Weekend Blogging: Reality slaps Patriots fans in the face, again

by BigBlueShoe on Jul 15, 2007 7:36 PM EDT in Analysis

It's always fun when a Patriot fan finds some silly article claiming Tom Brady is better than Peyton Manning. They take that article, hold it high, and shout from the mountain tops. It's especially fun when their source article is from ESPN or the rag known as USA Today. It's also especially easy to debunk their little article and laugh at their "victory" when a source like Football Outsiders takes USA Today's opinion (that Brady is better than Manning) and blows it to kingdom come.

If you lumped together all of Peyton Manning's third down pass attempts from the last three seasons, you would get this stat line: 243-of-384 (63.3%), 2889 yards, 38 touchdowns, eight interceptions. The dude is pretty good on third downs.

Take four years of Peyton's fourth quarter performances and add them together to get this stat line: 304-of-454 (66.9 percent), 3,589 yards, 22 touchdowns, 10 interceptions. He's pretty good late in the game, too. If you are only interested in "late clutch" situations (fourth quarter, game within seven points), Peyton is 229-of-335 (68.3 percent) for 2,768 yards, 16 touchdowns, and 7 interceptions. He's not too shabby with the game on the line.

In short, Manning is the guy you want to give the ball to in pressure situations. The "playoff choke artist" isn't dead; he never existed. The Peyton Manning we saw in January and February -- the guy who battled back from a 21-3 lead in the AFC title game against the Team of the Decade, who threw for 247 yards against the league's best defense in the rain-drenched Super Bowl -- is an all-time great, a legend in his prime.

And, scene! Game. Set. Match. There was never any real argument here. There was never any real debate. If you know football, if you actually watch the games and follow the sport, it's pretty clear that Manning is better than Brady. Football Outsiders is widely regarded on the Internet as the place to go for real football data-mining. And here, the (unaveraged) stats pretty much speak for themselves.

Basically, if you state Brady is better than Manning, you are either a complete idiot who does not follow the game of football or worse, a Patriots fan. And to steal a line from tommasse, I'm sure some young, enterprising Patriots fan will provide an excuse why Football Outsiders claims Manning is better, or desperately try and convince the world that USA Today is better at analyzing football than Football Outsiders. And when he or she does attempt to do this, those of us who live on planet Earth will point and laugh at them.