All-nothing. Plus-minus. Buy-sell. Love-hate. Good-evil.
So it goes with the Tom Brady vs. Peyton Manning nonsense. It’s really no different than the political advertisements we claim to hate before gleefully contributing to the chorus.
Thou shalt love one and hate the other, I guess, although I’m wondering where that started. Sports talk radio? Social media?
This thinking appears to prevail only in sports, politics and religion. We’re not allowed to speak of the last two categories in polite company. Pretty soon stick-and-ball conversation will join the list of off-limits topics.
Not that it satisfies any test of logic. I’m allowed to like both steak and chicken. I’m permitted to dig both Stevie Ray Vaughan and Led Zeppelin. If I suggest that Tom Brady and Peyton Manning are equally great, however, I’m subject to ridicule from people on both sides of a senseless war.
It isn’t merely my memory failing with age, either. This hyper, hypothetical thinking didn’t dominate the previous generation of quarterbacks, and they played against one another every bit as frequently.
Dan Fouts, Dan Marino and Jim Kelly weren’t castigated for never winning Super Bowls. Joe Montana, Terry Bradshaw and Troy Aikman didn’t get lambasted for occasionally losing in the playoffs and not winning them all.
We understood that they had different skill sets. Played for different coaches and different franchises with different styles. Statistics and jewelry were equally respected. It would have been an honor to have any of those dudes lead your team into battle, no matter which of the other ones were available.
Now, you can’t change the channel or open your browser without somebody beating you over the head with Manning’s absurdly astronomical yardage and touchdown totals on the good side, or his playoff record on the bad.
All I know is that neither happens in a vacuum. Manning has made Marvin Harrison, Reggie Wayne and Demaryius Thomas appear otherworldly over the years, but they’ve done their share to make No. 18 look good, too. Ask Peyton’s old man what happens when you have all the physical and mental skills in the world but never have the right pieces in place around you.
And he was 1 of 53 on a couple of losing Super Bowl teams. In a greater position to influence the game than most of the other guys in uniform, certainly. But he wasn’t the guy who failed to cover a Saints’ onside kick, or the guy who wasn’t fast enough to get breathing room against a Seahawks’ defense in which everyone ran a 4.3 in the 40.
Likewise, Brady gets too much credit for Lombardi Trophy wins over which Ty Law, Rodney Harrison and Corey Dillon held much greater sway. Too much blame for losses in which David Tyree and Mario Manningham made plays and Randy Moss and Wes Welker didn’t.
Of course his numbers will never stack up with Manning’s. Brady, by and large, has never been on a team that had to play catch-up more than once or twice a year. Manning found himself on plenty of those, especially in the early years, when the Colts earned the right to draft by being at the bottom of the pile.
New England fans won’t believe it, due to their notoriously selective memory, but Brady’s teams have been more run-happy than Manning’s. Dillon, Antowain Smith and BenJarvus Green-Ellis all were 1,000-yard backs.
Other than a brief spell in which Marshall Faulk and Edgerrin James stood underutilized in his huddle, Manning never had that luxury. It’s one legitimate reason his September-to-December numbers are transcendent and his January-February performance is ordinary. It isn’t a criticism. It just … is.
As their parallel careers have moved into the twilight, Manning’s supporting casts have looked a little stronger than Brady’s. It has somewhat leveled out the disparity of their head-to-head meetings, with which Patriots’ fans had a field day for so many years.
Not that any of the loudest stakeholders have noticed. Nor have they recognized, apparently, that football, of the games people play, is the one most contingent upon on team.
It is much to their detriment. They’re cheating themselves.
Two of the greatest competitors ever to practice the craft excel at it simultaneously. They continue to dominate into their late-30s, even as necks, shoulders, knees and ankles howl in protest.
They give us something splendid to watch, but we’d rather talk, which is foolish.
We’ve been given the best of both worlds. No matter which colors we wear or what flavor we prefer, it’s OK to appreciate them equally.
Kalle Oakes is a staff writer. His email is koakes@sunjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @Oaksie72.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
