This article is so ignorant it enfuriates me.
He’s not getting any younger. In his 12th season, Peyton Manning is now 33 years old. If his skills are at a peak, so is his career. It’s time to separate himself from all the one-ring quarterbacks in league history and get that second title under his belt. And then, if he wants people 40 years from now to say he was as good as Tom Brady, he’d better start working on Nos. three and four.
When people look at athletes, guys like Manning get something of a free pass in the what-have-you-done-for-us-lately department. It’s the same in baseball for great hitters or pitchers and in hockey for great scorers. If they put enough numbers on the board, people forgot about whether they won titles or not. And if they didn’t, the blame went to the team, not the player.
We saw it in the NFL a generation ago when Dan Marino was the state-of-the-art in passing. He set all the records that Favre is breaking now and Manning will break in due course. When he retired, critics agreed he was the greatest quarterback ever, even if he never did win a title. It wasn’t his fault, they decided, if the Dolphins were never quite good enough on defense when he was in his prime.
Favre has gotten the same break. He’s won just one title and thrown away shots at a few others. But he’s so darned good slinging the ball that nobody notices. And now we have Manning getting the same break.
Manning is the best passer anyone’s ever seen. He’s won more games in one decade than anyone ever has. He never misses a game. He never embarrasses his team. He never confronts his coach. He’s an all-time great.
But that shouldn’t get him off the hook in the trophy department. We can’t say that’s how we judge people and then choose certain players to judge by a different standard. The Colts have been the best team in the AFC all year. They could go undefeated if they made that a priority.
QUARTERBACKS DON’T WIN TROPHIES, MORON. Manning has had a rating better than 90 in his last three playoff losses. Maybe it’s a team game.
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