Trying to put my man-love for TB12 aside, this should not have been a debate for some time. The rings argument is more and more valid as time goes on and Manning continues to come up short with high seeded teams. When your team earns a first round bye and hosting the divisional round game, you can draw 3 fair conclusions:
1. You are surrounded by a team and coaching staff who may not be a juggernaut, but are good enough to consistently win ball games in this league. A team that is fully capable of going the distance if things fall into place and especially if your stars shine in the big moments.
2. Your first opponent is a team that finished lower than you in the standings. In some cases, they are not an inferior team but certainly not a team above your level and there is a reason they were playing on wild card weekend.
3. You are playing at home, with 2 weeks to rest and prepare for the game. While your opponent is coming off a playoff battle.
In these situations Manning is 1-4. And he's now pulled off this chokejob with multiple teams. So you cannot tell me that the 'his teams have been so much inferior to Brady's' argument holds as much water because while it may be true in the case of 2003/2004, Manning has had similar failures in situations where HIS team was the favorite. Yesterday we saw the same sort of mismanagement/failure to step up when it matters out of Denver that we saw from the Colts so often. Like I said in the other thread, you can only blame his supporting casts so many times when they just happen to 'let him down' repeatedly and on and entirely different team. 3 to 1 is a huge huge argumentative advantage in this league over a period of 10+ years.
