Kubiak and Wade Phillips are 7-0 and Rick Smith is.....

Fair enough

I just think Manning's one-and-done"ness" (all-time leader) and 1 ring are complete indictments on his postseason career.

Malone is certainly worse though. He might be the biggest postseason headcase in league history.

 

The one ring, and two other Super Bowls, tends to make those indictments incomplete...Again, he's not the greatest postseason QB ever, but far from the worst.

Sure, if he had never won it all... Or was like Moon and never even made it to the conference chamipionship, or like Fouts who never made it to the SB, or like Marino who only made it to one SB... You can start putting him in your top 5 "failures".

But I still wouldn't rank Eli and Flacco higher on any sort of list... if you're going to penalize Manning for being consistently great enough to play in the post-season, you're not allowed to prop up these two who happened to perform well in their minimal post season opportunities, which were limited because of their mediocrity in a lot of years.

 

You're entitled to your opinion, although you're probably in the minority

 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">10th straight loss in Indy for Coach Kubiak as HC or OC. 1-12 lifetime. Only win came in 2003.</p>&mdash; Lance Zierlein (@LanceZierlein) <a href="https://twitter.com/LanceZierlein/status/663515342115704832">November 9, 2015</a></blockquote>
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Manning has averaged 11 wins in 16 full seasons (and he's on pace for 14 this year) with a career QB rating of 96.8. His career winning 5 is 69.9%. In the postseason, he's 11-13 (45.8%) with a QB rating of 88.5 (81.0 in his three SB appearances). He's authored nine 1-and-done postseasons.

Relative to his regular season success, he has most assuredly been a major disappointment in the postseason.

Yes, he's in the playoffs EVERY YEAR and it's most often as a division winner, meaning the vast majority of his playoff games have been home games (14, to be exact; v. just 7 road games - 3 were SBs, ie neutral). He's been to the playoff 14 times and nine times, he's played a single game.

I don't know - if I was throwing out words without a lot of thought, "failure" would definitely come to mind. The most accurate description is probably "huge disappointment."

 

Moon and Fouts combined to play seven fewer playoff games (17) than Manning.

Marino is a more fair comparison - but he had fewer opportunities than Manning (10 postseason appearances; 18 total games) as his teams won far less (61% winning % as a QB). They'd both in the running for top 5 postseason failures, or whatever, list, when you consider overall success and opportunities. And they'd both be far ahead of Fouts/Moon.

Brady is the most obvious comp, and his postseason accomplishments dwarf Manning's: 21-8 record; he's been to the Super Bowl 6 times in 12 career appearances. And he has just two 1-and-dones.

 

So Manning would be better off if he just sucked more in the regular season and thus only had playoff opportunities with his best teams? It seems like he's being penalized for carrying mediocre teams to the playoffs (bad run game/defense), whereas many QBs just wouldn't get there in the first place so they don't lose that playoff game.

 

Like Major said... you don't get to penalize Manning for both making it there every year, and not winning it every year... but other guys (specifically Eli, Flacco, Aikman) get lauded as supreme post-season, "clutch" performers, when they had several years where they were mediocre... or simply lacked longevity or the ability to carry their teams to the playoffs.

Something tells me Brady would not lead a Jim Caldwell-coached team to a SB... while its hard to see Manning falling flat as much with Belichick. Not saying Tom is worse than Peyton (because he's not), but that the environment/entire team most certainly matters (especially when there are a few Peyton playoff losses that fall squarely on his team's defense and coaching staff).

Again, this is not arguing that Manning is some post-season god... but its hard to even say "huge disappointment" for a guy that's delivered a SB win and 3 conference championships (in addition to the individual accolades).

And all this coming from a fan base that hasn't seen even a conference championship game in close to 30 years.... its surprising. Who here wouldn't want to have a team/QB with the track record of Manning's... "huge disappointments" (and Super Bowls) and all?

Pretty sure most Indy fans would scoff at calling Peyton a "huge disappointment" in their post-season history.... and if the roles were reversed (and Manning was on Houston all those years with exact same results), most Houston fans would scoff as well.

 

I'm not penalizing him... Manning is one of the two or three greatest QBs I've ever seen play. But across 14 seasons, with different coaches and teammates, heck, even organizations, the one constant in a string of playoff failures has been Manning significantly under performing, based on his regular season performance.

That's fair; but then, look at some of the supporting casts Brady has dragged to the Super Bowl. Other than Gronkowski, and one year of Randy Moss, he's never had any weapons like Marvin Harrison, Reggie Wayne, Dallas Clark, Demaryius Thomas...

I would, generally, view any consistently great regular season player/team (the 90s/00s Braves) that consistently comes up short in the postseason as disappointments.

Manning has won at least 10 games for 12 straight seasons (with this year likely lucky #13); that's a high standard. Winning Super Bowls is hard and there are things beyond an individual player's control - but I think it's crazy that Eli has more rings. *And* - I think his nine 1-and-dones, which, again, transcends coaches and organizations... That's startling. More than half of his appearances have featured just one playoff game...

Isn't it all shaped by expectation? The vast majority of us just loved the Astros being back in the postseason; I would guess that "happy to be here" mentality will not be around next September.

Yes, sure - we'd all love 14 straight playoff appearances. Today. But with only one Super Bowl to show for it? How do most of us judge the 80s/90s Oilers that went to the playoffs seven straight years? Or the '90s/00s Astros?

You think Colts fans are satisfied with 11 postseason appearances and 1 Super Bowl?............

 

But you sort of are... if he wasn't that great, he doesn't go to all those playoff appearances each and every season, some with largely mediocre/flawed teams that he masked some deficiencies with. Yes, he's come up short in playoff games he was favored to win... much like a lot of great QB's have (Brady included)... I guess maybe Montana (who's my #1) is the exception.

Belichick, to me, outweighs any of the supporting cast arguments... Pair Brady with Jim Caldwell, and give him all those weapons, and I still see him falling short of what he did with New England.

That's fine... underachieved, and "overall disappointment" are still far away from calling a championship-winning player a total failure, "overwhelming disappointment", and "top 5 worst playoff QB ever" type jargon.

Half my friends/family are huge Colts fans... so I know first-hand, they mostly are (hell, as of Saturday, some were secretly wishing he was still there).

A lot of it was appeased with the 2 SB appearances towards the end of Manning's time there. Even though they only won one (one of them being badly outreached), it still did a lot to erase the bad memories of previous playoff shortcomings.

Similar thing happened in Denver with Elway... and by the time they finally won those SB's, he was a shell of his former self featuring a run-heavy team.

 

Who are the great QBs that have done it with the consistency of Manning?... I don't put too much in QB record... Yeah, sure - they all fail from time to time but you'd be hard-pressed to find a QB anywhere near Manning's caliber with a playoff record as poor as his.

What if we paired Brady with Tony Dungy, who was Manning's coach for 7 years?... I mean, come on, Nick - Caldwell was Manning's coach for 2 years, and not exactly during his prime (though he was still obviously great).

Did someone call him a total failure? I certainly didn't; I think he's one of the 2 or 3 greatest QBs of all-time... who has been woefully and consistently underwhelming in the playoffs.

So, not making the Super Bowl and being a perpetual playoff failure created "bad memories"...? You don't say?...

 

So it's settled, Manning is a better regular season qb than playoff qb. Thanks, Wheeew!

 

Prior to the Pats finally winning again last year (an amazing defensive play that led to it), Brady was not looking all that great for the playoffs, or his results in SB's, since he went on that initial early run (including the seasons where he did have supreme talent surrounding him).

Prior to Elway busting through, the same judgements were made about him as well.

You make the playoffs enough times... you're going to fail more than you succeed... and in Manning's case, he makes the playoffs every single year. So unless he's in the SB or winning it all every year, he's going to be perceived as an overall disappointment. A victim of his own self-created success.

Caldwell was the coach on the last SB team Indy had... a game they were badly outcoached/outprepared. Had they won that SB, is this even a discussion? Even in the SB's that Brady loss, did his team ever seem unprepared or outcoached? (hell, they don't win SB's by a lot either).

Yes, a total playoff failure... worst playoff QB of all time... which I feel is impossible given his success he's had (even if its somehow outweighed by his team not winning it all every single year).

Yes, and it was overcome by actually winning it all, so at the end of the day, they aren't as disappointed in him as a bunch of Texans fans are.

 

So is Greg Maddux a postseason failure for just one World Series win?

...or not so much because we were victimized repeatedly in Houston?

 

That's decidedly untrue. Brady was 12-8 with more Super Bowl appearances (3) than 1-and-dones (2) after those first three runs. Even his "not looking all that great" is miles better than Manning's.

But, if you want to throw three Super Bowl appearances out, how about we do the same with Manning and compare... what do you say?

And rightly so. Difference: he had played in significantly fewer postseasons/postseason games.

What constitutes fail? There are degrees of failure... He's been to playoffs 14 times and played one game nine times. And his numbers, across the board, are worse in the postseason.

I don't know how you could judge an underperforming QB who wins 70% of his regular season games and just 46% of his postseason games as anything but an overall postseason failure.

Yes, it was ALL Jim Caldwell's fault; never mind that the NFL's greatest on-field coach posted a 70.5 qb rating that postseason with 3 TDs and 7 INTs...

And when you're trying to make a case that Brady has benefited immensely from better coaching and then ONLY mention Caldwell as Manning's coach, when he actually spent the prime of his career failing with a universally revered head coach, it's wildly disingenuous.

That's because they were probably 3/5 of the way through their third serving of gravy.

I don't need to consult Colt fans; I lived this, to some degree - anyone have found memories of those Oiler teams failing every year in the playoffs?... How about the Bagwell/Biggio era Astros: we're all good with those results?...

 

As a Brave, he compiled a career 2.63 ERA; in the postseason: 2.81. I'd say he did his job.

 

Don't be dramatic. He doesn't have to be in the Super Bowl or winning it every single season..... in 17 seasons he has won one Super Bowl.

He hasn't been a disaster in the playoffs, and he has often had to deal with Brady and the Pats, but there are not a lot of memories of Manning in the playoffs and his playoff performance does not match his regular season performance.

 

Was Greg Maddux the pitcher in every single playoff game?

 

I'm not... the guys saying Manning is a top 5 post-season failure would be the dramatic ones.

People harping on one and done in a sport that the SB finalists play only 3 post-season games is a little extreme.

Agreed... the notion that he becomes a QB that has no idea where he's throwing the ball simply because the post-season is there is unfounded. He wouldn't be able to even get to a SB, let alone win one, if it was purely mental.

And yes, you play better teams in the playoffs than the regular season... its part of it as well.

 

Why would we throw those out? The point I was making is that Manning is not a post-season "head case"... which is decidedly proven by his ability to actually win the big one.

Brady's 12-8 record is decidedly worse than his regular season record... again, unrealistic to expect these guys to win every post-season game or come close to their regular season success record in a max 3 game season that is sudden death.

Again, penalizing Manning for being consistently great in the regular season. If you cherry-pick his post-season appearances to just those where he had the for-sure best team...

Without the SB win and appearances? Sure. With those, he's not a failure. Merely somebody who lost more times than they won... but made it there every single time (against great teams, every single time).

I'd take my chances that Manning wins that SB with Belichick vs. Caldwell. We've seen Manning hold up consistently (regular season wise) regardless of coach. Brady has had the benefit of having one coach for an entire career, who was able to guide Matt Cassel to an 11-5 record, and constructed defenses that allowed Jeff Hosteler to be a SB winning QB.

If they had won just one WS? Sure.... hell, that regime gets a partial pass for finally just playing in one, let alone getting swept. Same would have applied to the Oilers if they had finally broken through in year 8-9 of making the playoffs every year.