peyton manning

It’s Brady-Manning this week which means it will be non-stop “who’s the better quarterback” takes. At least we’re off the “Is Brady declining” discussion now.

I had to give my “hot take” on Brady-Manning last year when I was writing for Bleacher Report. How I really feel is far too simple to warrant an entire article trying antagonize people into clicking and commenting.

Here are my two takes on the current Brady items now.

1. Tom Brady is still good enough to lead his team to a Super Bowl.

2. If given the retroactive choice on whose career I’d want to watch and root for, I would pick Tom Brady’s over Peyton Manning’s.

Is Brady declining? Can Manning play in weather? Who’s the best QB of all-time? What matters more, stats or playoff wins? Who had more weapons? Who had a better defense? Who had better coaching?

You can throw all those arbitrary questions out the window as far as I’m concerned. Football is a team sport and extracting a single player out of the equation and judging how good they really are will never be an exact science, nor will there ever be a definitive answer, so I don’t really care to engage in pointless conversation trying to convince those who will never be convinced.

Being a Manning fan is now divided by two teams and really the story of his career isn’t all that new or interesting to me – bred to be a QB, drafted first, lived up to the hype, lit it up with the same small group of weapons during the regular seasons, but almost always got shut down in the playoffs.

Brady’s career, from a story standpoint, is just far more fascinating to me. We all know the specifics by now – drafted 199th overall, got one chance to be a starting quarterback and never let go of that chance and has developed into one of the best quarterbacks of all-time.

He’s had complete turnover around him multiple times, lost his “favorite” receiver multiple times. Somehow he’s always kept it going no matter what the pieces around him were. And his playoff flameouts were rarely as disappointing as Manning’s.

Both Brady and Manning’s careers are filled with ups and downs and I have a ton of respect for both players. Regardless of the specifics, the majority of their seasons have ended in disappointment, but I’d choose Brady’s disappointments over Manning’s. Along with his three Super Bowl wins of course.

It’s as simple as the underachiever vs. the overacheiver, and the overachiever is just a more interesting and fun story to follow.