On winning the big one...Peyton Manning
Before Superbowl Sunday, Mike and the Mad Dog were making their picks and spent quite a bit of time, as they had all playoffs, claiming that Manning "can't win the big one." That is, until he won the big one. From the beginning of this postseason, I had felt that this was Manning's year. Hell, I'd even picked the Colts to win during preseason. Lots of talk was made in advance of the Patriots/Colts game about Brady and the Pats and nemeses and other garbage. But once the Colts made it to the Superbowl, comments turned to the common criticism of "Can he win the big game?" No one ever seems to say, "he's due" in the NFL. And why is that?
Much of the talk of postseason choking by Manning has always seemed like hooey to me. Since football has such a small statistical sample compared to other sports, it appears as if some writers chose to gravitate towards "choking" as a player trend as opposed to "being statistically more likely to win" following a period of losing. Mike and the Mad Dog made similar comments about Kenny Rogers when the Tigers faced the Yankees, and we know how that turned out. But Rogers has faced the Yankees 35 times going 5-7. That's a fairly good sized sample.
Football, however, is extremely difficult to analyze statistically because there are so many factors at play: 11 rotating men on a team, weather, injuries, and even bad luck. However, Peyton Manning has been in the top 7 in completions, yards, and TDs every season of his career. Every Season. So, if someone said, "Do you think a team with the league's statistically best QB that has won 12 or more games in the regular season for 4 years running is a good bet to win the Superbowl?" I think I'd be inclined to agree every year, no matter who was behind center. Manning himself was 2-0 against the Bears, but only 1-0 against coach Lovie Smith and had never played opposite Grossman. Essentially, history meant absolutely nothing in this Superbowl. Manning's "choke" status was completely irrelevant. But many people felt that his "just getting there" was a sign of impending victory. A roundabout way of saying "he's due," but with the caveat that "he wasn't due 2 weeks earlier, but now that he's there, he must be due."
Until this year, Manning was 3-6 in the postseason, and 3 of those losses were by a TD or less. And yes, 2 of those losses were to Tom Brady and the Patriots. After this postseason, his record goes to 7-6. From a bum, to the anti-Marino in just four games. And winning those four games without being a 1 or 2 seed is a tough thing to do, no doubt. The Steelers did it the harder way last year, mostly on the road.
Someone asked me recently who I thought the best QB of all time was, and my immediate reaction to that is always a) I didn't really start watching football until college, so the Montana, Young, Elway, Aikman era is really my touchstone, and b) you're always biased to the guys you see play in your lifetime. At the age of roughly 30, Manning holds the single-season TD record and most 4,000-yard passing seasons. Dan Marino was done at 38, so if we give Manning 8 more seasons playing at near his current level, he would beat Marino's yardage record and threaten his TD totals. Even if he doesn't win another Superbowl, he has a good chance to go down as the most statistically valuable quarterback of the modern era. Check out this post from Pro Football Reference. Given a choice of any of the above, I would take Manning over any of them.
