Fast forward to game day. We were up early and headed to Alltel Stadium.  We parked near the stadium and began our hunt for tickets. I only had a total of $1,000 to spend for food, drink and tickets over the 3 days, so I had been eating like a bird in order to maximize my bankroll for tickets.  We strolled around the streets and parking lots around the stadium, soaking in the atmosphere.  Eagle’s fans seemingly outnumbered Patriot’s fans by a 10-1 margin.  We were harassed, pelted with insults, beer, half eaten egg sandwiches and even hard candy.   Even Yankee fans know better…(EDITORS NOTE: We threw batteries at Ken Griffey Jr… No we don’t!) you don’t waste beer on a Boston fan!!!!  As we wandered around the lots we found plenty of ticket scalpers, but the cheapest price we came across that morning was $3,600!  Yikes! 

At one point we walked by a bar called the Tailgate Bar, just outside of the north end zone that was swarming with Eagles fans. There was a group of Eagles fans, perched up on the upper deck with a bunch of those palm-sized footballs.  A couple of them were having a good ole time trying to pick off unsuspecting Patriot fans by firing the little footballs at their heads as they passed by.  Of course just had to taunt them, hoping they’d fire some at me.  I dodged a few and caught one or two as I laughed at them.  They were getting more & more pissed as they fired and missed.  They finally laid off me when I cockily made a one-handed catch behind my back, followed by a disrespectful reverse spike. It’s not that I am really that cocky, but after watching them prey on innocent passerby’s, I just had to try to get the best of them!  Mission accomplished!

By noon, Lou and his friends were disappointed with the lack of ticket success and decided to go back to hole up at the Tailgate Bar for a drink or 10.  As we walked in, we were surprised that, despite how crowded it was, there was an open table right in front of their largest TV so we grabbed it.  Over the next several hours, I made several “runs” to search for tickets.  Still no luck.  The average price per ticket was still over $3,000 and way out of our range.  But I was determined.  Finally, about an hour before kickoff, I got up from the table and asked them if they wanted to come look for tickets with me.  Lou shook his head and laughed, “I’ve got a big screen TV right in front of me & I have waitress service, I’m not moving!”  They’d given up, but I was not willing give up after coming all that way.  One of Lou’s friends shook his head in amazement and asked, “Boy, you are really determined to get in, aren’t you?”  Of course I was & my response was quick, confident and incredibly ironic, “EVEN IF I HAVE TO SELL HOTDOGS TO GET IN, I AM GETTING INTO THIS GAME!”  With that, I turned and headed out for one last try.

I made one last sweep, heading along the east side of the stadium towards the south endzone.  Still no luck as my $700 plus sat lonely in my pocket.  I heard a roar from the crowd and then I heard the muffled echo of Alicia Keyes singing “America the Beautiful” followed by a (military) choir singing the National Anthem. I had turned the corner near the southern endzone, as the booming roar of military flyover sent sonic shockwaves through the air, the earth and my heart.  Reality was setting in.  It was nearly game time and my chances were dwindling fast, but, as an eternal optimist I still held out hope that I could find a reasonable ticket, once the game began.

That road behind that endzone was divided by ‘jersey barriers to accommodate the flow of fans on the inside and flow of vehicles to the outside.  I found a spot where I could see the top two-thirds of the jumbotron when I stood on one of the jersey barriers.  I watched the kickoff from my perch as hopes continued to fade.  A few plays later, as Donovan McNabb fumbled the ball, (later overturned), I felt a tug on my pant leg.  ‘Damn,’ I thought, it’s probably a policeman who wants me to step off the barrier.    I looked down and saw a young guy, early to mid 20’s instead.  “How much ya looking to pay for tickets?” he asked.  Hopes rose!  I thought carefully (for once) and responded, “Well, the game has started, so a few hundred bucks maybe,” I said, almost in the form of a question.  The guy proceeded to tell me that he had been working as a vendor inside the stadium, but was also a bartender at a bar at “The Landing” which was Jacksonville’s festival-like marketplace and a “hopping” place to be if you weren’t at the game.  He explained that expected to make over $1,000 bartending that night and that he’d ‘sell me’ his vendor shirt and credentials for a couple hundred dollars.  SCORE!!!! 

I was a little skeptical about getting through security, after all, it was post 9/11, so I handed him $100 and told him I would ‘palm ‘ him the rest if I felt like I was going to waltz through the first security gate.  I had pulled on the polo shirt, 2 sizes too small by the way, and pulled my windbreaker over it, leaving it unzipped enough to showcase my flashy new teal vendor shirt.  As we got to the gate, I saw several vendors in line ahead of me. My heart raced as I watched them flash their credentials and swiftly passed through security.  I stealthily palmed the ‘bartender’ the rest of his money and got into line.  Five minutes later, I was in the stadium watching the Super Bowl in a damn hotdog vendor uniform!  Even I could NOT believe my own prophetic freakin’ irony!

Notice the guy on far right just after slinging a mini-football

The game was tense and ultimately went the Patriot’s way as they held on to with their 3^rd Super Bowl in 4 years, 24-21.  I soaked it all in, staying through the post-game ceremony before my attention turned to my friends back at the Tailgate Bar, who I ‘d hoped had not left me stranded.  I picked up my pace as I bounded out of the stadium, eager to tell Lou and his buddies my incredible story.  I thought to myself, “damn, they will NEVER believe this!”  As I strolled into the Tailgate Bar, Lou and his friends looked up and just stared at me.  “You got into the game, didn’t you?” Lou asked in disbelief.  I was bursting at the seams, smiling from ear to ear as I ripped open my jacket to reveal my vendor uniform and credentials hanging from a lanyard around my neck that read “STADIUM OPERATIONS” with “Concessions” underneath.  Lou nearly fell off of his chair, literally.

“Hey getcha hotdawgs heyah!”

All 3 sat there, mouths wide open, not believing what they were seeing. “Noooo!” exclaimed Lou in a loud booming voice, “Tell me you didn’t; If you sold  #%&<@# hotdogs to get into that game, I will dance naked on this table right #^$%*$# now!”(Luckily, we never had to see that).   As Lou boomed in amazement, people curiously started coming over to see what the commotion was all about and soon the story quickly got around the bar.  Random people began coming over, excitedly patting me on the back & asking to hear the details, some offering to buy me a beer.  I think I had to retell that story  6 or 7 times as people kept calling over their friends so they could hear the story, too.   

Hard at work!

As we were heading out, Lou must have remembered that we had decided to spend the following day at Disney World because stopped in his tracks and asked, “Hey, you aren’t going to dress as a Mickey Mouse character to get into Disney are you?”  “Don’t tempt me Lou, don’t tempt me…” 

Victory!

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Tell Jimmy Derochea what you think: Tweet to @jimderochea

Sunday January 19, 2014 will be a glorious day to be a football fan.  At 3pm EST, we’ll all be able to watch another installment of Tom Brady vs Peyton Manning.  It’s an unusual sort of match up; how often do you get to see 2 athletes who are in the conversation for greatest of all-time at what they do compete against one another?  Manning and Brady will be linked to one another for as long as people will talk about football.  They’re like DiMaggio and Williams, Russel and Chamberlain, Bird and Magic, Hogan and Savage.

This week, the Brady-Manning comparisons have reached a fever pitch.  Most things I’ve read throw junk stats around or talk about wins and losses as if the other 104 players and every coach involved don’t exist.

I’m trying to change that.

Before we move on, check out the first 3 parts:

Part I: The Defenses

Part II: Running Backs and Offensive Lines.

Part III:The Playoffs

Now that we’ve looked at the moving parts not related to the passing game, let’s look at Brady and Manning themselves.

The Numbers

Everyone loves numbers.  We are stats-obsessed, and the data gets more and more specific and convoluted.  We love boiling down immense, complex scenarios into a nice little number.  I’ve used a lot of numbers so far in this series, but I don’t think they’re the be all and end all.  Having said that, they can tell a decent portion of the story.  But we need some context.

Let’s start with basic numbers.  Here’s a quick chart of their conventional career stats. The top row is Brady, the bottom, Manning:

A quick glance will tell you that Manning’s the winner, but by a moderate margin.  Although Manning’s got way more total TDs and passing yards, their percentages and per game numbers are really close.

What does this mean to you? Yes, Manning’s got a moderate edge, but so what? These are regular season conventional numbers, big deal.

Let’s dig deeper.  Here’s their QBR and DYAR:

Advantage, Manning.  If you dig the advanced metrics, Manning wins hands down.  The question is: why?

There are 3 main reasons this could happen.  First is because Manning is just…better.  Second is that Manning was relied upon to do more and thereby inflated his numbers a little bit when compared to Brady.  Third is that Manning had better weapons around him and was able to accomplish more as a result.  Or, and I think we all know the answer here, is that it is a combination of the last two, which then puts number one into question again.

Just like Brady’s superior playoff record is a result of a confluence of many factors, so are Manning’s numbers.  Until he starts drafting his own team, blocking, and throwing passes to himself, Manning’s (and Brady’s) number are somewhat a result of other elements.

Peyton Manning was drafted number 1 overall.  The Colts knew he was going to be the man for them for at least a little while.  As time went on, it became clear that the Colts main objectives were to keep Manning upright and give him plenty of weapons to keep him happy.  In the drafts since Manning had been a Colt, Indy used 8 of 13 1st round picks on offensive players.  Compare that to the Patriots, who used 9 of 13 first round picks on defensive players.

This speaks not to Manning’s bevy of weapons as much as to the respective philosophies of the Colts and Patriots.  For the Colts, this was PEYTON’S TEAM.  The pressure was on him to lead and make things happen or they didn’t happen.  For the Patriots, this was BELICHICK’S TEAM.  Brady was the Darth Vader to Belichick’s Emperor.  Peyton was the Colts’ Death Star.

Look what happened to the Pats when Brady went down with an ACL tear.  Matt Cassell (!) began his elaborate process of stealing money from the Kansas City Chiefs by playing exceptionally well and nearly winning the division.  This was a master stroke of Belichick.  People talk about him having Troy Brown masquerading as a corner, but having Cassell masquerade as a legit starting NFL QB was his greatest trick. This is no slight to Tom Brady in a vacuum.  But name another coach who can do the things that Belichick does under these circumstances?

In sum, Manning’s numbers are better.  But maybe they are better because the Colts made damn well sure they would be that good.  The Patriots made sure they had balance and the world’s greatest evil genius pulling their strings.  So we have to give Peyton the edge here, but just like Brady’s playoff record, we need to think about why.

The Intangibles and “Clutchness”

I’m not going to dwell on this too much because I think I made my point about this in Part III.  But let’s talk a little about being “clutch”.  Whether or not a player is clutch is a fascinating phenomenon because once you are labeled as clutch or not-clutch it takes and act of God to change that perception. Our own Jim Derochea compared Derek Jeter to Tom Brady in terms of having that “unique drive and that intangible, ” ‘winner’ quality you can’t quantify with numbers”.  He’s not wrong.  A rookie performing a game winning drive to win a Super Bowl as 10-point underdogs and “The Flip Play” aren’t done by mere mortals.  But does that carry through for all-time?  Has Jeter had as many Mr. November moments in the last 7-8 years?  Has Brady replicated his early magic?

For Brady, the answer is no.  According to Pro-Football Reference, Brady hasn’t had a playoff game winning drive or comeback since 2006.  He’s still productive, but the idea that he is infallible is just not true. He’s had several playoff stinkers (again more of this is in Part III).

This brings us to Manning and how he still, despite being tied for the all-time NFL record in game winning drives, is seen as not clutch.  To some degree, he has earned this.  The biggest issue is that he’s had some explosively bad single moments. This is where he differs from Brady, who’s only awful 4th quarter moment in a close game resulted in a Patriots win anyway.  So Manning gives people the jitters a bit.

I truly believe this phenomenon relates back to the Colts’ reliance on Manning for so much.  You can tell Manning presses sometimes, especially with the game on the line.  Many times, it works out.  Others, not so much.  But deep down, he knows he doesn’t have a Belichickian defense to have his back.  He knows he’s the straw that stirs the drink.  He HAS to make plays or the ship is sunk.

As for Brady, the man doesn’t seem to get jitters.  Why? Part of it is innate, but I bet most of it is from coming into the league without having to shoulder the load of leadership.  In a recent ESPN article on the hypothetical scenario of Brady and Manning switching identities, Ty law said the following:

Food for thought.  While I think the difference is grossly overblown, Brady always seems cooler when the chip are down. Which leads us up to…

The Final Verdict…?

We’ve weighed everything.  All the numbers, wins & losses, intangibles, teammates, everything but what level they’re up to in Candy Crush.  Unfortunately, the water is still pretty murky.  It’s too close to call.

So, I guess you’ll just have to watch them play. (AWTFGP will help guide you)

I’m not going to write an advanced scouting report.  It’s been done by people who are way smarter than me.  Both have amazing arms, both in terms of strength and accuracy.  Both have nearly perfect pocket presence. Both are amazing at exploiting weaknesses and finding open players.

But there’s a major difference, and I can sum it up in two sentences.

Tom Brady does all the things a modern amazing QB does and does them as well as anyone, ever.  Peyton Manning does everything a modern amazing QB does AND what quarterbacks from 60 years ago did.

Simply put, Manning controls his offense like no quarterback today and maybe like no quarterback to ever play the game.  Sure, Slingin’ Sammy Baugh and the great Johnny Unitas called their own plays.  But to do it today? With the ridiculous snap counts? The audibles? The posturing? The Omaha madness?

Brady just doesn’t do all those things.  He never has.  He runs a great no-huddle.  He does his share of checking out of a play.  His play-fakes are second to none.  But Manning is like having an offensive coordinator and QB rolled into one person.  He is the framework for the entire offense, not a vehicle for it to be carried out.

That is why I take Peyton Manning over Tom Brady.  Manning’s brain is a freak of nature.  I know he’s made some mistakes.  I know Brady has more wins.  But a lot more goes into those two variables than most people want to remember.

You can view Part I here and Part II here.

Tom Brady. Peyton Manning.  Both surefire Hall of Famers.  Both in any rational human being’s all-time top 10 NFL quarterback list.  But are they in the top 5? Are either of them the greatest of all time? If so, which one?

In other words: who is better?

The last 2 days, we broke down defenses, running backs, and offensive lines in an attempt to answer this question.  By looking at what each QB was working with throughout his career, we can start to determine which factors a) helped their performance and (more importantly) b) helped their teams win games.

One of the most oft used ways to evaluate a QB is wins.  This is flawed for many reasons.  As we stated in our first installment, there are hundreds of variables that affect the outcome of a football game.  Quarterback play is linked to many of those variables.  But many of those variables affect QB play.  Some have nothing to do with QB play, but profoundly affect the outcome.  So how can we make a blanket statement about wins defining the legacy of a QB? This isn’t tennis.

Both Brady and Manning have won their fair share of games.  Brady’s Patriots are 166-50 with him at the helm, while Manning’s Colts and Broncos are 177-84.  Pretty close with an edge to the Pats. However, the playoffs show a bigger disparity, with Brady’s teams going 18-7 (more wins than anyone in the playoffs…ever) and Manning’s teams are 10-11.  The difference here is what leads most people to reflexively answer “Brady” when asked who the better QB is.

I’m not down with that.

What we need to try to figure out is just how much each QB played a role in their teams wins and losses.  How many games were decided because of a bad bounce? A missed kick? A dropped pass?  The winners write the history books, but the devil is in the details.

So let’s talk about playoffs.

Yes. Playoffs.

First, let’s look at a very rough outline of Tom Brady’s playoff games. Here, we’ll look at the opponent’s defensive DVOA ranking, Brady’s QB Rating and then QBR starting in 2006, and the score of the game.

I’m going to highlight the things most important to me and add some other important tidbits.

1) In the 3 years the Patriots won the Super Bowl, Brady had 3 games with a passer rating over 100.  He played 4 top 10 defenses, and had 1 game where he demolished a very stout D (in Pittsburgh in the 2004-05 AFC Championship).  It’s not shown here, but he threw for 216ypg with a YPA of 6.4 with 11 TDs and 3 INTs in those games (numbers skewed a bit by the half he missed against Pittsburgh).  His teams ran for 116 yards per game.  His defenses were ranked 13, 2, and 7 those years.  The Patriots were 9-0.

2) In his first playoff loss in 2006, Brady shows he is human by throwing a game-changing interception in the end zone to Champ Bailey.  The following year, he plays poorly against the Chargers but is bailed out (more on that later) and loses to Manning in Indianapolis.  Two years of negative milestones.

3) Trying to attain the first 19-0 season in history, the Patriots endure a complete Brady stink-bomb against San Diego before having their record-setting offense held to 14 points by a Giants defense with perhaps the greatest game-plan execution in the history of football.  Now Brady knows what it means to be Belichicked.

4) After 2 disastrous performances in the 2010 and 2011 playoffs leading to one-and-done exits against the Ravens and Jets, Brady has what I believe to be his most underrated season in 2011-12.  He drags a horrific defense and non-existent running game to the Super Bowl, where he loses to the Giants again despite a mostly solid performance.  He struggles in the AFC Championship game, but the Ravens had the best defense in football that year. Then in 2012, the Ravens manhandle Brady and send him packing.

5) After the magical 9-0 start, Brady and the Pats are 9-7 in the playoffs.

Let’s look at Manning’s:

1) It takes Manning three years to get the monkey off his back.  A year after being pounded to death 41-0 at the Meadowlands, he finally wins his first playoff games with 2 thrashings of Denver and KC.  He is Belichicked in Foxboro, his first loss matched up with Brady. He does not play well.

2) After breaking the NFL TD record, Manning throws for 458 yards and 4 TDs against the NFLs 5th rated defense.  He then is abysmal against Brady and the Pats. The rumblings are official – Manning can’t win the big one.

3) After losing a game against Pittsburgh in 2006 that had almost nothing to do with his poor play and more to do with his drunk, idiot kicker, Manning wins the big one.  He mows down the number 1, 7, and 6 rated defenses and finally beats Brady in a game that matters.  Get ready for a dynasty.

4) The dynasty is on hold as Manning suffers 2 bone crushing losses to the Chargers in consecutive years.  In 2010, he loses his second Super Bowl appearance, in no small part to a pick-six that sealed the game.  Was it his fault or Reggie Wayne’s fault? In most people’s mind, it doesn’t really matter.

5) It’s 2 more one-and-dones, losing by a combined 4 points to the upstart Jets and eventual champion Ravens (the same ones who crushed Brady 1 week later.  Since starting 0-3, Manning’s playoff record is 10-8.

You can’t tell a lot from this table alone, but you can see a couple of things I think are very important.  Both QBs have had some terrible games.  Both have lit teams up.  They’ve beaten great defenses and gotten beat up by great defenses. Manning has slightly better passer ratings and QBR and has played a slightly tougher slate of defenses, but its tough to know exactly how well their opponents were playing in the playoffs.

Brady’s Patriots are 8-4 in games decided by 1 TD or less.  Manning’s teams, on the other hand, are 2-7.  What does this mean exactly? It means that in games where one bounce of the ball can change a team’s fortune, where one drop, or one missed kick, or one bad punt can win or lose a game, Brady’s Patriots usually came out on top.  Manning’s teams did not.

Do you think having the greatest coach in the NFL would help in those situations?

Do you think having the greatest clutch kicker in NFL history would help?

Probably.

Let’s play the what if game.

What if Adam Vinatieri couldn’t hit multiple last second kicks? (including nailing a 45 yard kick in the driving snow)

What if Mike Vanderjagt could hit a last second kick?

What if Craig Hentrich didn’t shank a punt in the 4th quarter?

What if Marlin Jackon doesn’t commit a face mask penalty?

What if John Kasay doesn’t kickoff out of bounds?

What if the Denver secondary knew how to cover?

What if Marlon McCree doesn’t fumble that interception?

Now, one could also say “what if there is no Helmet Catch” or “what if Rex Grossman wasn’t…himself?” And, of course, that’s all true.  But my point is that when comparing two teams with large differences in games that are essentially a coin flip, you have to take everything into account.  You can’t simply say “this guy won, ergo he is better.” Again, this is not tennis.

If just a few of those plays go a different way, the Manning/Brady discussion would be very, very different.

Brady clearly has to win the playoff record battle.  But if you actually look at what happened during those wins and losses, the disparity looks a lot smaller than on the surface.

Make sure you check out the 4th and final installment of my Brady vs Manning breakdown, where we cover cold, hard numbers and warm, fuzzy intanglibles.

You can view Part I here and Part II here.

As we all know, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady are fairly good at what they do.  They also happen to do the same thing.  They’ve done it at the same time for 11 years (if you exclude their injuries).  They’ve played against each other 14 times, and number 15 is coming up soon.  It may be the last time we watch them on the same field.  It’s as close as football has come to Bird and Magic.

The debate has rumbled on for years: which QB is better? No one can come up with a concrete answer.  Most answers aren’t backed by much other than “Peyton is a computer” or “All Tom Brady does is win”.  Neither of these are true.  They’re almost true, but I’m trying to find what actually is true.

Yesterday, I broke down the defenses Manning and Brady have each played with and tried to determine who had more help.  While the margin is a little slimmer than most might think, Tom Brady definitely had a better defense supporting him for most of his career, even if only because of the presence of Darth Sidious Bill Belichick.

The Dark side of the Force is strong within this one.

Let’s move on to our next topics: running backs and offensive lines.  Clearly, these two units are key to any football team and impact the play of the quarterback.  Is there a significant difference between them on Brady and Manning’s teams? Let’s find out.

First, and more complicated, let’s tackle the running back situation.  To start, lets have a gander at a few basic stats since 2001.

This table shows a few things.  First, the Patriots have outgained the Manning squads on the ground 8 of the 11 years Manning and Brady were both healthy by an average of about 200 yards (1859-1662).  Their yards per carry are pretty comparable, with their average within 0.1 of each other (3.95 to 3.85).  What I find interesting is that neither team had a sustained run of ranking very highly.  The Patriots ranked in the top 10 four times but were a little sporadic, and Manning’s teams never ranked higher than 15th.  They were both average in yards per carry.

To complicate things, let’s look at each teams’ top rated RB in DYAR, FBO’s Defense Adjusted Yardage Above Replacement.  This is sort of a sum total of value of a player over time (you can get a full explanation here).  The results are interesting.

Manning’s teams win here, with 7 running backs ranking in the top 8 in DYAR (including a great 5 year run from Edgerrin James and Joe Addai).  The Patriots have Corey Dillon, Laurence Maroney, Benjarvis Green-Ellis, and Stevan Ridley each land in the top ten, but this inconsistency in telling.  Corey Dillon had most of his good years in Cincinnati, the others haven’t strung 2 good years together yet despite being productive.  Edgerrin James was the only true franchise back either of these two have ever had.  Joe Addai probably could have been one, but he couldn’t stay healthy.

So what does all this mean? Before we answer, let’s look at the o-line.

If we look at Football Outsiders again for their o-line run blocking metric, we see another score for the Patriots running game.

The Patriots have had a top 5 run blocking line for the past 6 years Brady has been healthy, including 3 times ranked at #1.  Manning’s teams had a few good years too, but were more inconsistent.  Overall, the Patriots average rank is #8, while Manning’s teams are #12. Not a huge difference, but slightly better.

So what’s the sum total of all this? My two takeaways are as such:

Manning’s teams had better talent at running back.

Brady’s teams were better at running the football.

Manning had one of the most dynamic RBs of the early 2000′s in James.  He almost had a great one with Addai.  After a drought for a few years, he’s got one in Knowshon Moreno.  You can’t deny that talent (not to mention all three backs are stellar at catching passes out of the backfield). Having a great RB makes a QB’s life easier.

Brady, however, has had some of the best platoon back sets in recent memory.  Kevin Faulk, Sammy Morris, and Antowain Smith don’t scare anyone on an individual basis.  But together, with changing personnel and looks fooling the defense, they were pretty productive. The Patriots have also rushed for more attempts for the season 9 times out of 11.  They have a commitment to run the ball, even at the peak of Brady’s powers.  The Colts let that slip here and there, especially towards the end of Manning’s career there.

In addition, the o-line had better numbers, despite FBO stating that a better back would probably make those number look better than they are.  One would think the RBs leading in DYAR would make this happen, but that’s not the case.

So, in the end, I’m calling this a draw.  Manning had the help of more talented backs, but Brady was part of a system that worked.

Finally, let’s talk briefly about offensive lines and pass protection.  Protection is so crucial to a QBs that lack of it has literally ended careers (pour one out for David Carr).  As expected, the Patriots and Colts knew this.  So do the Broncos.  Take a look at FBO’s adjusted sack rate for these guys:

Pretty damn good.  The last time either of them placed outside the top 10 was in 2003.  Manning’s teams have been #1 on the list 6 times and #2 4 times.  Brady’s team has been damn good, in the top 10 10 of 12 healthy years for Brady.  These franchises knew ho to protect their bread n’ butter.  Manning’s people just did it a little better.

Well, until this happened.

The adjusted sack rate leaves out the fact that a quarterback’s quickness of release and pocket presence will skew the numbers.  Luckily for us, Brady and Manning are 1 and 1A in these characteristics and have been for 10 years (for example, this year Manning was the fastest draw, last year it was Brady).  Who has better pocket presence? This is like asking who has a better sleeper hold between Brutus the Barber Beefcake and the Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase. It’s an unanswerable question.

All in all, today we see that each QB had certain advantages and disadvantages at running back, leading to a draw.  The Patriot’s line was better at run blocking, but Manning was a little better protected in the pocket.

Let keep a tally as to who got more from each unit.

Defenses: Tom Brady (by a slimmer than you thought but significant margin)

Running game: Draw

Pass Protection: Manning (by a legitimately slim margin)

Next time, let’s talk about playoff matchups.  Who’s paths to glory were more difficult?

After each leading their respective teams to victory this past weekend, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady are stepping into the ring to square off in the AFC Championship Game in Denver on Sunday afternoon.  This will be the 15th meeting of these two quarterbacks, with Tom Brady’s Patriots sporting a 10-4 record against Peyton Manning led squads throughout their illustrious careers.  They’ve met in the playoffs 3 times, with Brady’s Patriots leading 2-1.

Manning and Brady have been linked to one another throughout their careers and will forever be linked in NFL folklore.  Entering the league 3 years apart, they’ve been leading their teams to the top of the AFC standings year in and year out.    They’ve played most of their carer side-by-side and have exceptionally remarkable resumes.  Both are in the discussion for the greatest quarterback to ever play the game.

So who’s better?

We’ve all debated this at some point.  Many people have written about it.  I keep hearing and seeing the same crap over and over again, to be honest.  We compare their numbers.  Their MVPs.  Their win-loss record.  At the end of the day, there are a handful of tenets that people espouse with certainty:

Manning has better numbers, but it was because of his superior weapons.

Brady is much better in the clutch, Manning has a tendency of choking.

Wins are all that matter, and Brady has the most wins.

Manning controls the game more than any QB of this generation and maybe more than in any generation.

Well, we know for sure who has better hair.

Valid points all.  But there’s got to be more to it.

Believe it or not, the wins argument is the weakest to me.  The idea of attributing wins to quarterbacks is a creation of fans and the media.  Teams win football games, and this is true in football more than any other major sport.  In the NBA, a superstar and 11 scrubs can make it to the finals.  In baseball, a dominant pitcher can essentially win a game by himself.   Try playing at an elite level at the quarterback position with a porous offensive line, no running back, and receivers who can’t catch.  Try winning games with a defense who can’t make any plays.  I don’t care how good you are, it is not happening. Ask Adrian Peterson.  Ask Dan Marino.

This is not meant to say throw wins in the garbage.  QBs obviously impact the outcome of the game more than any other player on the field (unless, maybe, you’re Lawrence Taylor).  But what I’m saying is this: there are thousands of events in a single football game that blend together to determine the outcome.  Sometimes one event that has NOTHING to do with the quarterback can swing a game.  How can we compare two players based solely on wins when so many other factors come into play?  Even for pitchers, where wins and losses are actually an “official” stat and the game is way more individualized, more educated fans know that W-L record is a poor way to evaluate a pitcher.

So why the hell would we do it in football?

Having said all that, I’ve set out on a mission to determine the truth about Peyton Manning vs Tom Brady.  I’m weighing the things that matter and asking a lot of questions.  How good have each QBs defenses been? What about the o-lines? Running games? Coaches? Opponents in the playoffs? What’s the truth about individual playoff performances?  If a handful of balls bounce the other way, how would that effect the outcomes of the game?

One element that I’m leaving out of this entire argument: receivers.  For the most part, Tom Brady has had to do more with less at receiver.  Sometimes, he has not, especially as the Patriots have evolved their offense to rely more on Brady than early in his career.  But the relationship between QB and WR is too symbiotic for me to know for sure who is affecting who more.  Manning probably wins in this department, and it is a typical crutch for Brady sympathizers.  But how do we know how good Marvin Harrison would have been without Manning? What about Reggie Wayne? Randy Moss joined the Patriots and set the record for TDs in a season.  Brady was good enough to make him better, but the reverse was true as well. It’s impossible to know the precise truth.

So I’m going to spend more time talking about the things that are less reliant on the QBs themselves.  I’ll also look at individual playoff game performances and point out a few things that people forget about Manning and Brady.  For the most part, I’m going to look at how they’ve performed since both entered the league. I’m excluding the number from the 2 years each didn’t play because of injury.

Who would you have rather gone with to prom?

I want to know once and for all: who is better?

PART I: THE DEFENSES

As I mentioned before, lots of things happen in a football game that have nothing to do with the quarterback but have a tremendous impact on the outcome of the game.  There’s no better example of this than a team’s defense.  So, if we want to talk about who won more games, we need to talk about defenses.

Manning people love to talk about how Brady always had superior defenses helping him along.  He had evil genius Bill Belichick running his teams and masterfully filming the other team’s practices coming up with stellar game plans.  Manning’s defenses didn’t quite stack up.  Is this true for their entire careers?  Who really has had the support of a better defense in the larger sample size?

Let’s look at a few defensive stats and figure this out. First, let’s look at points allowed.

As you can see from this table, Brady has had to do a little less work in this career to put up enough points to win.  The Patriots have never finished lower than 17th in points allowed.  They’ve had 9 top ten finishes and 5 were in the top 5.  Even in recent years, where the defense was not perceived as being as stout as in the early 2000′s, the Pat’s numbers look pretty solid. Manning’s teams, on the other hand, haven’t been abysmal, but they aren’t the Patriots.  They’ve got 6 top ten finishes and have finished as low as dead last.  If you count back to Manning’s rookie year, he’s played for 5 teams who didn’t crack the top 20. Overall, Brady’s teams have averaged 8th best in the NFL in points against.  Manning’s teams have averaged 15th.

So what, you say?  There are better ways to measure a team’s defense than mere points against.  What about turnovers?  Some teams let up a few more points and get more takeaways.  This is true.  Let’s take a look:

Judging from these numbers, you can see that the Colts/Broncos aren’t too shabby in this department, but again the Patriots are ahead.  They force more turnovers in 8 of the 11 years since 2001 and average 5 more each year.  That’s a lot of short fields.

Let’s get a little more intense and look at DVOA, Football Outsiders’ metric for measuring efficiency.

Very interesting results.  The picture looks a little muddier now.  In fact, Manning’s teams actually have a slightly better average than Brady’s, 15 to 15.16.  DVOA takes the opponents into account and adjusts the number accordingly.  I guess it’s meaningful that the Pat’s played a lot of games against some rough Jets, Bills, and Dolphins teams during this era.  Taking opponents into account, it’s a dead heat.

I’m somewhat a believer in advanced metrics, but I don’t like to throw out traditional statistics.  DVOA is attempting, in a nutshell, to count every single play that occurs throughout a season.  It weighs and balances each play according to importance and opponent.  It speaks to the falsehoods that Manning was always carrying a crappy defense and that Brady was always supported by a great one.

But…

It’s still no accident that the Patriots let up way less points and force way more turnovers.  This, I attribute to the brilliance of Bill Belichick.  His teams are rarely in the wrong place at the wrong time.  They (often) make plays when needed.  They bend but don’t break.   Belichick makes outstanding mid-game adjustments, better than any coach in football and as good as anyone all-time.  This all adds up to more turnovers and less points.  We can see this in many playoff games where the Patriots make fantastic offenses look ordinary (the only bigger surprise than the Greatest Show On Turf scoring 17 in the Super Bowl against the Pats was…the Pats juggernaut offense scoring 14 against the Giants).  Brady has played his entire career alongside an in-game defensive master (you can ask Manning himself if this is true).  The closest Manning has come to that was 7 years with Tony Dungy, who, as good as he was, was no Bill Belichick.

Indirectly, this may point to why Brady didn’t have the same great weapons for the first few years in his career.  The Patriots identity was a blue-collar, workhorse team.  It wasn’t for a few years that they built an offense around Brady that was truly formidable.  Which, by proxy, means that they didn’t ask a ton from Brady.  He was a happy accident.  He just showed up and was awesome.  The Colts planned to make Manning their focal point from day one.

All in all, Tom Brady has gotten more help from his defenses over the years than Peyton Manning.  Less points, more short fields, better game planning.   In the debate on who’s a better QB, score this one for Manning, even if its by a slimmer margin than many people thought.

Tomorrow, come back and take a look at Part II: The Offensive Lines and Running Games as we forge ahead and learn the truth about Manning vs Brady.

The biggest issue for the Hall of Fame is what constitutes as a Hall of Fame Career.

With the offensive numbers being rethought, is 3,000 hits, or 500 homers a guarantee?

Is it the Hall of Fame (Babe Ruth) or the Hall of Really Good For A Really Long Time (Craig Biggio…eventually)

At what point does the Eye Test give way to Advanced Metrics?

And can advanced metrics really replace the Eye Test?

I mean if you’re not a Hall of Famer the first 14 times you’re eligible…

So the way to fix the Hall of Fame, and I mean EVERY SINGLE Hall of Fame is to create an actual set of rules to define a Hall of Fame Career.

HOW TO DEFINE A HALL OF FAME CAREER

1.  Did you ever have your own video game franchise or were a cover athlete on a Video Game?

If you had your own video game franchise then it stands to reason that you were famous and awesome.  Since it takes a long time to make a game and get the legalities of licensing done, you are probably famous and awesome for some time.

As individual athletes are not getting their own franchises anymore, the cover athlete is the new gauge.  While it can only one per sport game, it’s a good bet to say that if you were the cover athlete then you were a combination of great and famous for a season.  The downside to this is, as it’s a one season thing and they rotate cover athletes you have the opportunity to get a “Peyton Hillis” and not a “Peyton Manning.”

This Game Is Awesome.  Also, Hall of Famer.

In: Derek Jeter, Frank Thomas, Tony Parker, Charles Barkeley,

Out: Hillis, Craig Biggio, Larry Johnson

2.  Did friends make rules about not playing as you in a Video Game?

A much forgotten video game, NFL FEVER 2003 got played a lot in my dorm room.  It had a few elements that Madden eventually stole.  But the biggest thing about it was that Marshall Faulk was un-freaking-stoppable.  To the point where it stopped being fun to play against the Rams.  So Paul and I made a rule, either no one could be the Rams, or we both could be.  And so it came to be that nearly every game played in that Dorm Room was Rams vs. Rams.

And let’s not forget that Michael Vick changed an entire video game franchise by being incredible.

In: Bo Jackson, Michael Vick, Marhsall Faulk, Manny Ramirez, Scottie Pippen (NBA Jam), Shaquille O’Neal, Tim Wakefield

Out: Craig Biggio, Toni Kucoc, Vince Young

3.  Would someone reset a draft because the computer took you early?

If you play Madden and claim that you never reset a franchise draft because you got a bad pick, you are a filthy liar.

In: Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Wayne Gretzky, Sidney Crosby,

Out: Any kicker ever

4.  Is your rookie card worth a sum of money greater then $1.00 prior to your election?

It’s pretty simple business.  If you are great then your card has value.

If your rookie card is on EBay and it’s going for 30 cents, you’re not a hall of famer.

If your rookie card was ever part of a give-away on HSN, you’re not a Hall of Famer.

In:

Graded. Asking 1,500.

Out:

My favorite player of all time. Asking 50 cents. He’s not getting it.

5.  Were you ever absolved of a crime, that if you weren’t so good, would have gotten you fired from any other job?

One day we’ll have to explain to our alien overlords that while laws were very important, if it somehow interfered with football, baseball, basketball or the college versions of those sports, we would generally let it slide.

If you ran a gun, drug, crime, murder ring and got away with it, you might be a hall of famer.

Because as a society we find rape disgusting and abhorrent, unless of course there’s a big game in which case it wasn’t actually rape, but a Sherriff that hates my school trying to get over.

In: OJ Simpson, Jameis Winston, Ty Cobb

Out: Sam Hurd, Lenny Dykstra, Elijah Dukes, Rafael Palmeiro

6.  Do people ask your opinion on sports even though you are babbling moron/horrible person/there is no possible way you can explain your greatness to others?

Listen for reason, people seem to think that they can ask Magic Johnson what Iman Shumpert should do in certain situations.  Ever the showman you’ll get a good answer about the game.  But the fact is, there is nothing, NOTHING that Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, Derek Jeter, Ken Griffey Jr can tell a reporter or another athlete.

Is their answer supposed to be “Well in that situation you should just see four moves ahead and let time slow down.”

Because that’s the only thing they can actually say!

The Babbling idiot part doesn’t really come into baseball as there are so many voices that they don’t need ex players, but football?  Sweet Baby Jesus!

Most importantly, you can NOT be a TV guy because of your “dedication”, “Hustle”, or “work ethic.”  Those are all code words for “not that great”, which is WHY you make a great TV guy.

In: Emmitt Smith, Shaq,

Out: John Kruk, Joe Girardi, Ron Darling

7.  What is your Hotient?

This is essentially the Derek Jeter Wing of the Hall Of Fame.

Famous women love famous athletes.  And you can tell a Hall of Fame Career by the ladies he’s been with.

Derek Jeter dated Mariah Carey, when Mariah Carey was still hot, and she may not even be in the top ten of the girls he’s been with.

A-Rod has Kate Hudson and Madonna (Two Golden Globes and an Oscar nominee)

Tony Parker had Eva Longoria.

That’s hall of fame trim for Hall of Fame athletes.

Lamar Odom has the one Kardashian that looked like she drank from the wrong cup of Christ.

Pictured: Khloe Kardashian?

So if you tally the length of your career by the sheer amount of crazy hot women you are with you come up with your Ho Quotient or y0ur “Hotient!”

In: Derek Jeter, A-Rod, Wayne Gretzky, Tom Brady

Out: Lamar Odom, Tony Romo

8.  Were you in a movie, either as yourself or named after a deity?

Ty Cobb was the first athlete to star in  movie.  He was the greatest to ever play ball.  It was all downhill from there.

 

Yeah Barry, your hat size is the same…

In: Barry Bonds, Ken Griffey Jr, Ray Allen

Out: Kevin Elster, Gary Payton

9.  Did you do a shitty local commercial?

Adam Graves was a great hockey player.  When he helped the Rangers win the Stanley Cup the sky was the limit.  So what did he do?

Somehow its WORSE in my memory

If you are so good at what you do, that local business will give you a free car just so you can use your celebrite to hock their product, your a Hall of Famer.  If the local business will go nearly broke just to have you, your a Hall of Famer.

And if you are fucking awful in it, to the point where there is no acting coach in the world that could save, that a wooden plank at Lowe’s has more range, that it makes no sense because you’re rich and why the hell would you go to Brooklyn to buy a Volvo…You might just be a Hall of Famer

In: Adam Graves,

Out: Peyton Manning (he’s national)

10.  Did People actually give a shit about you?

This really is the argument against the Advanced Metrics crowd.  Because you can tell me about VORP and Park Adjusted Defense Accumulated Swing and Miss Ration.  You can go on and on about WAR and what it is good for (absolutely nothing).  But the fact remains, no matter how high Craig Biggio’s WAR was, no matter how low Jack Morris’s Innings adjusted, League Inflated, Time Differentialed ERA was, no one, absolutely no one, outside of the women that birthed those guys, gave a shit about them.

Nobody ever said, “Get in the car son, we’ve gotta go see Biggio hit a double!” or “Jack Morris is in town? Well GOOLLLLEEEEY! We’ve gotta see him give up 4 runs in 7 innings before we die!”

And somehow, despite managing 3,000 hits, 500 homeruns and one congressional lie, Rafael Palmiero is a guy that no one, ever, at any time, truly gave two shits about.  That’s impressive.  And That means you’re NOT a hall of Famer, Rafael.

In: Derek Jeter, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mike Piazza

Out: Craig Biggio, Jack Morris, Tim Raines, Rafael Palmeiro

And That’s the point.  Craig Biggio is going to be a Hall Of Famer – FAME – despite not having FAME.  We need to redefine what the word FAME means, or what the Hall is about.  Greatness?  or Goodness?

But if you look up my rules, and you can do well by them, You are absolutely a Hall of Famer!

Tell Carlo what else needs to be a rule: Tweet to @AFR_Sports

Howard to change the fortunes of a franchise.  A player who can create his own shot and score in any manner and who can win a scoring title.  To a rational person he’s a volume scorer who has a brutal playoff record and to whom “defense” is just a theory.

Defense, that’s a deniable theory, just like…

So the question remains; what the heck should the Knicks do with Carmelo Anthony.

Do they trade him? 

That would effectively signal “We’re rebuilding” which in NY is a no-no.

Or worse, it would say “Boy were we wrong.”  And when you screw the pooch on your big free agent signing and then on your big trade, it’s tough

 to admit it.

Do they keep him?

If they keep him, and therefore extend him, they’ll be stuck paying max dollars over max years to a player who is only going to get worse and will be in his Mid-Thirties by the end.

Keeping him would mean that they need to bring in help, so they would have to wait out Amar’e to get his money off the books (any trade of him will likely get a worse contract back).  So then you’re wasting TWO years of your franchise players end prime.

Knicks fans need to face reality.  With Carmelo Anthony this team is going nowhere.  Due to terrible management, coaching, discipline and play the Knicks will not contend this year (they were never real contenders last year either), next year and unless there’s a crazy shakeup (Aliens abduct the Pacers and Lebron Decides to become a Mennonite) they won’t be real contenders in 2016 either.

And let’s make it clear, Carmelo knows this too.

So if keeping your star means you aren’t a contender for the rest of the Obama administration, you should probably think long and hard about trading him.  You can’t let your best player walk away for nothing.

Trading for Melo is tricky though.  The Knicks would need draft picks and either a young controllable star, or a nice expiring contract.

There are only three teams that make any sense to take Melo.

Chicago – which waved bye-bye to trading for Melo after making the Deng trade.

LA Clippers – which is the hip destination and they have some pieces.  Though it begs to ask, why would Doc Rivers go to LA only to try to move their most marketable star in 6 months?

LA Lakers – This is the city that Melo wants.  Melo is the star that LA needs.  LA may not have the draft picks that would make the Knicks swoon, but they do have an expiring contract that they can’t wait to get rid of and a desperate need for a second star once Kobe heads off to the glue factory.

And what’s better – This trade makes sense and can work!

If the Lakers add 2 picks, the Knicks can make out like bandits.  They can rebuild through the draft, plus have Gasol’s 19 million and Amare’s 21 million off in successive seasons.  Even if you assume that LA will be a decent to good team and that the picks will be mid-rounders, you can add to the (presumably) high picks the Knicks will get on account of their the Knicks and either package those picks for some talent (Kevin Love) or you can build an actual team.  Then with the money you have, you can buy a lot of talent.

Or you know, you can keep Melo, never make it out of the second round, and keep deluding yourself that if “he only had another star then he wouldn’t shoot as much.”

I’d make the smart business decision.

Oh crap, James Dolan is involved…

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I like Chris Kluwe.

A lot.

He’s a smart guy.  A thoughtful guy.  He “gets it” in my opinion, if that makes any sense.  He also seems like a cool, down to earth guy.  Kluwe actually answered a series of questions I posed to him about the crown of the helmet rule a while ago and, without blinking, allowed us to put it on our site.  Pretty awesome.

So please, don’t consider what I’m about to say a smear campaign. I swear its not.

However…I think Kluwe’s recent claims in his piece on Deadspin are mostly bogus.   His follow up Q&A with USA Today doesn’t help either. I’m not saying he’s lying about what was said (how the hell would I know that, anyway), but there are a number of problems with his self-assessment as a punter and the timing with which he’s saying all this.

Let’s talk about Kluwe as a punter.  He makes a lot of claims in this article that are true but a fantastic exercise in lying with statistics.  He uses his numbers to bolster his argument that his outspoken nature and opinions being in direct disagreement with Mike Priefer were the primary reasons behind him being “fired”.  I don’t think his argument is very compelling.

First, Kluwe says that his “gross average in 2012 was almost exactly my career average”, a statement which is true.  What he is omitting is where that steady average ranks in the NFL year to year.  In 2007, when Kluwe signed a 7 year, $8.735 million contract, he was ranked 8th in the NFL.  Pretty good and deserving of a contract.  Here’s his rankings after that: 4, 15, 21, 13, 22.  So, while Kluwe kept up his average, much of the league seemed to have passed him by.  In his Q&A with USA Today, Kluwe reiterated how his numbers where “the same as they’d always been” but again, it’s clear they were not the same relative to the rest of the NFL.

This leads me to my second point: while Kluwe says he is “statistically the greatest punter in Vikings history”, he is again playing with numbers.  If you look at the top 100 single season punting averages in NFL history, a whopping 68 of them occurred since Kluwe entered the league in 2005 (Kluwe has one of them, 47.6 in 2008, good for 34th).  What does this say? That if you use average yards per punt (Kluwe’s measure, it seems) to gauge a punter’s greatness, then almost EVERYBODY in the last 8 years is their team’s greatest punter of all time.  Punters kick farther than they used to, period.

Kluwe also speaks about how he was told by Priefer to punt “higher and shorter, because our coverage team sucks”.  This is probably true, and Kluwe is undoubtedly using this piece of information to prove that he sacrifices his “numbers” for the team.  Unfortunately, Pete Damilatis of Pro Football Focus pointed out the following on Twitter:

Kluwe says he sacrificed distance for hang time, but 26 punters forced more fair catches in 2012.

— Pete Damilatis (@PFF_Pete) January 3, 2014

and

And Kluwe says he focused on protecting a poor coverage unit, but his 56.9% Return Rate was 4th-highest in the NFL.

— Pete Damilatis (@PFF_Pete) January 3, 2014

Fair catches and return are influenced by said coverage unit, but Damilatis makes a great point. In addition:

Overall, Kluwe's +9.9 PFF grade was 25th among punters in 2012. Based purely on performance, it wasn't crazy for MIN to cut him.

— Pete Damilatis (@PFF_Pete) January 3, 2014

So while Kluwe thinks that he’s been consistent and undeserving of losing his contract, the way he stacks up to other punters (the very ones he mentions getting long contracts) is sorely lacking.

Kluwe is an intelligent guy and is acutely aware of his place in the pecking order as a punter in the NFL (right or wrong).  He wrote this to the NFL Hall of Fame selection committee decrying the fact the Ray Guy and every other punter in history are absent from Canton.  He also had a partly funny/partly awkward/partly inane exchange with a former NFL tight end about the punters place in the pecking order, among other things.  Point being, Kluwe knows that his status as a punter is going to make him more susceptible to being dropped.  Still he insists that his conflict with Priefer is the main impetus and that “those actions do not make sense. You don’t replace a veteran guy who’s clearly still performing.”

Um…is he serious? Productive NFL veterans get cut every single year by the dozens as cap casualties.  Shit, veterans in corporate America get “cut” for lower paid, younger prospective employees every frigging day.  Does he really think it’s unusual that a punter with a declining performance relative to his peers got cut so they could sign a rookie for 1/3 the price? This happens constantly in the NFL to players who play every position.

I won’t say that Kluwe’s outspoken nature had NOTHING to do with his being released, but it may have just expedited the process, not caused it.  My lifting coach had a saying about relationships: “The fuckin’ you’re gettin’ better be worth the fuckin’ your gettin’.”  And a punter with middling performance, calling the player’s union most high-profile representatives “douchebags” during a labor dispute, drawing negative press with disparaging comments about the pope, and calling an elected official a “fromunda stain” may not be worth the fuckin’ the Vikings were gettin’.  I’ll bet those issues weighed on the Vikings’ management more than Kluwe’s views on homosexuality did.  Kluwe even mentioned getting a vote of confidence on the issue from the owner of the team.  Preira had a bigger voice than him? C’mon.

Look at guys like Terrell Owens and Randy Moss.  They were insufferable at times, drawing negative attention and controversy at every turn.  Probably did WAY more to hurt their teams than Kluwe ever did.  But the only time the stopped playing was when the balance of their value added to the team teetered lower than what they detracted from it.  A player like Kluwe sits on a much more precarious perch.

The most disheartening part of this entire saga is that the dialogue will probably not be directed where it should be, and a huge reason for that is Kluwe himself.  He makes it very clear what his aim is:

and then…

Kluwe comes across as making this about himself.  Not homophobia.  Not eliminating anti-gay diatribe from NFL locker rooms and anywhere else for that matter.  Now, I don’t think Kluwe actually feels that way, especially given his track record as an activist.  Sadly, that’s how many people are going to perceive this.  In addition, he waited until it was apparent that getting a job in the NFL was highly unlikely before coming out with this story.  The public is going to have more debate questioning the skill, character, and integrity of Kluwe than they will worrying about whether or not Priefer is a bigot and if there are many other coaches like him enshrouded throughout the league.  Just like I’m inclined to do right now.

As we saw with the Martin/Incognito situation, NFL locker rooms are often divided in these scenarios (or at least they seem that way on the surface).  We’ll see what unfolds in the coming days/weeks.  My biggest hope is that the discussion shifts away from Chris Kluwe and towards the acceptance and tolerance he so persistently advocates.

So far, the answers to those question are no, not yet, maybe not, probably not, probably yes. However, Mike McCarthy has been adding to the ambiguity with the “information” he’s been providing on a daily basis about his star quarterback this week.  On Tuesday, word was that Rodgers got more tests (read: x-rays) on his shoulder and the medical staff responded to the results with a resounding “Meh” and declared Rodgers not cleared but not ruled out for the week 14 matchup against Atlanta. On Wednesday, Rodgers was a limited practice participant but threw short and intermediate routes, showed some zip on the ball, blah blah blah.

Make no mistake about it: medically speaking, none of this makes any sense.

If what McCarthy says is true, and the docs saw the x-ray and did not clear Rodgers to play, he ain’t playin.  Period.

So what’s actually going on?

The Packers are in desperation mode, big time.  They want every bit of an edge they can get to stay relevant in the NFC playoff race.  So why not throw a smoke screen about the status of their most essential player? The Falcons are reportedly preparing as if Rodgers is playing, so maybe mission accomplished.

Here’s why I’m saying this whole thing is gamesmanship and nothing more: if the bone is not healed enough on Tuesday for the docs to clear him to play, then it’s not going to be healed enough by Sunday.  In addition, the Packers medical staff are not doing another x-ray before the next game, mainly because they went to medical school and know that nothing is going to change.

So, the Packers aren’t going to openly admit Rodgers is not playing until the 11th hour, which is their right.  Rodgers is practicing so he can continue on his rehab path and maybe play week 15.  Keep in mind that is only when the risk of greater injury is eclipsed by the true need for him to play.  In other words, if the Packers know there is no chance for them to make the playoffs and there is a greater than 0% increase in Rodgers’ risk for sustaining a catastrophic injury, he’s probably not going to play.  If adequate healing takes place, then and only then will Rodgers play without a chance of making the playoffs.

The ONLY way I see Rodgers playing this weekend is if Mike McCarthy is fibbing or at least omitting much of what the docs told him.  Maybe there was a conditional lack of clearance, ie an “if Rodgers can practice well and not have any pain, his healing level puts him at a low risk to re-injure, so maybe he can still play” scenario.  This seems less likely than the “this shit ain’t healed, don’t fuck around, but don’t tell anybody yet” scenario.

All in all, I don’t think Rodgers is suiting up this weekend.  This is a bummer for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that I traded for him in my fantasy league after his injury in the hopes of getting him back in time for the playoffs.  I should have known better.