On 11/4/06, pencimen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
JDG wrote: > ... and only > won because of a masterful performance by someone who will someday be > regarded as the best QB in NFL History. He's got a long way to go to prove that to me. You can put up gaudy numbers and win a lot of regular season games (Dan Marino and the young John Elway) but you don't achieve greatness in football in the regular season. Montana, the mature Elway and Brady are head and shoulders above Manning by that measure.
Keep in mind that Elway (and Steve Young) had the "never won the big one" monkey on their backs, too, until they won them. And I'd consider Marino one of the all-time top QB's despite his lack of a SB victory. I don't think a quarterback absolutely needs to have tremendous postseason success to be considered great (though it helps!), but perhaps it is a requirement to be considered "the greatest". It's just that there's way, way too many other factors to winning in football to make SB victories a strict criteria for judging QB greatness. The surrounding team and coaching makes a huge difference. And there's a least a few of SB-winning QB's I can think of that certainly don't rank that high in the "greatness"scale. I believe Peyton will eventually get his championship(s) and that criticism will disappear, but I don't think it's useful to annoint him (or any other active player) the greatest, until their career is over, or they have proven themselves so dominant in all aspects for such a long time that they could retired immediately and still be worthy of consideration. A recent ESPN article ( http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/story?columnist=smith_michael&id=2646827 ) pronounces that 10 years from now, the greatest QB debate will focus purely on Manning vs Brady. Way too soon to say that, IMHO. There's too many things that can happen between now and then. Remember that Drew Bledsoe was considered a lock for the Hall of Fame earlier in his career. As for the Colts-Pats game, I'm a Pats fan, and I think the Pats will run well against the Colts, but I think Bellichik's anti-Manning voodoo has worn off and Manning's going to do some serious scoring of his own, with the result being something like the Colts-Denver game. I also wonder if this will be something of a "Milton Berle" game (if you get the Bill Simmons reference) where both teams might want to hold something in reserve to have some surprises left if/when they meet again in the playoffs. Bragging rights and possibly home field advantages are on the line for this game, but I'm sure both coaches have their eye on on the bigger prize. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
