As television broadcasters and analysts constantly remind us, the NFL is a quarterback-driven league. Super Bowl XLIV will showcase two of the very best signal-callers around: Peyton Manning of the Indianapolis Colts and Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints. A Colts victory would give Manning his second league title and affirm his status as the premier quarterback in football. It would also strengthen claims that he is the greatest QB of all time. Heck, even if the Colts lose, many will still believe that Manning is the best ever.
But is he, really? For that matter, is it possible to say definitively that any QB is the most talented in NFL history? Both the athletes and the game itself have evolved considerably since the days of Bart Starr and Johnny Unitas, which makes it tricky to compare QBs from different eras. Moreover, football is the ultimate team sport. It’s not like basketball, in which one superstar can single-handedly transform his squad into a contender (as LeBron James has done with the Cleveland Cavaliers). Quarterback is probably the most important and demanding position in sports, but a QB’s performance is shaped by myriad variables. Even if he has a howitzer for an arm, tremendous field vision, and superb clock-management skills, his ability to successfully direct an offense depends heavily on the ten players around him, not to mention the coaches on the sidelines, the defensive personnel on the opposing team, and the weather conditions in the stadium.
The NFL is a much more QB-friendly league today than it was in years past, due to rule changes and adjustments designed to protect QBs from rough hits and shield receivers from overly physical defensive backs. In 2004, the league announced that it would be enforcing illegal-contact penalties more aggressively, thereby giving wideouts more room to operate downfield. “In many ways,” said ESPN football expert John Clayton, “it’s the most significant rule adjustment in about a decade.” It was the following season that Manning threw 49 touchdown passes, breaking Dan Marino’s record (48) from 1984.
This observation is not meant to diminish Manning’s achievements, but rather to highlight how much the game has changed. Whether or not he is the best QB of all time, it is increasingly hard to argue that there has ever been a better QB than Manning. His arm is a cannon, his passes are lethally precise, and his football IQ is staggering. He runs the offense like a steely-eyed general, calling the plays, barking audibles at the line of scrimmage, and confusing the dickens out of opposing defenders. A great QB makes the players around him better. Manning does that in spades. At various points this season, two young Colts receivers — Austin Collie (a rookie) and Pierre Garçon (a second-year player) — have looked like world-beaters, thanks to Manning.
He holds a slew of NFL records, including the highest single-season passer rating, the most seasons with 4,000 or more passing yards, and the most league-MVP awards. When he finally retires, his litany of records will surely be even bigger. There is no scientific formula for calculating QB excellence, but Manning shines in virtually every key performance category, save mobility (you could clock his 40-yard dash with an egg timer).
Still, we should hesitate before pronouncing him the best QB ever. Since entering the NFL, Manning has played all his home games in climate-controlled indoor stadiums with artificial-turf fields (first the RCA Dome, now Lucas Oil Stadium). It’s easier to put up monster passing numbers when the weather is not a factor, and when your receivers can make sharp cuts that would be more difficult on real grass. Other legendary QBs have played in far more challenging home-stadium environments. For example, Joe Montana played most of his home games at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park, one of the most notoriously windy venues in professional sports. Other QBs who have excelled despite competing in cold-weather home stadiums include John Elway, Brett Favre, and Tom Brady.
Elway played in five Super Bowls and won two. Montana and Terry Bradshaw each played in four and won all of them. Brady has played in four and won three. (Jim Kelly of the Buffalo Bills played in four straight and won zero.) Super Bowl XLIV will mark Manning’s second appearance in the Big Game. Though the Colts triumphed in Super Bowl XLI and Manning was named MVP, his overall postseason record is relatively mediocre. Indeed, some of Manning’s worst games have come in the playoffs, such as a 41–0 loss to the New York Jets after the 2002 season and a four-interception loss to the New England Patriots in the 2003–04 AFC championship contest.
Before the 2009 campaign, Manning had played his entire career with a future Hall of Fame wide receiver (Marvin Harrison), and for seven of those seasons (up until 2006) the Colts had four-time Pro Bowler Edgerrin James at the running-back position. Manning’s current top receiver (four-time Pro Bowler Reggie Wayne) may someday wind up in the Hall, and the Colts also have a Pro Bowl tight end (Dallas Clark). The Indianapolis QB has consistently been protected by a first-rate, and sometimes dominant, offensive line.
Manning’s supporting cast is inseparable from his accomplishments. The same is true for all Hall of Fame QBs. Bradshaw won four Super Bowls with the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 1970s, and Troy Aikman won three Super Bowls with the Dallas Cowboys in the 1990s — yet both are usually omitted from discussions of the NFL’s greatest signal-callers. The reason is simple: Their teams were dynasties.
Aikman played with a Hall of Fame wide receiver (Michael Irvin), the league’s all-time leading rusher (Emmitt Smith), a five-time Pro Bowl tight end (Jay Novacek), the first ever Pro Bowl fullback (Daryl “Moose” Johnston), and one of the most formidable offensive lines in NFL history, which included a six-time Pro Bowler (Nate Newton) and at least one future Hall of Famer (Larry Allen, who retired in 2008). Bradshaw, meanwhile, passed to two Hall of Fame wideouts (Lynn Swann and John Stallworth), handed off to a Hall of Fame running back (Franco Harris), and took snaps from a Hall of Fame center (Mike Webster). (His Steelers also had arguably the greatest defense of all time.)
Montana won two Super Bowls throwing to Jerry Rice — who is indisputably the top wide receiver of all time — but he also won two championships without Rice. Elway never played with a marquee wide receiver; however, when his Denver Broncos won their two Super Bowls, they had a star tight end (Shannon Sharpe) and a star running back (Terrell Davis, who was named league MVP in 1998). Marino’s Miami Dolphins never had a premier rusher, though they did have receiver Mark Clayton, a five-time Pro Bowler.
Which brings us to New England Patriots QB Tom Brady. When Sports Illustrated honored him as “Sportsman of the Year” in 2005, SI writer Peter King noted that in his first five seasons in the league (one of them spent as Drew Bledsoe’s backup), Brady had thrown 97 touchdown passes, won 48 games overall, and compiled a perfect 9–0 playoff record. And, oh yeah, he had won three Super Bowls and two Super Bowl MVP awards — all by age 27, and all without a top-tier wide receiver or running back. “Tom Brady is, by far, the best quarterback in the NFL,” Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger said early in the 2005 season.
During their three championship runs, the Patriots had some good wideouts — most notably, Deion Branch, the MVP of Super Bowl XXXIX — but nobody who ranked among the NFL’s best. Then, in 2007, they picked up Randy Moss and went 16–0. In his first year with Moss and sparkplug receiver Wes Welker, Brady threw 50 touchdown passes (23 of them to Moss), a new single-season record. Had the Patriots defeated the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLII and completed the NFL’s first 19–0 season, Brady would have joined Montana and Bradshaw as the only starting QBs to win four titles — and his spot on football’s Mount Rushmore would have been assured.
But the Patriots lost that game, in part because New York’s defensive front seven overwhelmed the Pats’ pass protection, repeatedly hammering and hurrying Brady. He then missed virtually the entire 2008 campaign with a knee injury suffered in the first quarter of New England’s season opener. Backup QB Matt Cassel, who had not been a starter since high school, guided the Patriots to an impressive 11–5 record. (Surprisingly, it was not enough to secure a playoff berth.) This led many NFL fans to question whether Brady’s success owed more to the New England system and coach Bill Belichick than it did to his individual abilities.
That was somewhat unfair. Brady is 97–30 as a regular-season starter. Even following New England’s playoff loss to the Baltimore Ravens on January 10, his career playoff record is 14–4. By comparison, Bradshaw’s playoff record was 14–5, Aikman’s was 11–4, Montana’s was 16–7, Elway’s was 14–7, and Marino’s was 8–10. After beating the New York Jets in this year’s AFC championship game, Manning’s career playoff record ticked above .500 to 9–8. After losing to New Orleans in the NFC title contest, Favre’s dropped to 13–11.
In other words, among all the QBs mentioned above, Brady has both the highest regular-season winning percentage and the highest playoff winning percentage as a starter. No doubt, he has been lucky to play for a coach as brilliant as Belichick. But then, Montana benefited from the tutelage of Bill Walsh, possibly the greatest offensive genius in NFL history, who revolutionized the sport with his “West Coast” passing attack.
Is Peyton Manning better than Brady and Montana? Is he better than Elway and Marino? By some measures, he certainly is; by other measures, he is not. Regardless of what happens on Sunday, Manning has earned recognition as one of the NFL’s all-time greats. Whether he is the best QB in league history is an argument that will never be settled conclusively — nor can it be. But hey, isn’t that why they invented sports talk radio?
– Duncan Currie is deputy managing editor of National Review Online.