Re: Manning : Gold Standard
I just don't get it.
Manning is born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He has never had to compete for a job in his life, and has always been surrounded by top end talent, whether at Tennessee or Indy. The guy has always had pro bowl caliber players with the Colts. He is without question one of the all time greats.
Meanwhile, Tom Brady has never been given anything, has had to prove himself at every level, and up until this year has been surrounded by average to below average talent. Now the year that he finally gets some talent around him bozos like the author of this article seem to think that anybody can do what Brady is doing or he is somehow shirking the game of football and running up the score.
This season is nothing more that Tom Brady having fun as he is finally surrounded by talent equal to him and is now showing everybody his true talent and potential. Imagine Peyton having Antoine Smith instead of Edgerin James, David Patten instead of Marvin Harrison, David Givens instead of Reggie Wayne. Does anybody think the Colts offense would have been anything like it has the last 6-8 years ?
Brady has squeezed more potential out of average players than any QB in the last 20 years could have squeezed out the talent that surrounded him. Now we just watch in awe as he is finally given the silver spoon that Manning has had for all 10 years in the NFL.
The results speak for themselves and to me just proves how good Brady really is compared to Manning.
Yeah, I don't really understand it either. I have no problem with people who say that Manning is better, I don't consider it an insult to Brady since Manning is an all time great.
But I don't quite understand Jerry Jones here. Take Manning out and everything collapses, take Brady out and the team keeps chugging along? It sounds like the old "system" BS, that you can plug in any QB in NE and have everything run smoothly because of that awesome system. But no one understands that the system is Brady. He's it.
I also think two things affect people who think like Jones (who I think are a tiny minority at this point).
1. Manning's gestures at the line of scrimmage. Seriously, people think he's a super genius because of the hand motions. We know a lot of what Manning does at the line is BS, and it's meant to be BS. That's not to take anything away from the guy, or his audibles, or the fact that he's really smart. But I think some people see Manning back there and are just in awe.
2. Manning's pedigree. Brady's a sixth round pick, and I do think this follows him a little, and it's harder to shake the system QB label when you don't have the background that Manning does. Brady's achievements then are the result of talented WRs, and the defense, etc, not his own talent. Like I said, I think there are very few people who think this way anymore about Brady but there are still some, apparently.
