Peyton Manning vs Tom Brady || Who's Better || COLLAB || Sports Summit #1

Edition #191

Smayan:

I’ve never seen two better players. First, you have Peyton Manning and then you have the G.O.A.T. (according to many people + me) Tom Brady.

We’ve all probably gotten into this debate before, though. Who’s better? Peyton Manning? Or Tom Brady?

I’ve found

Robbie Marriage

interesting over the last several weeks. His narratives are amazing, and he helped me figure out this CPOE stat. Welcome, Robbie.

Robbie:

What’s up? Thanks for having me on here!

Honestly, GOAT debates aren’t really my thing. But, I came to the realisation that I’ve been in the NFL advanced statistics bubble for so long that I’d lost sight of the fact that there are actually people out there who think Tom Brady is (or ever was) better than Peyton Manning. I need to fix that.

Smayan:

You’re not going to in this article lol. I’m going to beat you. Haha.

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Who’s Better?:

Robbie, you start. Why do you think Manning’s better than Brady?

Robbie: 

I don’t think we’re asking the right question here. You’re asking why I think Peyton is better. I’ll ask you why do you think Tom even deserves to be in this discussion? Have you looked at the numbers? I suspect you have, but not the right ones.

My readers know me for never doing anything quickly, but in this circumstance, I'll explain quickly so we can all get out of here and quit having this debate once and for all.

My explanation begins with this list:

Brock Purdy, Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, Kirk Cousins, Jared Goff, Joe Flacco, Kyler Murray, Baker Mayfield, Joe Burrow.

What is this list?

It’s a list of every QB so far in the 2024 season with both a CPOE (Completion Percentage Above Expected) and a sack rate better than league average. As you can see, these two numbers (with no need for any others) are very good at separating the men from the boys at the QB position, and lead me to my main argument as to why Peyton is the clear winner of this comparison.

The unassailable strength of statistical superiority.

Evidenced by the above list, and also work done by people much smarter than you (or Smayan) or I, that says these are the two things that tend to be the least dependent on supporting cast, what I want to see out of a QB is two things, in this order: 1) good pocket presence, and 2) high pass accuracy.

There’s all kinds of fluff stats around the edges (pass TDs, yards, INTs, etc.), but if a QB has good pocket presence and good pass accuracy, all of that other stuff will take care of itself.

The statistical proxies for these two concepts are sack rate (to measure pocket presence) and CPOE (to measure pass accuracy).

Tom and Peyton’s careers overlapped for 15 seasons. 2001 to 2015. However, Tom did not play in 2008 and Peyton did not play in 2011, which knocks this down to 13 seasons. Additionally, CPOE did not begin being measured until 2006. Without a suitable measure of pass accuracy before 2006, we’re just going to have to deal with it.

In all, this gives Tom 21 tries to beat Peyton in one of the two most important QB stats (13 tries to beat him in sack rate, eight tries to beat him in CPOE). How many of these tries was he able to convert?

Three.

Yes. Three.

In terms of sack rate, Tom beat Peyton once (his 3.51% coming in quite a bit ahead of Peyton’s uncharacteristically high 3.92 in 2007). In terms of CPOE, Tom beat Peyton twice, but even this comes with an asterisk, as while Tom being more accurate than Peyton in 2007 is totally legit, it feels a bit disingenuous to include Tom being better than Peyton in his miserable 2015 farewell.

Everybody talks about the head to head record between these two, but this is the head to head I want to hear more people talking about. If we’re generous to Tom by including dead-arm 2015 Peyton, his record against Peyton in the two most important QB stats is 3-18. If we’re not, it’s 2-17.

You’re a smart reader. I hear what you’re saying, and thank you for bringing it up. Tom played most of his best seasons after Peyton retired. Since this is an all-time comparison, it’s not fair to compare the two using just head to head performance in the seasons the two played. We have to include all of Tom’s stats, the best of which (except 2007, 2011, and 2012) came after Peyton left the league.

To do this, I’m going to pretend both of these players didn’t play a single snap in parallel with the other, meaning that for the purpose of the following analysis, the two were never in the league at the same time.

How I’m going to do this all-time style comparison is by doing the same analysis as above, but comparing Peyton’s best sack rate/CPOE season to Tom’s best sack rate/CPOE season, Peyton’s second best to Tom’s second best, etc.. This way it’s fair. We’re comparing Peyton’s best to Tom’s best, Peyton’s second best to Tom’s second best, and so on, to see if including Tom’s best seasons (most of which come after 2015) will make him look any better in this analysis.

The Brady stans may want to avert their eyes.

Adjusting for the differing offensive eras by using sack%+, which just normalises the sack rate to the league average that season, and comparing first vs first, second vs second like I described, Peyton’s 133 in 2009 beats Tom’s 125, funnily enough also in 2009. Peyton’s 130 in 2013 beats Tom’s 125 in 2022. Peyton’s 129 in 2010 beats Tom’s 124 in 2020, and as I keep doing this exercise, and Peyton keeps winning, I eventually use up all of Peyton’s 17 NFL seasons.

17-0. A whitewash. Right down to Peyton’s worst season ever at avoiding sacks (110 in 2001) being better than Tom’s 17th best season at avoiding them (105 in 2003).

Ouch.

I knew that Peyton Manning is probably the best sack avoider in NFL history (it’s either Peyton or Dan Marino) before doing this analysis, but even I didn’t know it was going to be this lopsided. In terms of pocket presence, Tom has no argument of being better than Peyton. None whatsoever, meaning he has to make up the difference with his arm, and he doesn’t do that either.

CPOE looks better in the beginning for Tom, as his 7.8 in 2007 beats Peyton’s best season (7.4 in 2012), but as we go further down the list, Peyton’s 2009 beats Tom’s 2011 in the second place battle, Peyton’s 2013 beats Tom’s 2009 in the third place battle, and this keeps going.

6-2 Peyton.

In the end, this makes Tom’s record even worse than the first way of doing this comparison, coming in this time at a putrid 2-23.

Whether you conceptually prefer the formulation that leaves Tom at 3-18, the one that leaves him at 2-17, or the one that leaves him at 2-23, the reality is that in the two most important QB skills (pocket presence and pass accuracy) he is sorely lacking.

Don’t take this as a slight at Tom. He’s better at both those things than all but about ten QBs who’ve ever taken the field in the NFL. It’s not as if I don’t know how great Tom Brady is, but in this particular matchup, he’s a minnow in a shark tank.

Smayan, you’ve made a bad mistake allowing me to start. I don’t know how your boy can come back from this, but hit me with your best shot.

Smayan:

I’m going to start with the basic argument. Who’s won more Super Bowls?

It’s easy to say that Manning’s CPOE is better. I want to shift away from that stat just for a bit. Brady is 9-3 against Peyton Manning in the regular season, but Brady is losing the postseason matchup 2-3. Did it matter? Not quite, because he went on to win 7 Super Bowl titles and 5 Super Bowl MVPs.

If we take a look at passing stats for a second, Brady had 11 interceptions during these games, while Manning had 16. Brady also had a better completion percentage, and fewer Pick 6’s. 

Honestly, Tom Brady is more clutch than Peyton Manning, even with the 2-3 record. He’s gone through adversity all along. From being the 199th pick in the NFL Draft, he’s won 7 Super Bowls and in super clutch ways. Just think about the huge comeback against the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl 51. He’s also amazing at game-winning drives.

Also, take a look at this.

Brady's First 4 Seasons:

48-16 in the Regular Season 
Won all 7 Overtime games he played 
Got into the Playoffs 3 times 
Went 9-0 in the Playoffs, and Won 3 Super Bowls. 
Manning's First 4 Seasons: 

32-32 in the Regular Season 
Got into the Playoffs 2 times, but lost both games.   

Robbie:

I didn’t think you were going to take us down this road, but since you’ve started it. It’s on. Nothing you said there was false. It’s simply misleading, and I have to prove it.

By comparing two players using wins, what you’re really doing is not comparing Tom Brady to Peyton Manning, but comparing the Patriots and Bucs to the Colts and Broncos, so since we’re comparing teams now, let’s get into comparing the teams.

I have a question for you Smayan. What’s the worst defence Tom Brady ever took to a Super Bowl?

The answer is the 2014 Patriots, who ranked 15th in EPA/Play allowed that year. Further question. How many Super Bowls did Tom win with a defence outside the top ten?

Just the one. In this category, Super Bowls won without defences capable of carrying a team themselves, Tom and Peyton are even. One each.

If we use Tom’s 15th place 2014 defence as the barometer of how bad a roster can be and still be a Super Bowl calibre team, then how many chances did Peyton have to play on a championship calibre roster?

The answer is nine. In only nine of Peyton’s 17 years did he have a defence as good as Tom Brady’s worst Super Bowl winner. If we treat 2014 like an outlier and say a top ten defence is a reasonable requirement to be a contender, then this number drops to just five.

Tom Brady won six Super Bowls backed by top ten defences, in addition to eight other chances at top ten defence he was not able to convert. Peyton only had five chances at a top ten defence in his career. It’s not a level playing field.

Winning is not something that can be done by one man. Not at the NFL level. It requires a team to back up a great QB, and Tom systematically had better teams than Peyton did, but since you brought up winning, just how good were Peyton and Tom at winning?

Combining regular season and playoff records, Tom Brady finished up at 286-95. Peyton finished his career at 200-92. On the surface, this feels like a gulf in favour of Tom, but it isn’t. The difference in win percentage is only 7.5 percent. 75 flat for Tom vs 68.5% for Peyton.

Do you know how small of a difference in win percentage 7.5 percent is? It’s only one win per year. Being honest with ourselves, how important is one win per year? The difference is minimal, and that’s not even accounting for the confounding effects of Tom being blessed with a top ten defence 14 times in his career, to Peyton’s five.

Do you think having a top ten defence helps winning? If you do, then you believe that the playing field was always slanted in Tom’s favour, and he still only managed to win one game more per season than Peyton.

Who’s the real winner here? The man who could repeatedly coast on the gravy train of a roster that did not need his help more often than not, or the man who always had to make up for the Colts never being able to put a good defence together?

If we’re putting both these players on a neutral team (where I don’t know what quality of defence I’m going to have), I’m picking Peyton, because Peyton is better than Tom in the regular season. Nobody disputes that, and in the playoffs with a defence outside the top ten, the championship score is only 1-1.

That’s the crux of the disconnect in this argument isn’t it? Analysing Peyton Manning’s ability to win requires nuance, adjusting for the fact that he was carrying around subpar rosters most of the time. Analysing Tom is the opposite. He likely deserves slight penalties for continuously being on rosters better than most of the other all-time greats got the privilege of consistently being a part of.

Tom does have the career lead in fourth quarter comebacks after all. In the above, Smayan used this as a compliment. This is not a compliment, because to get a fourth quarter comeback on the stat sheet, it requires being behind in the fourth quarter, which is a bad thing. We should not reward people for being behind.

Everybody who’s read my Tom Brady playoff articles knows it was more common than not to have a game that could’ve been won easily turn into a fourth quarter comeback due to Tom’s offensive ineptitudes. This does not make Tom clutch. It’s actually more the other way around. I would rephrase the statement from ‘Tom Brady is so good in close games’ to ‘why are Tom Brady’s games always so close?’

So that’s where I throw it back to you Smayan. How come Tom’s games always had to be so close, despite almost always having the better roster, and how come when his rosters weren’t vastly better than everybody else’s, all of a sudden there was only one Super Bowl win?

Smayan:

He did have a top-10 defense for most of his years, but can you blame that on him? No.

Peyton is better than Tom in the regular season. Exactly! The regular season doesn’t matter. The playoffs do. You could have the best of the best stats in the regular season, but not be regarded as the best QB, because you don’t have those rings.

To answer your question about why his games were so close? Tell me the receivers he had. Just because he had a top defense, doesn’t mean that he had good receivers to throw to! 

​​Yeah, sure you have Gronk. Sure you have Evans. Sure you have Randy Moss. I don’t see anyone else. Evans was for 2 years and Moss was for 3 years. 

Peyton Manning? You have Marvin Harrison (HOF First Ballot), Reggie Wayne (HOF Bid), Demaryius Thomas (HOF Bid), and Emmanuel Sanders (2 years, HOF Bid). 

Back to your original question, the reason he’s losing in the first place is that the defense can’t keep up, the WRs aren’t doing well, or Tom’s just getting set. We know he has the ability to do so much better than Peyton. That’s why he has 7 Super Bowl rings and Peyton Manning has 2.

Robbie:

Very coy of you to gloss over the fact that Tom had the GOAT Tight End to throw to, for ten years. You think a great TE can’t make a mortal into an elite QB? Go look at what Tony Gonzalez did for Elvis Grbac, and Tony Gonzalez is not the GOAT, like Rob Gronkowski is.

I will admit to you that Peyton had the better receiver group than Tom in the 15 seasons they overlapped in every season except five (2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, and 2015 I would argue either for a tie or for the Patriots). However, does this mean Tom had bad receiving groups?

No. It doesn’t.

Let’s just count how many years Tom had an elite receiver on his roster. In 2001 he had Troy Brown (who absolutely counts. That guy was awesome that year). Nothing from here until Deion Branch in 2005, who is close between great and elite, but he did get traded for a first round pick. Clearly, other teams in the NFL thought he was elite, so I’ll give him the nod.

Nothing in 2006, but then Wes Welker every year from 2007-2012. That guy deserves a Hall of Fame look, but hasn’t gotten one, largely (in my opinion) to preserve the Brady narrative. Also in this 2007-2012 stretch, you get career best seasons from Moss and Gronk at different points, giving Tom two elite receivers to throw to most of the time.

It’s no coincidence most of Tom’s best career production (2007 and 2011) came when he had an offence that could best even Peyton’s. I’ll give you that, but let’s keep going. In 2013, Julian Edelman plays like an elite receiver, but then nothing until the electric 2017 Patriots with both Gronk and Brandin Cooks on top of their games. Nothing from here until the obvious three years in Tampa with both Evans and Godwin.

If we tally that up, that’s nine years with no elite receiver (2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019), but that still leaves 13 seasons where he did have one, so it’s not like he spent all or even most of a career throwing to bums. As a matter of fact, that’s only two seasons fewer than Peyton spent with an elite receiver on his roster (15).

Considering Peyton only had to go without an elite receiver twice, while Tom had to do it nine times, it stands to reason that it could skew career numbers. That’s fair, but in at least Tom’s best 13 years, he and Peyton are on a level playing field, so how come when I lined up each player’s best seasons for comparison in my opening argument, Peyton whitewashed him 23-2?

It doesn’t all come down to receivers Smayan. They help, but even when the quality of surrounding players is reasonably equal between these two, Peyton laps him.

By the way, look at those nine seasons without any elite receiver. Do you notice anything peculiar about them?

Five of Tom’s Super Bowls are in there, clearly indicating that his teams made the right decision by consistently choosing to build around defence, because when they broke the bank to give him an elite receiver, he won the Super Bowl just two out of 13 times. When they elected not to do so, there was a championship five out of nine times.

This clearly demonstrates to me the old adage that defence wins championships. WRs and TEs do not win championships. At least not in the era these two played in.

Like you said earlier. Can we blame Peyton for his roster construction not being conducive to winning championships? We cannot. Can we credit Tom for his roster construction being better suited to do so? We cannot.

However, we can credit each player for doing their best with the situation they were given, and even if we cap the comparison at 13 years, to exclude any season where anybody was without an elite receiver to throw to, Peyton’s best 13 years are better than Tom’s best 13.

Once again, when we level the playing field, Tom and Peyton are not that different. When playing on teams built around their offence, Tom won the championship twice in 14 tries. Peyton won it once in 15 tries, with much better numbers.

Does anybody think Ben Roethlisberger is better than Steve Young, just because Ben won two championships to Steve’s one? No. That’s ludicrous. Nobody cares about the difference between two and one, so let’s not start here.

I interpret this as yet more evidence that, in terms of winning, Peyton and Tom are not all that different. I think we’ve sufficiently established that neither are Patrick Mahomes. Neither could carry a team where it’s offence or bust to a championship. If they could, they would’ve done it more than twice and once.

In this way, they are peers, but they are peers where one (Peyton) is overwhelmingly superior to the other in terms of individual production.

Smayan:

We do agree on one thing (lol). Patrick Mahomes is too good.

You have to remember one thing, though. The underdog story. Now, Tom Brady’s combine performance sucked. I’m going to agree with you. But, with the 199th pick in the 2000 NFL Draft, the man got selected and is now in this G.O.A.T. conversation. 

Peyton Manning, on the other hand, was selected by the Colts with the first overall pick. He is not an overrated quarterback, but he didn’t follow Brady’s path, making his job slightly easier.

Back to Randy Moss, he did not have a career year in New England, even though he did break his career record. 111 catches for 1632 yards with the Minnesota Vikings can’t be considered for that? 

You’re right. WRs and TEs are not the only people that win championships. Defense does too. Back to what you were saying about Peyton and the defense he’s been provided with, it’s not like Peyton didn’t have a great defense 5 times in his career. He still could’ve won at least 3! You tell me why he wasn’t able to win?

All in all, if I wanted a QB to get me 50 points in 2 quarters, I wouldn’t put Peyton Manning on. I would put Tom Brady on. He’s the Greatest of All Time. 

I’ll give you a bit. Peyton Manning is a great QB. But, no one can beat Tom Brady. 

Robbie:

I suppose we’ll once again have to agree to disagree my friend, but I think we’ve done a good job at setting out the arguments.

Those who think greatness at the QB position ought to be measured by team accomplishments, context agnostic, will land on the Brady side of this argument. Those who (like me) believe that winning is not a skill, and is actually a byproduct of great team play, will land on Peyton’s side.

To summarize what Smayan and I have laid out for you, Tom Brady consistently played on better teams than Peyton did. Not better offences, but better teams, and as a result Tom’s teams won more, despite Tom’s individual numbers never quite matching up to Peyton’s.

From here, it simply comes down to personal preference. Do you prefer the player with the better forward facing numbers, or do you prefer the player whose teams won the championship seven times? If we put these players on neutral teams, would Tom’s preponderance towards winning continue, or would Peyton’s fantastic statistics mean his team ends up winning more?

We will never know the answers to these questions, and therefore will never know the true winner of this debate. However, we can all agree that these two men defined and ruled over an era of NFL football. Regardless of who was slightly better, both left a mark on the NFL that will never be forgotten.

Peyton is still better though.

Thanks so much for reading.

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With that, the Sports Summit officially kicks off!

No, I don’t have collab pieces every day, but over the course of the next 2-3 weeks, I’ll be releasing 4 more collab pieces, to continue!

Thank you Robbie!