Exactly. The colts always kept Peyton stocked, when they could have focused on getting defensive talent through the draft. The patriots felt (and rightly so) that Tom Brady could make scrubs look good, which he did.
Tom Brady 2002: 62.1% 28TD 14INT 3764 yards 85.7 Rating Peyton Manning 2002: 66.3% 27TD 19INT 4200 yards 88.8 Rating Tom Brady ranks yards/tds/rating: 2002: 6th/1st/9th 2003: 6th/10th/10th 2004: 10th/6th/9th 2005: 1st/3rd/6th 2006: 7th/4th/9th What Tom Brady was, is underappreciated. Alex Smith, who is the ultimate game manager, has never ranked in the top 10 in yards or TDs, and made it only to the top 10 in rating twice (9th & 10th). New England uses a lot of short passes, so not ranking as highly in YPA isn't that surprising.
2001-2010 draft picks (excluding Kickers and QBs) Colts Offense - 29 Defense - 48 Patriots Offense - 38 Defense - 47
NE went defense more in the 1st round, but did draft 2 TEs (Graham & Watson, who were busts) & Laurence Maroney (another bust), plus Logan Mankins & Nate Solder (can't discount the value of time for an NFL QB).
Can we just agree they've both been immeasurably helped by landing with great organizations/coaching staffs and stop pretending there's enough of a meaningful difference? They're Bird and Magic; picking one above the other is ultimately a giant waste of mental resources because they're both phenomenally great. My opinion: Brady is better; variety of reasons. And if you think Manning is better... well, you can make a ridiculously compelling case that I'd be hard-pressed to refute. And it doesn't require you to desperately manufacture some silly slight of Brady, and vice-versa. Now let's all hope both of their arms fall off soon so they can give the rest of the conference a chance...
It would be more helpful to your argument if you would have limited it to the first and second round.
Both all time qb's but i'll give the advantage to Peyton because he was able to take 4 different coaches to the Superbowl. Not Brady's fault that Belichick is so good but that to me is the tiebreaker in a pretty much tied race. Belichick >>>>>>Dungy>>>>>>>>>>Fox=Kubiak>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Caldwell
It's a tad misleading, too. When Manning was drafted in '98, the Colts already had Marshall Faulk and Marvin Harrison on their roster. A year later, Faulk became Edgerrin James, who's not included on Donny's list. So Indianapolis had the luxury of being able to focus their attention elsewhere. Of course, they still drafted Wayne and Clark within Manning's first four years. They're probably knocking on Canton's door, too. What's interesting, at least to me... for all those picks, we can count the number of legitimately impactful offensive players drafted by each team using less than two hands. You get two all-time great QBs and they can cover up a lot of really terrible drafting. (To New England's credit, they've drafted better defensively. But I'm not sure many teams have thrown up worse results with RBs/WRs than the Pats; wow...)
But... Dungy actually owns a better overall regular season winning percentage (.668 to .664). If you think Belichick is better, I'm guessing it's because of his postseason record (23-10; four championships), right? It certainly dwarfs Dungy's (9-10; one championship). Well... Brady's postseason record (22-9) dwarfs Manning's (13-13), and while it's certainly chicken/egg (to most), it's better than Belichick's postseason record without Brady (1-1), too, FWIW. I think Belichick is a better coach than Dungy; but I don't think he's ">>>>>>" better than Dungy.
