Why can't there be a debate my friend? You're ignoring context entirely. I do like that you mentioned that individual performance does not matter, by throwing the league MVPs in there, yet entirely ignoring that Peyton has almost twice as many as Tom does, so let's ignore individual performance altogether. Here's a comparison for you.
Quarterback A: In his one full season as a starter, he made the Super Bowl and got within an eyelash of winning it, before injuries ended his promising career permanently.
Quarterback B: In 17 NFL seasons, this man was never able to make the Super Bowl, only able to make the conference championship game one time, and consistently lost to teams worse than his in playoff games.
Clearly, Quarterback A ought to be preferred to QB B right? That's fine if you want to think that way. One conference championship to zero after all. You just keep Rex Grossman. I'll keep Philip Rivers. Putting both on a neutral team, we'll see who wins more. I'll bet on my side though, but enjoy sexy Rexy. If you believe the QB position is all about winning, Rex's 13-3 2006 season plus an NFC Championship ought to be your favourite QB season of all time.
Thanks to Robbie and Smayan for having this discussion. I'm always down for good spirited debate. Here are my two cents
Before I actually get into direct comparison, we need to define our criteria. My personal criteria for all time debates is who was better when both players were great. While doing peak and full career is perfectly fine, I think analyzing players’ primes strikes the best balance. I view Manning’s prime to be from 1999-2014 and Brady’s from 2004-2021.
What does it mean to be better? Well for QBs, their ultimate objective is to make their offenses as efficient as possible, primarily through passing (especially for these guys). I like to think of as who is the better offensive engine or if I were trying to build the GOAT offense, who am I picking as my QB.
So to restate the question “During their prime seasons, who would you rather as your QB?”
So how do we measure a QB’s ability to increase his team’s offensive efficiency? Here are 8 pretty solid metrics
1. EPA/Play
2. CPOE
3. ANY/A
4. QBR
5. Success Rate
6. Sk%
7. DVOA
8. Points Per Drive
Because Robbie already covered Sk% and CPOE and my access is currently limited to EPA/Play and DVOA, let’s roll with the other 4 which should be enough.
Regular Season:
ANY/A+: Manning 124.1 vs Brady 116.3
QBR Average rank: Manning 2 vs Brady 4.9
Success Rate: Manning 52.4% vs Brady 48.1%
Points Per Drive Average rank: Manning 3.4 vs Brady 4.6
Playoffs:
ANY/A: Brady 6.57 vs Manning 6.48
Success Rate: Manning 51% vs Brady 46%
I haven’t gotten the chance to calculate the QBR and PPD numbers, but every other number you look at will paint a similar picture to this: Peyton and Brady are identical in the postseason with Manning having better Sk% and CPOE numbers. You can look at Football Perspective articles if you don’t believe me. This in conjunction with being a superior in the regular season, makes Manning the easy answer for me.
As far as EPA/Play, I can assure you that Peyton is better. 0.202 career EPA/Play for Tom, which is absolutely bonkers, but still not as good as Peyton's 0.246. This disparity is why despite seven extra years to try, Tom only got about two seasons' worth of total EPA past Peyton. Tom generated 2776.6 in 23 years. Peyton generated 2400 flat in 16 (one year played outside the play tracking era). As far as EPA/Season, that's 150 points above average for Peyton, 120.7 for Tom.
Once again, both those figures are bananas, but it's still thirty points per season that Peyton's teams got that Tom's didn't. Peyton played 17 years. That's almost 500 points over a career that Peyton's teams got that Tom's didn't. That brings us back to the same disconnect. At scoring points, there is no argument that Tom is better. Your stance on this debate depends if you believe winning is a skill or not. I don't. I believe that winning is simply a byproduct of being great and playing great. One possession game luck is just that. Luck. It's not a skill, in my opinion. If you disagree with me on that, you'll likely disagree with my entire stance on this debate.
And that's why I disagree with your entire stance on this debate LOL.
It's all a team effort. I get that. But, the MOST important position in the game is the QB position. The QB leads you to TDs. If you don't have someone good at that position, you ultimately fail.
I'm not sure if you were asking Smayan or myself, but yes. There are a few skills that Tom could best Peyton at.
Like Smayan said, the one thing Peyton was not the best in the world at was avoiding turnovers. He was barely better than league average at it (110 INT%+ or worse) in most of his seasons. Thankfully, we've spoken a lot about how modern statistical analysis has revealed avoiding turnovers as not being a super important skill. Tom was great at this rather niche skill, and that's one thing that kicks off a pattern.
Tom is better at many things than Peyton, but nothing that's truly important. I don't think Tom can beat Peyton in any skills that QBs get paid for, but in niche categories he can best Peyton in plenty of things.
Tom was better at using his TEs than Peyton, for example, and is an outlier among the greats in this regard (most all-time greats don't use their TEs very well, preferring the higher offensive potential of throwing to outside receivers). He's not the GOAT at using his Tight End. I'd put my money on Steve Young for that, but he's better than Peyton Manning, who had an elite player in Dallas Clark for years that he mostly refused to use.
Tom was also better at short and intermediate throws than Peyton in terms of career EPA/Play at pass depths less than 20 yards, and was likely better than Peyton overall given that a pass less than 20 yards was thrown. On deeper balls, Tom has no argument for being better than Peyton, but that's a small part of the sample. I may even be willing to admit that Tom was a better passer (results-wise) than Peyton, as long as I need throws 20 yards and in. However, accuracy-wise, Tom cannot best Peyton anywhere. I'm not sure how to reconcile these two realities. It requires some more thought. How come Peyton was so much better in terms of individual skill, yet Tom's results were so much better?
I decided to give these two the 'Brock Purdy treatment.' How much of their EPA was generated through the air, compared to YAC afterwards? This is where we find the devil in the detail. Peyton's air EPA is higher at every level than Tom's, despite Tom's total results being better, indicating that at least in the battle between these two, Tom spent a whole career benefiting from YAC. About 515 more EPA from YAC over a career than Peyton got.
515! Keep in mind the career total EPA gap between the two was only 376.
Put that down to smart play design, or put it down to Tom's underrated but often very talented receiving groups. Put it down to whatever you want. The fact of the matter is Tom got much more benefit from YAC than Peyton did over the course of his career, which will for all eternity skew results-based metrics in his favour.
This is why Tom can appear to be the better passer at every depth 20 yards and in, despite always being less accurate. For some reason, his YAC support was systematically better than Peyton's. Is YAC support a QB skill? It depends on who you ask, and even then the answer is situational. I'm inclined to say no most of the time, but that's only a guess on my part.
Yet again, this debate comes down to a matter of preference, based on a fundamental belief about the QB position. Is YAC a QB skill? If you think it is, you will love Tom Brady. If you think it isn't, you'll likely end up on Peyton's side.
The question was meant for Smayan as much of the article was written by you and wanted to know what Brady had over Peyton outside of rings and clutchness (which is a toss-up in my book). However, you answer was good.
I think YAC is a partial QB skill. If you throw it to the right open people, and especially in the right spot. If you throw it to a receiver at the exact spot that will make him be able to run a lot more yards, then it's a plus.
I didn't know how to put that in grammatically correct words lol.
I honestly think Robbie made those stats up. Nobody gives a crap about CPED or whatever, sacks aren’t the QBs fault 85% of the time, and TB12 is the 🐐. 7 super bowls, record for passing yards. What more do you want? MVPs? Sure he’s got 3. Super Bowl MVPs? 5 or ‘em.
Actually, no. CPOE is an advanced Next Gen Stat. I never thought this was a real advanced stat either, because I'd never heard even a bit about it. But, if you go ahead and look at the NFL NGS Page, you'll find that it's true. I get your feeling, though.
I agree with you about that stuff, but this is an argument because in the end, Peyton Manning did have better stats.
What's up Rylan? I dig your stuff man. I've been looking for a chance to talk to you. You are incorrect on both fronts though.
CPOE (the NFLFastR version, NOT the NFL NGS version) is the ultimate measure of pass accuracy. It's foundational to the success of a QB. If you claim not to care about pass accuracy, I'm truthfully not sure why you bothered to read a debate about the QB position. Successive data analysis has also concluded that sacks are the QB's fault about 45% of the time, which is the most anything is a QB's fault in an NFL game. Even a QB's own pass accuracy is less reliant on him individually than this. Your strict thesis would be more correct discussing a stat like TD passes, which aren't the QB's fault about 75% of the time.
On a per season basis, Tom does not hold the record for passing yards. Drew Brees does. Counting stats are valuable, but not a stat like yards which tends to reward QBs for being behind. I actually would like more MVPs, since being the best player in the league three times can't quite match Peyton being the best player in the NFL five times.
You also respect media votes more than I do. I'm actually not sure which Super Bowl MVPs Tom won. I don't keep track of that kind of thing. I assume he missed in 2001 and 2018. On top of this, I can think of one more he didn't deserve (2016), and possibly some others. The media gets their votes wrong all the time, and even if they didn't, honestly, the Super Bowl is just one game. Tom played over 300 games. There's no reason to put so much evidence on just ten or so of them.
7 Super Bowls, 3 MVPs, 5 Super Bowl MVPs vs 2 Super Bowls, 5 MVPS, 1 Super Bowl MVP. Should never be a debate
Why can't there be a debate my friend? You're ignoring context entirely. I do like that you mentioned that individual performance does not matter, by throwing the league MVPs in there, yet entirely ignoring that Peyton has almost twice as many as Tom does, so let's ignore individual performance altogether. Here's a comparison for you.
Quarterback A: In his one full season as a starter, he made the Super Bowl and got within an eyelash of winning it, before injuries ended his promising career permanently.
Quarterback B: In 17 NFL seasons, this man was never able to make the Super Bowl, only able to make the conference championship game one time, and consistently lost to teams worse than his in playoff games.
Clearly, Quarterback A ought to be preferred to QB B right? That's fine if you want to think that way. One conference championship to zero after all. You just keep Rex Grossman. I'll keep Philip Rivers. Putting both on a neutral team, we'll see who wins more. I'll bet on my side though, but enjoy sexy Rexy. If you believe the QB position is all about winning, Rex's 13-3 2006 season plus an NFC Championship ought to be your favourite QB season of all time.
That's the kinda stuff that makes you the G.O.A.T. I couldn't agree more.
Robbie trolling lol
Thanks to Robbie and Smayan for having this discussion. I'm always down for good spirited debate. Here are my two cents
Before I actually get into direct comparison, we need to define our criteria. My personal criteria for all time debates is who was better when both players were great. While doing peak and full career is perfectly fine, I think analyzing players’ primes strikes the best balance. I view Manning’s prime to be from 1999-2014 and Brady’s from 2004-2021.
What does it mean to be better? Well for QBs, their ultimate objective is to make their offenses as efficient as possible, primarily through passing (especially for these guys). I like to think of as who is the better offensive engine or if I were trying to build the GOAT offense, who am I picking as my QB.
So to restate the question “During their prime seasons, who would you rather as your QB?”
So how do we measure a QB’s ability to increase his team’s offensive efficiency? Here are 8 pretty solid metrics
1. EPA/Play
2. CPOE
3. ANY/A
4. QBR
5. Success Rate
6. Sk%
7. DVOA
8. Points Per Drive
Because Robbie already covered Sk% and CPOE and my access is currently limited to EPA/Play and DVOA, let’s roll with the other 4 which should be enough.
Regular Season:
ANY/A+: Manning 124.1 vs Brady 116.3
QBR Average rank: Manning 2 vs Brady 4.9
Success Rate: Manning 52.4% vs Brady 48.1%
Points Per Drive Average rank: Manning 3.4 vs Brady 4.6
Playoffs:
ANY/A: Brady 6.57 vs Manning 6.48
Success Rate: Manning 51% vs Brady 46%
I haven’t gotten the chance to calculate the QBR and PPD numbers, but every other number you look at will paint a similar picture to this: Peyton and Brady are identical in the postseason with Manning having better Sk% and CPOE numbers. You can look at Football Perspective articles if you don’t believe me. This in conjunction with being a superior in the regular season, makes Manning the easy answer for me.
Another whitewash? Crazy!
As far as EPA/Play, I can assure you that Peyton is better. 0.202 career EPA/Play for Tom, which is absolutely bonkers, but still not as good as Peyton's 0.246. This disparity is why despite seven extra years to try, Tom only got about two seasons' worth of total EPA past Peyton. Tom generated 2776.6 in 23 years. Peyton generated 2400 flat in 16 (one year played outside the play tracking era). As far as EPA/Season, that's 150 points above average for Peyton, 120.7 for Tom.
Once again, both those figures are bananas, but it's still thirty points per season that Peyton's teams got that Tom's didn't. Peyton played 17 years. That's almost 500 points over a career that Peyton's teams got that Tom's didn't. That brings us back to the same disconnect. At scoring points, there is no argument that Tom is better. Your stance on this debate depends if you believe winning is a skill or not. I don't. I believe that winning is simply a byproduct of being great and playing great. One possession game luck is just that. Luck. It's not a skill, in my opinion. If you disagree with me on that, you'll likely disagree with my entire stance on this debate.
And that's why I disagree with your entire stance on this debate LOL.
It's all a team effort. I get that. But, the MOST important position in the game is the QB position. The QB leads you to TDs. If you don't have someone good at that position, you ultimately fail.
In your mind, is there a skill Brady is better than Manning at?
I'm not sure if you were asking Smayan or myself, but yes. There are a few skills that Tom could best Peyton at.
Like Smayan said, the one thing Peyton was not the best in the world at was avoiding turnovers. He was barely better than league average at it (110 INT%+ or worse) in most of his seasons. Thankfully, we've spoken a lot about how modern statistical analysis has revealed avoiding turnovers as not being a super important skill. Tom was great at this rather niche skill, and that's one thing that kicks off a pattern.
Tom is better at many things than Peyton, but nothing that's truly important. I don't think Tom can beat Peyton in any skills that QBs get paid for, but in niche categories he can best Peyton in plenty of things.
Tom was better at using his TEs than Peyton, for example, and is an outlier among the greats in this regard (most all-time greats don't use their TEs very well, preferring the higher offensive potential of throwing to outside receivers). He's not the GOAT at using his Tight End. I'd put my money on Steve Young for that, but he's better than Peyton Manning, who had an elite player in Dallas Clark for years that he mostly refused to use.
Tom was also better at short and intermediate throws than Peyton in terms of career EPA/Play at pass depths less than 20 yards, and was likely better than Peyton overall given that a pass less than 20 yards was thrown. On deeper balls, Tom has no argument for being better than Peyton, but that's a small part of the sample. I may even be willing to admit that Tom was a better passer (results-wise) than Peyton, as long as I need throws 20 yards and in. However, accuracy-wise, Tom cannot best Peyton anywhere. I'm not sure how to reconcile these two realities. It requires some more thought. How come Peyton was so much better in terms of individual skill, yet Tom's results were so much better?
I decided to give these two the 'Brock Purdy treatment.' How much of their EPA was generated through the air, compared to YAC afterwards? This is where we find the devil in the detail. Peyton's air EPA is higher at every level than Tom's, despite Tom's total results being better, indicating that at least in the battle between these two, Tom spent a whole career benefiting from YAC. About 515 more EPA from YAC over a career than Peyton got.
515! Keep in mind the career total EPA gap between the two was only 376.
Put that down to smart play design, or put it down to Tom's underrated but often very talented receiving groups. Put it down to whatever you want. The fact of the matter is Tom got much more benefit from YAC than Peyton did over the course of his career, which will for all eternity skew results-based metrics in his favour.
This is why Tom can appear to be the better passer at every depth 20 yards and in, despite always being less accurate. For some reason, his YAC support was systematically better than Peyton's. Is YAC support a QB skill? It depends on who you ask, and even then the answer is situational. I'm inclined to say no most of the time, but that's only a guess on my part.
Yet again, this debate comes down to a matter of preference, based on a fundamental belief about the QB position. Is YAC a QB skill? If you think it is, you will love Tom Brady. If you think it isn't, you'll likely end up on Peyton's side.
The question was meant for Smayan as much of the article was written by you and wanted to know what Brady had over Peyton outside of rings and clutchness (which is a toss-up in my book). However, you answer was good.
I think YAC is a partial QB skill. If you throw it to the right open people, and especially in the right spot. If you throw it to a receiver at the exact spot that will make him be able to run a lot more yards, then it's a plus.
I didn't know how to put that in grammatically correct words lol.
Brady's turnover numbers
Bro just said current day Flacco is good💀💀💀
I mean, he is.. That's just my bias though.
Hey yo. I didn't say anything!
I said Joe Flacco has a sack rate below average and pass accuracy above average. That's on the field. I didn't say anything about Joe Flacco LOL.
In his, although limited, time with the Browns and his first few starts with the Colts would agree, though has struggled in the last 2 games.
Fact checking myself because for some reason you can't edit replies: Browns Flacco had a -2.9 CPOE. Thought Robbie wrote since 2023.
Ye cus the Texans released the blueprint on stopping him
Peyton definitely deserves talks in the goat debate tho
He does. He has some good stats.
In the end, though, Tom Brady is just BETTER.
I honestly think Robbie made those stats up. Nobody gives a crap about CPED or whatever, sacks aren’t the QBs fault 85% of the time, and TB12 is the 🐐. 7 super bowls, record for passing yards. What more do you want? MVPs? Sure he’s got 3. Super Bowl MVPs? 5 or ‘em.
Actually, no. CPOE is an advanced Next Gen Stat. I never thought this was a real advanced stat either, because I'd never heard even a bit about it. But, if you go ahead and look at the NFL NGS Page, you'll find that it's true. I get your feeling, though.
I agree with you about that stuff, but this is an argument because in the end, Peyton Manning did have better stats.
What's up Rylan? I dig your stuff man. I've been looking for a chance to talk to you. You are incorrect on both fronts though.
CPOE (the NFLFastR version, NOT the NFL NGS version) is the ultimate measure of pass accuracy. It's foundational to the success of a QB. If you claim not to care about pass accuracy, I'm truthfully not sure why you bothered to read a debate about the QB position. Successive data analysis has also concluded that sacks are the QB's fault about 45% of the time, which is the most anything is a QB's fault in an NFL game. Even a QB's own pass accuracy is less reliant on him individually than this. Your strict thesis would be more correct discussing a stat like TD passes, which aren't the QB's fault about 75% of the time.
On a per season basis, Tom does not hold the record for passing yards. Drew Brees does. Counting stats are valuable, but not a stat like yards which tends to reward QBs for being behind. I actually would like more MVPs, since being the best player in the league three times can't quite match Peyton being the best player in the NFL five times.
You also respect media votes more than I do. I'm actually not sure which Super Bowl MVPs Tom won. I don't keep track of that kind of thing. I assume he missed in 2001 and 2018. On top of this, I can think of one more he didn't deserve (2016), and possibly some others. The media gets their votes wrong all the time, and even if they didn't, honestly, the Super Bowl is just one game. Tom played over 300 games. There's no reason to put so much evidence on just ten or so of them.
Oh yeah my bad lol. I said NGS because I saw it on RedZone on Sunday.