Tom "Iceman" Brady

So is every player who has been on the team and played significant time the best at his position? It seems some want to give Brady more credit for wins than Peyton. Plain and simple Brady is on a better team. I honestly think based on watching these two that Peyton is the better QB and Brady while very good has the better team. I give him credit for the SB wins but not ALL the credit.

I watched Jason Taylor on ESPN last week talk about Tom Brady to no end. He felt very strongly, in fact, that Tom Brady is the best quarterback in the NFL today. Okay, so here's the defensive MVP of the league this year, he has no vested interest in being biased one way or another, and he plays them both twice a year.

He pointed out that the thing that makes Brady so special is that he has, what I thought he said was "Phone booth quicks" In other words, Brady can move around in very tight and limited spaces with defenders all around him and still deliver accurate throws. He said almost to a quarterback in the NFL, once they feel pressure they immediately adjust their throw. He said Brady has to actually get 'hit' in order to change his delivery, he's oblvious to just pressure.

I think that is probably where Brady is better than Manning: pocket presence (and poise in general). IMO, there is nothing more valuable in a QB -- just as long as he can throw the ball (which both Brady and Manning can do very well).

So is every player who has been on the team and played significant time the best at his position? It seems some want to give Brady more credit for wins than Peyton. Plain and simple Brady is on a better team. I honestly think based on watching these two that Peyton is the better QB and Brady while very good has the better team. I give him credit for the SB wins but not ALL the credit.

I would like you to name alot of the players on the patriots superbowl teams that were atleast top 10 at there position? Tom doesnt have Marvin Harrison or did he ever have a RB of Edges abililty, and yes i realize James doesnt play for them anymore

You conviently ignore defense, the main reason that teams win and lose in the playoffs, and a part of the game that the QB has no control over, while citing offensive skill players, people who are often made by their QB. You then cite wins as your arguement while ignoring both defense AND special teams. Shoddy at best.

Ignore the defense? Do the patriots have a player with the abilities of Dwight Freeney? Dont the Colts have Bob Sanders,Cato June,Booger Mcfarland, and Robert Mathis on there defense? Why would i ignore Special teams? didnt they have one of the best kickers of his time in Mike Vanderjagt? and now they have Vinatieri. And Terrence Wilkins is one of the best kick returners in the league. Any way you look at it, Peyton has always lined up with more talent than Tom Brady and Tom has still won more important games than Peyton, look you can have Peyton, but if Im starting a team I choose to go with the guy who has three superbowl rings and will not cost me 100 million dollars

Ignore the defense? Do the patriots have a player with the abilities of Dwight Freeney? Dont the Colts have Bob Sanders,Cato June,Booger Mcfarland, and Robert Mathis on there defense? Why would i ignore Special teams? didnt they have one of the best kickers of his time in Mike Vanderjagt? and now they have Vinatieri. And Terrence Wilkins is one of the best kick returners in the league. Any way you look at it, Peyton has always lined up with more talent than Tom Brady and Tom has still won more important games than Peyton, look you can have Peyton, but if Im starting a team I choose to go with the guy who has three superbowl rings and will not cost me 100 million dollarsWell, if you bring contract size into it, you may very well have an arguement. One could potentially attribute the Colts inability to have a consistent defensive threat to keep them in games to the fact that Manning's contract is so freakin massive.

But if so, I'm confused as to why you open your post by listing some talented players from the Colts' D. Whats your arguement? That the Colts have and have had a better defensive unit than the Patriots? On what basis?

FRPLG hits this one directly on the head. If you take Manning off the Colts, you have a really piss poor football team. If you take Brady off the Patriots, the team gets significantly worse but only probably to a 8-8 maybe 7-9 level. This of course implys that a replacement level backup (i.e crappy) would take the reins in both situations.

If the question was which quarterback has had the more fufilling career, the answer is Brady. If the question was which quarterback has ultimately been more successful, the answer is Brady. Citing three championships would be a great defense for both of those positions. But if you are trying to answer the simple questions "Which guy is the best?" or "Which one should I take on my team?", you have to look beyond rings to who actually gives his team the best chance to win. 3 rings does crap for Brady going foward. You think Robert Mathis will have Brady wrapped up this week for a sack, only let him go on the context that the guys a three time champion? Not likely.

From a philosophical point of view, I think the whole idea of "winning a ring" is BS anyway. Stay with me. Football is a team game. The players and coaches win and lose as a team. A ring is very much an individual award, and to me thats a crappy way to represent a team achievement. The Lombardi Trophy is the most soughtafter trophy in sports. It is awarded to the team who wins the NFL Championship each year. It's a team award given for team achievement. Playing for a ring is, at its core, a rather selfish thing to strive for. In effect, you are exerting effort for personal gain, instead of that of the team. Playing for a championship, and playing for a trophy for your team is completely selfless. If you are wondering, this is a very key reason why I put no value into how many "rings" a guy has.

I know that there is little distinction between the two because they come as a package, but the ring would be completely worthless if it didn't represent team achievement, so to use it as an arguement for individual achivement is downright silly.

Vladimir Putin has a ring. Does that make him a great football player?

Are you going to honestly say you haven't done the SAME THING with Manning? I've read all 11 pages and all I have really seen from you is the same thing:

1. "If Manning wins it's because of his talent, just look at his numbers"
2. "If Brady wins it's because of his team, just look at his defense"

Not to mention that you have this theory that playoff preasure doesn't exist. You don't really believe that do you? Yes, it's the same players that suit up every other Sunday, but you have to admit that when Manning stops and thinks, "Hey, wait a minute. I'm not gaurenteed to play next week," he gets a little nervous. They both do, of course. But Brady doesn't show it in his play, Manning does. You can bring up the poor play of Brady yesterday if you want but look how Manning played in Baltimore, much worse. The fact is that Brady (at least more often than not) handles the playoff pressure exponentially better than Manning.

Even though I know it's been said several times before, numbers and stats don't mean anything in the end. Marino would have given up 16 wins for one super bowl. Even though Manning may have fantastic regular season games, he chokes when it counts, end of story."Rings" and stats don't even measure the same thing. This isn't about "rings vs stats". It's about Peyton Manning's production vs. Tom Brady's production. Stats are a great way of measuring production (provided you use success conducive stats), easily the best way, but hardly the only way. However, rings are not in ANY way a tool to measure individual performance.

If your case is that Brady's career is more fufilling because half the seasons he plays end in championships, I fully and totally agree with you. And I'd still take Manning on my team before him.

"He chokes when it counts..." Does the regular season not count? Did Peyton's lights out playoff performances in 2003 and 2004 not count? Did Brady not choke against Denver last year? Did he not choke last week with 3 INTs when his team needed him? There are so many questions that really prevent this from being the "end of story".

Regarding the playoffs being a whole different entity from the regular season, what happens if he goes in and beats the Patriots next week? What happens to the "he chokes under pressure theroy"? Is it invalidated? Refined?

We got many many more years before this debate is decided and in all honesty it might never be. I will say if Brady wins this weekend Manning is behind. It might only take one ring in the future to change things, but Manning has to win Sunday. If the Colts lose he will not and should not be anywhere near the conversation when it comes to big game quarterbacks when talking about the all time greats. His stats will be the only thing keeping him in that conversation and that's pretty uneven footing. I think Brady is better, but I would love for Manning to get this win. Mostly because I think Belichik is overated but that's a different debate.

Oh, I think I might have misunderstood you. If you are talking pure production and numbers, then any ordinary fantasy football player can tell you that Manning takes the gold. However, I truely think that Brady has that extra something that really shows itself during play off time, be it pocket presence, confidence, leadership, etc..

So in conclusion I think I'd say Manning is more of the best pure athlete, but Brady is more of the best team player. Either way they are both going to be HOFers one day.

P.S. While I also agree with your idea that rings are more a measure of the team than any person, I think it's also clear that a QB holds more responsibility than say a corner or a saftey. Similiar to how a pitcher plays a much bigger impact to a baseball team than a shortstop. So three rings does represent at least something.

P.S. While I also agree with your idea that rings are more a measure of the team than any person, I think it's also clear that a QB holds more responsibility than say a corner or a saftey. Similiar to how a pitcher plays a much bigger impact to a baseball team than a shortstop. So three rings does represent at least something.Good point. Brady is more responsible for the team's championship run than Rodney Harrison or Asante Samuel.

But Brady and Harrison and Samuel all have the same ring on their finger and I would debate that a ring doesn't mean any less for those guys than it does for Brady. After all they were all Patriots in 03 and 04, and are all multiple time champions.

The three rings Brady has are representive of three seperate times that he has reached the game's ultimate goal. However, he is not a better player in any way because of it, merely a champion. The greatest good in football is to win a championship, but without a considerable deal of help from their team and luck from things they cannot control, a great player cannot become a champion. Said player is not any less great, just not a Champion.