CHFF's article claiming Warner is a better QB than Peyton Manning (linked here) was missing a piece of information so obvious and relevant it's hard not to think it was intentionally left out.
Their regular season totals.
Both Players entered into the league the exact same season. This means rate stats (which are great for comparing different sized samples) are far less relevant and probably in this case not as telling as simple totals.
| QB | Comp | Yards | TDs | INTs | Career DYAR |
| Peyton Manning | 3839 | 45,628 | 333 | 164 | 17,364 |
| Kurt Warner | 2327 | 28,591 | 182 | 114 | 6,333 |
and here is the comparison with a mix of total and rate stats.
| QB | Comp | Att | Comp% | Yards | Y/A | Y/C | TD | INT | INT% | ANY/A | Rating | Career DYAR |
| Peyton | 3839 | 5960 | 64.4% | 45,628 | 7.2 | 10.8 | 333 | 164 | 2.8 | 6.5 | 94.7 | 17,364 |
| Warner | 2327 | 3557 | 65.4% | 28,591 | 7.7 | 11.4 | 182 | 114 | 3.2 | 6.3 | 93.8 | 6,333 |
(Many thanks to mgrex30 for making the tables pretty, and hopefully having given me all I need to learn to make them myself)
Peyton's totals over the same decade in the league blow Warner out of the water. Combine that with effieciency stats that are near or better than Warners and you get the massive disparity in total value. Peyton has over 2 1/2 times the DYAR than Warner. Looking at individual years it's no surprise.
Peyton Manning had less than 1,000 DYAR just twice and never had less than 500. Warner had 3 seasons of 1,000+ DYAR and 3 where he was less valuable than a replacement level QB and accumulated negative DYAR.
Only by ignoring probably the most important factor in comparing players careers (the total value they provided to their team) and by chosing a sample size of 10-15 games over one of 110-160 games could someone get the idea that Warner was even in the same class of QB as Peyton Manning.