on that mountain, who the hell is???


I feel like anyone who finds that these guys come up short enough in any category to keep them off of the top rung of all time greats is looking way too hard. Who could realistically replace them in the top six? Every possible candidate has their own imperfections.

[BD Sullivan]

His mention of Unitas at the press conference sure was unexpected...and a pleasant surprise. But, could one imagine Johnny U accepting a game trophy and then exclaiming how comfy he'll rest that evening "in my Lay-Z-boy recliner"?

Manning tried to pay tribute to Johnny U by wearing hightops the weekend after his death in 2002. The idiotic reasoning on the part of the NFL was that no other team other than the Ravens could pay tribute--since everyone remembers how Johnny U led the Ravens to those three titles...

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid= ... 6382&hl=en

[NWebster]

Okay, so we have the almost universally acknowledged QB Mt. Rushmore of Baugh, Graham, Unitas and Montana. I think most of us agree on that. If Manning and Brady aren't the fifth and sixth heads on that mountain, who the hell is???


I feel like anyone who finds that these guys come up short enough in any category to keep them off of the top rung of all time greats is looking way too hard. Who could realistically replace them in the top six? Every possible candidate has their own imperfections.

I agree that we agree that's Mt.Rushmore, but I must say, we forget the down times these guys had as well. I wrote a piece a while back on the 49ers Shotgun Offense beating the Colts in 1960, it was Unitas and the turnovers that beat the Colts that day. Aging Peyton was hard to watch, but I explicitly recall aging Montana trying to throw the ball away out of bounds as a Chief and getting Intercepted, because he couldn't get enough on the throw away - luckily I've not seen enough of Unitas with San Diego to recall the same.

I think this is precisely the kind of thing that #1 we need some distance from before making proclamations and #2 before we make proclamations about generations before us we need to ensure that they're well informed. I've seen bad Unitas, bad Montana and a little bad Graham. Unfortunately we're likely to see bad Brady soon as well. They're all great - I'm kind of a Unitas guy - but I'm not sure any are demonstrably better than the others. I think Peyton "could" fall in that class.

[mwald]

Who's "we?" I couldn't care less about arriving at consensus or worrying about whether my view fits someone else's definition of well informed.

Feel free to apply your criteria. I'll apply mine, thank you.