2014-15 NFL Conference Championships: The rest of us got shitty coaches.

[Bregor]

Oh... I don't college football

Of course you don't.

[Bregor]

He's pretty clearly the greatest regular season QB of all time - he has the W/L record, counting stats, rate stats (if you ignore Aaron Rodgers) and MVPs to prove it.

I'm quoting this because it's important to realize how consistently good Peyton Manning has been in his career. Since his rookie season, he's set the standard for what a pure pocket passer is in the NFL. And it's not just about counting stats and throwing all the time, for most of his prime in Indy he had Edgerrin James banging out 1500 yards a season on the ground. His command of offensive match-ups and executing a gameplan is pretty much unparalleled in the modern NFL.

But people like to dismiss a 256-game sample size in favor of a simple win-loss record of a 24-game sample size. Yes, his teams are 11-13 when Peyton starts in the playoffs. Which leads to posts like this:

MVP awards are little more than fanfare, subjectively voted on by people with a fallible opinion, and handed out like a ribbon.

A Lombardi > Million other things > MVP ribbon

It's a fucking team game, man. How many career sacks or interceptions does your quarterback have? Did Peyton let Brees go 32-for-39 for for 288/2/0 in Super Bowl 44? Did Brady let Plaxico make that touchdown grab over him? Man, Brady sure had a hard time blocking Justin Tuck. Wow, Brady's coaching of the defense left a lot to be desired.

No, of course not. If your only measure of quarterbacks is playoff win-loss record and Super Bowl rings, then you can look at Eli and Flacco and say they're better than Peyton, which is pants-on-head retarded.

For a guy who hates the "media narrative" of Peyton, NL sure gets himself all lathered up for the "only the playoffs matter" schtick.

[Melena]

I still think Peyton Manning raped and killed Ninjalotter's family. Only explanation. That or he is Brady's secret gay lover.

[Bregor]

Its ok bregs, teddy Bridgewater gonna put this GOAT talk to rest once and for all in about 5 - 7 years anyways.

My body is ready for the administration of Teddy Throwsevelt.

[NinjaLotter]

I'm quoting this because it's important to realize how consistently good Peyton Manning has been in his career. Since his rookie season, he's set the standard for what a pure pocket passer is in the NFL. And it's not just about counting stats and throwing all the time, for most of his prime in Indy he had Edgerrin James banging out 1500 yards a season on the ground. His command of offensive match-ups and executing a gameplan is pretty much unparalleled in the modern NFL.

But people like to dismiss a 256-game sample size in favor of a simple win-loss record of a 24-game sample size. Yes, his teams are 11-13 when Peyton starts in the playoffs. Which leads to posts like this:



It's a fucking team game, man. How many career sacks or interceptions does your quarterback have? Did Peyton let Brees go 32-for-39 for for 288/2/0 in Super Bowl 44? Did Brady let Plaxico make that touchdown grab over him? Man, Brady sure had a hard time blocking Justin Tuck. Wow, Brady's coaching of the defense left a lot to be desired.

No, of course not. If your only measure of quarterbacks is playoff win-loss record and Super Bowl rings, then you can look at Eli and Flacco and say they're better than Peyton, which is pants-on-head retarded.

For a guy who hates the "media narrative" of Peyton, NL sure gets himself all lathered up for the "only the playoffs matter" schtick.

When discussing `the greats`? Of course, only the play offs matter. Who's the better baseball player? Derek Jeter or Alex Rodriguez?

I think regular season statistics are a nice feather in someone's cap if they're also performing in the post season, but the regular season and the post season are two completely different games of football. There's no "well, we'll just go watch film" if you lose. Every single moment, every single pass, every single block, every single blown coverage, is magnified and multiplied by a factor of a thousand in the pressure and urgency of NFL single-game elimination.

If the Patriots played the Seahawks in week # 6 this year, it would of been a good game, an interesting match up, but not really a huge deal. Does anyone give a shit right now about the Packers v Patriot game?

Put these two teams in the Superbowl, though, and everything is suddenly different.

I remember when I was a teenager playing baseball. I was on fire as a pitcher and just owning everybody in every game we played. I got a little spot in a news paper story, and I was the fucking man. Fast forward to an all star game. My entire extended family came in. Even my grandparents flew in from Ohio for the game just for the hell of it. Very first batter hit a pop fly, I wandered back, and back, and back, and ended up tripping over the second baseman and the ball hit the ground for a base hit. After that I just fucking sucked and I got my ass benched by the third inning. Was an epic choke job. There is a difference between doing your thing and falling apart under the bright lights when the pressure is on.

The playoffs are when real football starts, when you're facing elite defenses and teams that aren't going to let you just shit all over them with stuff that's much more effective against incompetent teams that will later finish the season 4-12. The ramifications of every mistake are huge. The same dread of failure the fans feel when their team is down, is what the players have to execute under.

If you suck at championship football, you're not an all time great. Needless to say, I sadly do not consider myself an all time great JV baseball player.

Nobody goes into a season and says "Boy, I sure do hope we throw for 5,000 yards this year and that's basically all we accomplish."

I'll take a Joe Flacco over a Peyton Manning anyday, because Joe Flacco gives you a chance, and with Peyton you know what's going to happen when it matters most.

[Bregor]

Who's the better baseball player? Derek Jeter or Alex Rodriguez?

That's a loaded question but unless you think a. Rodriguez's PEDs turned him from Average Joe into a world destroyer and b. Jeter is 100% clean, it's pretty obviously ARod.

I remember when I was a teenager playing baseball. I was on fire as a pitcher and just owning everybody in every game we played. I got a little spot in a news paper story, and I was the fucking man. Fast forward to an all star game. My entire extended family came in. Even my grandparents flew in from Ohio for the game just for the hell of it. Very first batter hit a pop fly, I wandered back, and back, and back, and ended up tripping over the second baseman and the ball hit the ground for a base hit. After that I just fucking sucked and I got my ass benched by the third inning. Was an epic choke job. There is a difference between doing your thing and falling apart under the bright lights when the pressure is on.

Cute little vignette but the likelihood of that play having that result, the subsequent effect on your performance, and the repeatability of those kinds of plays is precisely why a larger sample size is always optimal for evaluation. And like I said, 256 > 24.

I admit that the playoffs have higher stakes, and people are not robots who perform to their ability level at all times, but you're being willfully ignorant if you actually think Flacco is better than Manning.

Nobody goes into a season and says "Boy, I sure do hope we throw for 5,000 yards this year and that's basically all we accomplish."

Correct. But if you're a quarterback and want to win, your job is to move the ball and score points, and 5,000 yards obviously helps your team do that.

[archibaldcrane]

NL's anecdote cracks me up because his little league failure is the result of shitty teammates. What self-respecting second baseman / shortstop combo lets the pitcher field a popup behind second base?

[Bregor]

NL's anecdote cracks me up because his little league failure is the result of shitty teammates. What self-respecting second baseman / shortstop combo lets the pitcher field a popup behind second base?

Maybe they called him off and he ignored them because he was just owning everybody and the fucking man and all that.

[NinjaLotter]

I admit that the playoffs have higher stakes, and people are not robots who perform to their ability level at all times, but you're being willfully ignorant if you actually think Flacco is better than Manning.



Correct. But if you're a quarterback and want to win, your job is to move the ball and score points, and 5,000 yards obviously helps your team do that.

When the Patriots lost 24 points to the Denver Broncos via fumblitus in the first half last year, nobody turned the channel, because they were just waiting for it - for Tom to come screaming back like the fucking Terminator and turn it into a ball game. Even Chris Colinsworth started chuckling as it started to happen, and said "You didn't want to say anything, but you just knew this was going to happen."

I'm sorry, but if Peyton Manning is down 24-0 at halftime to the Patriots, everybody is just changing the channel. Nobody believes he's going to do anything.

I've been watching Peyton play a long time. I've seen him live, I've seen him on TV, I've seen him roll his #1 offensive juggernaut on to the field of Gillette stadium, get punched in the mouth, start sulking, and get sent home. People like to indulge in a lot of revisionist history and claim nothing under the sun is every Peyton's fault, especially in his Indy career after he switched uniforms and nobody apparently was supposed to remember. Problem here is I remember a lot of those games looking like Peyton was a big part of a lot of those losses. Shit doesn't go his way, he gets that Manning face look in his eye that we've all seen a thousand times, and his #1 seed falls to fucking pieces against teams he should have been able to handle. A lot of the time, nothing even that special happened. It was just a post season meltdown.

It isn't just the playoffs, either. It's a lot of regular season games with big hype and big narratives. "Peyton's Return to Indy" to face Andrew Luck. "Brady versus Peyton." etc etc.

And why is it all those Indianapolis teams and now Denver share a common characteristic? Why are they so often, so soft, and with no grit or real intensity with the chips are down? Elway just fired Fox because the team didn't go out "kicking and screaming." Did Indianapolis? Maybe, just maybe, this has something to do with Peyton's piss poor demeanor, where he starts visibly pouting in the 1st quarter?

Why was little Wes Welker the one trying to rally the team back to life against Seattle last year and not Peyton? Why was Wes trying to give them a fired up speech to get their head in the game while Peyton was sulking to the side with his hands in his pouch?

There's so much more to football than numbers on a regular season stat-sheet.

I just can't put Peyton in the same category as a Montana or an Elway or a Brady.

He is what he is.

[NinjaLotter]

He's a really good quarterback, and at some things he's absolutely amazing, but the best *whatever Peyton is best at* doesn't necessarily make the best quarterback, no more than the fastest runner makes the best wide receiver.

If it's the Superbowl and my team is down by 6 points in the last 2 minutes of the 4th quarter, or down 21 points in the beginning of the 3rd, there's a whole list of quarterbacks I'd prefer to have over Peyton Manning, and Flacco is one of them.

[Bregor]

People like to indulge in a lot of revisionist history and claim nothing under the sun is every Peyton's fault

Not really. I don't think you'll find a single analyst or anyone in this thread say that Peyton didn't play like shit last Sunday. And obviously the wheels came off in the Super Bowl last year, which is mostly his fault as well. And this is in the twilight of this career.

Before his Super Bowl win, the entire story line was "He can't win the big game." which was pretty dumb even back then. I remember Dan Marino giving Boomer Esiason a death stare on a CBS post-game show because he called him "the Marino of his era" when he was sitting right next to the fucking guy. Wish I had a gif of it. Most sports narratives are dumb but that one is especially dumb, not just for Peyton but for any player of a team sport. Was Ray Bourque not a good defenseman until he won a Cup in Colorado? Boy, Ken Griffey Jr sure sucked, only went to an LCS one time! There are dozens of examples across all sports.

Point is, the only thing dumber than saying it's never Peyton's fault is saying it's always Peyton's fault. There are playoff games where he played poorly and his team lost, but there are also plenty of games where he played well and they still lost. As for right now, he turns 39 in March and is probably done in terms of being "Peyton Manning." Celebrating his recent loses and using them as evidence that he isn't an all-time great is pretty weak.

[Bregor]

If it's the Superbowl and my team is down by 6 points in the last 2 minutes of the 4th quarter, or down 21 points in the beginning of the 3rd, there's a whole list of quarterbacks I'd prefer to have over Peyton Manning, and Flacco is one of them.

This is like full I Am Sam but whatever makes you happy, duder.

[AidenCarby]

LOL

[Krandor]

When the Patriots lost 24 points to the Denver Broncos via fumblitus in the first half last year, nobody turned the channel, because they were just waiting for it - for Tom to come screaming back like the fucking Terminator and turn it into a ball game.

Not change the channel maybe, but a good 1/4 of the stadium went home when halftime hit.

[Marootsoobutsu]

Bills fired Schwartz. Oh, man, I would love to see Denver get Kubes as head coach, keep Gase as OC, and bring in Schwartz as DC, and have him pitch woo to Suh.

[Tarage]

I swear these threads have turned into a group of people talking and joking about football, and Ninja jacking off in a corner yelling at his dick.

[Rhyis.]

[Boyiee]

i wonder what NL is going to do with himself if people start using rafflecopter bans on him and he can't post for the rest of playoffs/superbowl

[Cail]

My body is ready for the administration of Teddy Throwsevelt.

This is the best post and one of the few I read on this page

[Bregor]

Ian Rapoport ‏@RapSheet 34s35 seconds ago

#Broncos are interviewing a wildcard: #Bengals DBs coach Vance Joseph. Played at CU. Coordinator prospect for many, HC prospect for Broncos

Denver getting desperate?