Not putting words in your mouth
You said I would take Manning over Brady and that I stated playoffs don't hold any more significant meaning than regular season games. I would characterize that as putting words in my mouth.
simply stating what you said in comparing Brown to Rice whom were both equally dominant in the regular season
Brown was far more dominant in his regular seasons than Rice was.
don't you think the player who actually was even more dominant than he was in the regular season is a going to be chosen more times than not compared to the player who choked in the big game (they both played in 4 NFL Championship-Super Bowls with Brown going 1/4 and being rather pedestrian in all the games minus a late meaningless TD while Rice is 3/4 while being 1 of the top 3 best Super Bowl performers ever.)
As I have said more than once, post-season performance would be part of the evaluation. And as I stated previously football is the ultimate team game. It's overly simplistic to say Rice is better than Brown based on their team's post-season won-loss record, in my opinion.
On a side note, I think 'choke' may be one of the most incorrectly used words when describing a player's performance. Sometimes the other team is better, and played better. I'll refrain from getting into the players with rings vs those without rings analogy.
As for those championship games, here is a closer look:
1957: Cleveland throws 5 interceptions; Lions win 3rd championship in six seasons.
1958: Giants win 10-0, forcing 4 turnovers and sacking the Browns QBs 6 times. Giants hold the ball nearly the entire game, running 31 more plays from scrimmage and limiting the Browns to 13 running plays.
1964: Brown has 151 yards from scrimmage as Cleveland beats the Unitas, Moore, Berry era Colts 27-0.
1965: The Green Bay team that would go on to win the first two Super Bowls beats Cleveland 23-12. The Packers run for over 200 yards and run 30 more plays than Cleveland does; Brown has 94 yards from scrimmage.
Took some time to look at that. Based on how often you keep quoting that I'm guessing you may be the author; if that's the case, hat's off to you for all the time and energy you put into it.
However, I'm a bit skeptical of putting so much credence into the numbers for a few reasons. First, it seems to be a circular metric. Good running back = lots of yards = good offensive line; now from there you're saying the RB benefited from that OL.
Second, part of the metric is based on something that I consider to be extremely subjective: number of all-pros and pro bowlers on the offensive line. In my opinion it is not unusual at all for voters to look for a good running back and then an OL in front of him becomes an all-pro. After that voters tend to re-elect the incumbent.
Third, another part of the metric is the age of each player on the line. Sorry, but I'm just not sold on using that as criteria.
And that's fine but don't act like Brown doesn't have big blemishes on his record while Rice has relatively none when comparing the two.
Again putting words in my mouth. I never said Brown doesn't have blemishes, nor did I ever said Rice did.
I do think Rice tends to be valued very highly in ratings like this because his numbers are so very far ahead of others - that was my original point. I wouldn't consider that a blemish; I was simply stating my opinion that his career numbers need to be looked at a bit more closely. If you look at his career numbers at first glance you would think he was twice as good as any peer, but that's not the case; he was the league's best receiver about six or seven times. That's not a knock on Rice; I'm just pointing out that he wasn't quite as dominating as his final career numbers - which many people point to - would indicate.
Lastly, as for the Browns vs 49ers and which one was on a better team, let's compare team records for each player at the start of their careers:
Browns
9-2-1
9-3-0
7-5-0
8-3-1
8-5-1
7-6-1
10-4-0
10-3-1
11-3-0
49ers
10-5-1
13-2-0
10-6-0
14-2-0
14-2-0
10-6-0
14-2-0
10-6-0
13-3-0
11-5-0
12-4-0
From looking at those records, I have a hard time believing Brown benefited from being on those Cleveland teams more than Rice benefitted being on those 49er teams.
Bottom line is you think Rice is the best, and that's your right. You put a large weight on a limited number of playoff performances; I try to look more at the entire body of work. You put a bit more weight on wins and losses; since we're looking at individuals I put a bit less weight on that than you do. I tend to look more at a player versus his contemporaries since so many things change from one era to another, but you don't appear to do that. That's fine, there's no right or wrong. I think I'm done with this since neither one of us are going to change our minds.
