Manning or Brady: a debate with no clear answer

Recently on the Dan Patrick show, Tony Dungy was asked which quarterback has had the better career: Tom Brady or Peyton Manning.  Dungy quickly answered Tom Brady.  He went on to say that this was because Brady has more Super Bowl victories than Peyton Manning (Brady has 3; Manning has 1).

I want to weigh in on this.  Whatever your opinion on this debate (you really can’t go wrong with either player) I don’t think it’s fair to assert that one individual quarterback’s career is better than another simply because of more Super Bowl wins.  Football is a team game.  Tom Brady doesn’t play defense or special teams; he plays quarterback.  If the Patriots lose a Super Bowl with Brady (and they have), it’s because the other team beat them; you can’t pin it all on Tom Brady.  The same goes for Peyton Manning.

As I see it, the quarterback receives too much of the glory for winning and too much of the blame for losing.  I’ll say it again for emphasis: football is a team game.  You simply cannot declare one quarterback is better than another just because of Super Bowl wins.

For example, Dan Marino was a star in his heyday.  In 1984, he put up incredible numbers, even by today’s standards, but especially in 1984.  He threw for 5,084 yards and 48 touchdowns passes; granted these records have since been broken but it still doesn’t diminish what he did (and he still holds other records that haven’t been broken).  But for all that he accomplished, he played in one Super Bowl against the 49ers (in 1984) and lost.  He played for sixteen years and only went to that one Super Bowl.

John Elway was also a star in his heyday, but for most of his career he could never win a Super Bowl.  His Broncos got steamrolled in the Super Bowl on three different occasions.  For many years, many wondered if he would ever win the big game.  He was finally able to do so in Super Bowl 32, and then again in Super Bowl 33.

 

This was a fitting end to a great career; but does this automatically mean that Elway was the better quarterback over Marino?  Not necessarily.  I would say that both were unbelievable quarterbacks.  To try to point to the fact that Elway won Super Bowls and Marino didn’t is largely irrelevant to the debate.  The same is true for Manning and Brady.  Both are amazing quarterbacks.  Super Bowl wins shouldn’t factor into the discussion.

Kevin

“They’re both spectacular...I don’t think there’s too much of a difference between them.  It’s like comparing Picasso and Michelangelo.  It’s hard to compare the two.”

-Wes Welker answering who he thinks is better between Manning and Brady