here are some QBs that haven't won a single Super Bowl:
Dan Marino
Jim Kelly
Dan Fouts
Fran Tarkenton
These guys don't suck because their teams didn't win the Super Bowl do they? They are in the Hall of Fame, right?
You're arguing a completely separate and largely irrelevant point. I never said that you had to win a SB to be a great QB. I only said that it's impossible to win multiple SBs without being a great QB. So, once again, pick the bad QB out from that list. You can't, because there isn't one.
uring the 2006 regular season, the Colts defense sucked balls. Manning brought that team to the playoffs in the first place. I concede your point, though. The Colts D stepped up in the playoffs that year, and that's why the Colts won the Super Bowl. Brady has had the benefit of that happening a lot more than Manning, and that's a huge difference maker. Not having to constantly play from behind...not having to do everything for your team yourself, having someone else make up for your mistakes, etc.
Once again, the facts just don't support your point. Just look at the 3 times that Brady has quarterbacked a losing team in the playoffs:
2007: 266 yards, 1 TD, 0 INT, 60.4% completion, 82.5 rating. Not a marvelous game, but a) he was injured and b) with the unprecedented pressure that the giants were getting on him, it's pretty incredible that he
still didn't develop happy feet and turn the ball over. Say the Pats choked if you want, but under that kind of pressure every other quarterback in the league turns the ball over, without exception. Brady's coolness under intense pressure was the single biggest reason why they had a 14-10 lead pretty much at the end of the game, and then the defense let him down by allowing the touchdown.
2005: 341 yards, 1 TD, 2 INT, 55.6% completion, 74 rating. Champ Bailey's 100 yard pick-six was a bad play, admittedly, but other than that Brady had a solid game carrying a legitimately overmatched team. Remember, this was the year that the defense lost one leader (Bruschi) to an offseason stroke, and the other (Harrison) in September to injury. Duane Starks started at CB this season- it was
not a good defense. And once again, Brady still played a pretty good game.
2006: 232 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT, 61.8% completion, 79.5 rating. Once again, the Pats scored 34 points in this game, and at one point had a 20-3 lead. The defense suffered the biggest second-half collapse in championship game history.
Bottom line: the Patriots have never lost a playoff game because of Brady. They've never even won in spite of him. The absolute worst thing that you can come up with to say about him (and you're trying to, sadly enough) is that sometimes they win and it isn't all because of him. To which the only proper response is no ****. No one player can ever win a game. But one player can lose a game, as the Colts have found out due to Manning on several postseason occasions.
Outside of 2006, this isn't true. His other wins in other years were all stellar performances. I'm telling you that the Colts never really had a good defense, and the 2006 season shows you what a good defense can do for your reputation. Now you can say "Manning won the Super Bowl," even though the defense played a huge role in it.
I know what you're telling me. But once again, you're making stuff up. He hasn't had to play from behind constantly, and when he has it's been because he turned the ball over and created easy scoring opportunities in the first place. Let's go back and look at the games that the Colts have lost over the years in the playoffs:
1999, versus Tennessee: 227 yards, 0 TD, 0 INT, 45% (!) completion, 62.3 rating. You know what, though? I'll give him a pass, even though it was a home game. He was young then.
2000, @ Miami: 194 yards, 1 TD, 0 INT, 53% completion, 82 rating. Hard-fought game, as I remember. Had he been even remotely efficient with the ball, they probably would have won, but even this one isn't too egregious.
2002: @ NY Jets: 137 yards, 0 TD, 2 INT, 45.2% completion, 31.2 rating. Oh yeah, and the Colts got shut out. Can you honestly look at those stats and say that that loss doesn't fall squarely on Manning's shoulders? Because if you can say that, then this debate is over on the grounds that you're delusional and/or stupid. IIRC, this is when the talk of him being a playoff choker really started, since he sucked in thsi game and was now 0-4 career in the playoffs.
2003, @ New England: 237 yards, 1 TD, 4 (!) INT, 48.9% completion, 35.5 rating. Lost 14-24. On the bright side, Manning entered the 2003 playoffs 0-4 in his career in the postseason, and left them 2-5. Once again, you can't complete under 50% of your passes and throw 4 INTs and not expect the blame to fall on you for the loss.
2004, @ New England: 238 yards, 0 TD, 1 INT, 64.3% completion, 69.3 rating. They scored 3 points in this game. You can't blame the loss on an inept defense when youre offense was held to 3 points. Similarly, when your offense gets held to 3 points, and the QB throws more INTs than TDs, you can bet that the loss is getting blamed largely on the QB.
2005, versus Pittsburgh: 290 yards, 1 TD, 0 INT. 57.9% completion, 90 rating. Credit where credit's due, this one wasn't really his fault. He didn't turn the ball over, and threw for pretty good yardage. Once again, though, this offense scored only 18 points, so I classify this performance of his about on par with Brady's 2007 SB performance: they lost, and it wasn't really his fault because he played a fine game, but it's not like he carried the time and they lost in spite of his heroic efforts either. It's neither a mark for nor against the QB.
2007, vs. San Diego: 402 yards, 3 TD, 2 INT, 68.8% completion, 90 rating. Probably the only case in Manning's postseason career where you could actually argue that his defense let him town. He didn't help the cause by turning the ball over twice, but he played well enough to win and the defense gave up 28 points. This is the one time that your claim is actually valid.
2008, @ San Diego: 310 yards, 1 TD, 0 INT, 59.5% completion, 90 rating. See 2005, pretty much the same here.
So in the 8 times that the Colts have lost in the postseason with Manning as QB, your insistence that it's because his crappy teammates couldn't pull it togehter held true exactly once. And even then, he threw 2 INTs in that game. Of the remaining 7 losses, even if I discount the first one, you have 3 losses where he was clearly part of the problem, and 3 where he played decently enough, but it just wasn't enough. In either case, the story that you're trying to tell falls apart. He's never had the misfortune of playing a good game, yet they lost anyways because the defense just wasn't good enough. And since you're maintaining that this happens every year, that just makes your point flat-out wrong. Sorry, those are the facts.
Yeah, there is nothing wrong with being a game manager. I agree with that, but when the rest of the team isn't picking up the slack, you have to be more than a game-manager at the QB position if you expect to win. In other words, the rest of your team has to be good if you are going to win with a game-manager. Otherwise, the QB has to take a lot more risks, which can lead to bigger mistakes. I'm not labeling Brady as a "game manager" per se here, only saying the Patriots won playoff games when that's exactly what he was and the defense won it for them, sometimes when he managed the game relatively poorly. Then people turn around and say "Brady won," which isn't entirely accurate. It's not untrue, but it's not entirely accurate. Winning a game doesn't mean you are skilled...it doesn't hurt, but that's not what that means.
I'm not saying that Brady isn't clutch either. I think it's obvious he is, but that's not what I'm talking about in this post. That's another story.
See my previous point: the narrative that you're trying to establish just isn't consistent with the facts. They've won a lot of games in the playoffs where he's played outright badly, and when they've lost in the playoffs it's been directly attributable to the offense as often as not. And considering that he's spent his entire career surrounded by all-world talent on offense, that has to, at some point, go back to him. I'm not saying that he's a choke artist or can't win the big one- I'm just saying that the way that you're trying to portray things is either misinformed or a lie.
