NFL '13 SEASON THREAD

[Sport]

And Brady's postseason resume of late really isn't that great...

Neither has Peyton's. Peyton's lone Super Bowl victory came two years after Brady's third. Since then both have been to two, and both have lost two. And Brady never looked as outmatched as Manning did tonight. He also never threw away a Super Bowl like Manning did. So both have had less then stellar postseason success recently. The difference was that Brady had success early on with three Super Bowl rings and Manning struggled, finally getting one.

...and the early successes were largely due to New England having an elite defense (I'll remind you that Manning has never had anything that resembled one of these).

Football is, at the end of the day, a team game. Now this is, rightfully, pointed out to remind us that you can't judge quarterback greatness on rings alone. Which is true. Yet I think we tend to overemphasis that point and go to far in the other direction at times. No, rings are not the be-all-end-all of a quarterback's legacy. Yet they cannot be discounted either. As stellar as Dan Marino's career was he will never escape the fact that he never won a Super Bowl. Manning has one, yes, but he should have a few more given his stellar regular season numbers. No, his defences were never that great, but he still managed to get them to the playoffs year in and year out, posting 10+ win seasons in the process. So at a certain point we have to address the fact that something happens with Manning where he, more often then not, falls apart in the postseason.

There's two ways to think about this. The other way, the way I choose to see it, is that Manning was on a lot of (talent-wise) pretty mediocre run-of-the-mill football teams in his career and he often took them farther in the playoffs than they should've gone. (He took a Jim Caldwell coached team to the Super Bowl for crying out loud!) That means that when those teams got deep enough he was faced with the task of carrying all of that on his back against a very tough opponent and that's usually when things went sideways for him.

He also doesn't play defense or special teams and a lot of the playoff losses were errors by those groups outside of his control.

This loss doesn't change anything for me. He's still my guy if I'm picking a QB from the last 15 years to start a team with. Brady, while a great QB in his own right, benefited from far more talent around him and maybe the best NFL head coach since Bill Walsh.

[Xist2inspire]

When it comes to Peyton, I really hope this puts to rest all of the "Greatest QB ever" talk. Now is he one of the greatest QBs ever? Of course, he's far from a scrub. But he's in a class with Marino, Favre, and to a much lesser extent, Romo. He can put up points and chew up yards like nobody's business, he's exciting, his talents are incredible...but when the chips are down, when the lights are on, he usually underperforms. Somehow, some way, he comes out on the losing end. That's not a mark of the "Greatest of All Time." We should make note of and respect Peyton's amazing skills, but to put him in a class with not just great QBs, but great winners, let alone calling him the best? That kind of praise is a bit too high.

Peyton's post season stats are comparable to any of the "clutch, play-off winning" QBs, and aren't that far off of his regular season numbers. So this argument is ridiculous.

I'm just saying. The same types of arguments come up in the NBA a lot, and it irks me every time. People wanna yell "championships!!!" when talking about the "Greatest Ever," and they yell "stats!!!" and "but it's a team sport!!!" when said player they're arguing for doesn't have the championships. Either you have it one way or the other, you can't have both. Had Peyton won, everybody would've been ready and willing to claim him as the best, by virtue of his stats + 2 rings, but now that he's lost, the line is, "it doesn't matter."

For the record, I like Peyton a lot. I was extremely happy to see him win his first Super Bowl. But, just like the fact that I like LeBron while despising the hype and hyperbole surrounding his ranking all-time, so too do I dislike the constant talk about Peyton. Either take everything about him, his career, and even the history of the game into account, or don't bother with making a serious argument. That goes for LeBron, Peyton, MJ, Brady, Kobe, Montana, or whoever else comes up in these "Greatest Ever" debates.

[LMU]

The bottom line is that taking aside the giveaways, Denver's offense relies heavily on YAC, and with how Seattle was tackling tonight, no drives were going to be sustained.

The one thing one has to wonder... what's going through Nick's head tonght?

[Kramerica Industries]

All things considered, we should be in line for some more Seattle/SF West and playoff duels for the next few years. Both teams are young, stacked, and extremely well coached. The Seahawks wrecked the Broncos tonight, and they very nearly didn't get to this game because of the Niners battling them tooth-and-nail two weeks ago.

Considering the state of the NFC West just three years ago, they've come an extremely long way.

[infrared41]

That's not to say that Manning doesn't deserve any blame, but anyone placing all the blame on him doesn't know about football.

Now Greg, we've got a podcast in two days. So I don't want to waste any back and forth here. I just want to address two points. The first one's here. I never said Manning deserved all of the blame for what happened tonight. I said he deserved part of the blame. Which I maintain is a fair statement.

As for the second point...

If there's a team in the NFL that could have beaten Seattle tonight, I haven't seen it.

I said beat them tonight.

Also, I wasn't referring to you (or anyone in particular for that matter) with my "blame" statement. It was more of a shot at the talking heads that I won't be watching now that football season is mercifully (and finally) over.

[WSU151]

One thing I want to point out. The defining play of the game, Seattle had absolutely nothing to do with.

True.

When is it not too soon to talk about this win in context of other dominant championship wins? It has to rate right near the top, right? No team had scored more points than the Broncos, and they were nearly blanked. That's pretty special.

It's gotta be right up there with the '85 Bears win over the Patriots. That's what it reminded me of anyway.

Yeah I would agree with this. It's rare we see this dominance and physicality in a Super Bowl. I'd say the 2007 Giants' defense was pretty dominant against the Patriots offense and rank in the top 5. The Buccaneers dominated the Raiders, and the 49ers had two dominating wins, but they weren't just physically dominant.

[infrared41]

All things considered, we should be in line for some more Seattle/SF West and playoff duels for the next few years. Both teams are young, stacked, and extremely well coached. The Seahawks wrecked the Broncos tonight, and they very nearly didn't get to this game because of the Niners battling them tooth-and-nail two weeks ago.

Considering the state of the NFC West just three years ago, they've come an extremely long way.

Assuming Seattle can afford to keep this team together. There are quite a few Seattle players who will be up for new deals in next two seasons. If you listened to BAFS you'd already know this.

[ADW77]

One thing I want to point out. The defining play of the game, Seattle had absolutely nothing to do with.

True.

When is it not too soon to talk about this win in context of other dominant championship wins? It has to rate right near the top, right? No team had scored more points than the Broncos, and they were nearly blanked. That's pretty special.

It's gotta be right up there with the '85 Bears win over the Patriots. That's what it reminded me of anyway.

Yeah I would agree with this. It's rare we see this dominance and physicality in a Super Bowl. I'd say the 2007 Giants' defense was pretty dominant against the Patriots offense and rank in the top 5. The Buccaneers dominated the Raiders, and the 49ers had two dominating wins, but they weren't just physically dominant.

Not sure if you were trying to reply to what I said, but... (Didn't see your reply when I replied, it was blank)

I'm in no way saying anything other than Seattle just completely took it to Denver tonight. While Denver played their worst game since Manning has been here, it's not like they just played that way because... Seattle forced Denver into mistake after mistake and readily capitalized on them.

I was only saying that the defining play (at least in my mind), Seattle had nothing to do with. Which was the first snap Denver had.

[See Red]

And Brady's postseason resume of late really isn't that great...

Neither has Peyton's. Peyton's lone Super Bowl victory came two years after Brady's third. Since then both have been to two, and both have lost two. And Brady never looked as outmatched as Manning did tonight. He also never threw away a Super Bowl like Manning did. So both have had less then stellar postseason success recently. The difference was that Brady had success early on with three Super Bowl rings and Manning struggled, finally getting one.

...and the early successes were largely due to New England having an elite defense (I'll remind you that Manning has never had anything that resembled one of these).

Football is, at the end of the day, a team game. Now this is, rightfully, pointed out to remind us that you can't judge quarterback greatness on rings alone. Which is true. Yet I think we tend to overemphasis that point and go to far in the other direction at times. No, rings are not the be-all-end-all of a quarterback's legacy. Yet they cannot be discounted either. As stellar as Dan Marino's career was he will never escape the fact that he never won a Super Bowl. Manning has one, yes, but he should have a few more given his stellar regular season numbers. No, his defences were never that great, but he still managed to get them to the playoffs year in and year out, posting 10+ win seasons in the process. So at a certain point we have to address the fact that something happens with Manning where he, more often then not, falls apart in the postseason.

There's two ways to think about this. The other way, the way I choose to see it, is that Manning was on a lot of (talent-wise) pretty mediocre run-of-the-mill football teams in his career and he often took them farther in the playoffs than they should've gone. (He took a Jim Caldwell coached team to the Super Bowl for crying out loud!) That means that when those teams got deep enough he was faced with the task of carrying all of that on his back against a very tough opponent and that's usually when things went sideways for him.

He also doesn't play defense or special teams and a lot of the playoff losses were errors by those groups outside of his control.

This loss doesn't change anything for me. He's still my guy if I'm picking a QB from the last 15 years to start a team with.

This is well put. I wasn't around to watch Elway before the end of his career on some pretty loaded Broncos teams. The only game I remember watching Montana play was as a Chief against Elway. Marino, I saw a little bit of, but not nearly enough. Manning is the best I've ever seen. I thought he was better than Brady when he was a Colt and nothing has changed that.

When it comes to Peyton, I really hope this puts to rest all of the "Greatest QB ever" talk. Now is he one of the greatest QBs ever? Of course, he's far from a scrub. But he's in a class with Marino, Favre, and to a much lesser extent, Romo. He can put up points and chew up yards like nobody's business, he's exciting, his talents are incredible...but when the chips are down, when the lights are on, he usually underperforms. Somehow, some way, he comes out on the losing end. That's not a mark of the "Greatest of All Time." We should make note of and respect Peyton's amazing skills, but to put him in a class with not just great QBs, but great winners, let alone calling him the best? That kind of praise is a bit too high.

Peyton's post season stats are comparable to any of the "clutch, play-off winning" QBs, and aren't that far off of his regular season numbers. So this argument is ridiculous.

I'm just saying. The same types of arguments come up in the NBA a lot, and it irks me every time. People wanna yell "championships!!!" when talking about the "Greatest Ever," and they yell "stats!!!" and "but it's a team sport!!!" when said player they're arguing for doesn't have the championships. Either you have it one way or the other, you can't have both. Had Peyton won, everybody would've been ready and willing to claim him as the best, by virtue of his stats + 2 rings, but now that he's lost, the line is, "it doesn't matter."

For the record, I like Peyton a lot. I was extremely happy to see him win his first Super Bowl. But, just like the fact that I like LeBron while despising the hype and hyperbole surrounding his ranking all-time, so too do I dislike the constant talk about Peyton. Either take everything about him, his career, and even the history of the game into account, or don't bother with making a serious argument. That goes for LeBron, Peyton, MJ, Brady, Kobe, Montana, or whoever else comes up in these "Greatest Ever" debates.

Well, I think that's because a win tonight, and a second ring would've rendered the "RINGS!!!" argument as a pretty silly one -- which, to be honest, it is. The people who make that argument don't understand that that same argument makes Dilfer better than Marino.

All things considered, we should be in line for some more Seattle/SF West and playoff duels for the next few years. Both teams are young, stacked, and extremely well coached. The Seahawks wrecked the Broncos tonight, and they very nearly didn't get to this game because of the Niners battling them tooth-and-nail two weeks ago.

Considering the state of the NFC West just three years ago, they've come an extremely long way.

I've said a couple times (and not because of sour grapes)... the problem is that the Seahawks are going to have to pay Russell Wilson -- and he may demand Flacco-type money -- and the 49ers are going to need to pay Kaepernick. It's going to make it a lot harder to stockpile talent. Seattle won't be able to keep that legion of boom together long without creating some gaping holes elsewhere on that team.

[IceCap]

And Brady's postseason resume of late really isn't that great...

Neither has Peyton's. Peyton's lone Super Bowl victory came two years after Brady's third. Since then both have been to two, and both have lost two. And Brady never looked as outmatched as Manning did tonight. He also never threw away a Super Bowl like Manning did. So both have had less then stellar postseason success recently. The difference was that Brady had success early on with three Super Bowl rings and Manning struggled, finally getting one.

...and the early successes were largely due to New England having an elite defense (I'll remind you that Manning has never had anything that resembled one of these).

Football is, at the end of the day, a team game. Now this is, rightfully, pointed out to remind us that you can't judge quarterback greatness on rings alone. Which is true. Yet I think we tend to overemphasis that point and go to far in the other direction at times. No, rings are not the be-all-end-all of a quarterback's legacy. Yet they cannot be discounted either. As stellar as Dan Marino's career was he will never escape the fact that he never won a Super Bowl. Manning has one, yes, but he should have a few more given his stellar regular season numbers. No, his defences were never that great, but he still managed to get them to the playoffs year in and year out, posting 10+ win seasons in the process. So at a certain point we have to address the fact that something happens with Manning where he, more often then not, falls apart in the postseason.

There's two ways to think about this. The other way, the way I choose to see it, is that Manning was on a lot of (talent-wise) pretty mediocre run-of-the-mill football teams in his career and he often took them farther in the playoffs than they should've gone. (He took a Jim Caldwell coached team to the Super Bowl for crying out loud!) That means that when those teams got deep enough he was faced with the task of carrying all of that on his back against a very tough opponent and that's usually when things went sideways for him.

He also doesn't play defense or special teams and a lot of the playoff losses were errors by those groups outside of his control.

This loss doesn't change anything for me. He's still my guy if I'm picking a QB from the last 15 years to start a team with.

If it's a game that I have to win? I'm picking Brady. To turn your argument about Manning not playing defence or special teams around, Brady had to orchestrate game winning drives late in the game in two of his three Super Bowl wins.Drives he, not his team's stellar defences, had to lead. In Manning's second Super Bowl appearance he threw the ball away while driving to win the game, cementing the Saints' win. In his third Super Bowl appearance he never got the chance to have that drive. So I'm going with Brady there. Less of a chance he folds when the game is on the line.

Had Manning won tonight I would have seriously re-evaluated my opinion of Brady and Manning and who I felt was the better quarterback. That didn't happen though. What happened tonight just confirmed what I had suspected. And was barked down from in the face of Manning's inevitable victory

[DS729]

You guys are really beating on a dead horse tonight... Denver was simply outplayed by Seattle on both sides of the ball, no exceptions, let's just leave it at that. I haven't seen football played that could have beaten Seattle tonight, you can point the finger all you want, but the "blame game" serves no purpose now.

While it may be too early to take a stab, I say San Francisco will beat Seattle in some sort of rematch in the NFC Title next year, and then beat Denver in the Super Bowl in a return to a thrilling, epic, super Bowl that we've grown to love, and the year after Peyton will get his second ring, ride off into the sunset, and call it in.

Ok, I've probably said too much. But I want to see a second Peyton ring before he retires.

[IceCap]

Tom Jackson just said that Seattle's got a seven year run at the top ahead of them. I guess he's forgetting that, in two years, they have to renegotiate a bunch of contracts in a salary capped league.

[CS85]

BUT PEYTON MANNING SHOULD HAVE WON

HE SHOULD HAVE CEMENTED HIS LEGACY

HE IS THE GREATEST QUARTERBACK OF ALL TIME

DIDN'T YOU WATCH HIM ON SNL?!

HE DOES FUNNY COMMERCIALS

HE SHOUTS "OMAHA"

YOU MUST LOVE HIM

Tom Jackson just said that Seattle's got a seven year run at the top ahead of them. I guess he's forgetting that, in two years, they have to renegotiate a bunch of contracts in a salary capped league.

I'm happy as hell for Seattle fans, but lest ye forget that this team's success comes at a huge cost: Most of the team is compiled of UDFAs on crappy contracts in addition to their star quarterback's rookie deal. All those chickens will come home to roost at some point and The Legion of Boom will be torn asunder.

That being said, if they can put a team like this together with UDFAs they can do it again. Maybe. That doesn't give ESPN the right to put a big lime-green knob in their mouth and start the LeBron title count for the Seahawks.

[See Red]

And Brady's postseason resume of late really isn't that great...

Neither has Peyton's. Peyton's lone Super Bowl victory came two years after Brady's third. Since then both have been to two, and both have lost two. And Brady never looked as outmatched as Manning did tonight. He also never threw away a Super Bowl like Manning did. So both have had less then stellar postseason success recently. The difference was that Brady had success early on with three Super Bowl rings and Manning struggled, finally getting one.

...and the early successes were largely due to New England having an elite defense (I'll remind you that Manning has never had anything that resembled one of these).

Football is, at the end of the day, a team game. Now this is, rightfully, pointed out to remind us that you can't judge quarterback greatness on rings alone. Which is true. Yet I think we tend to overemphasis that point and go to far in the other direction at times. No, rings are not the be-all-end-all of a quarterback's legacy. Yet they cannot be discounted either. As stellar as Dan Marino's career was he will never escape the fact that he never won a Super Bowl. Manning has one, yes, but he should have a few more given his stellar regular season numbers. No, his defences were never that great, but he still managed to get them to the playoffs year in and year out, posting 10+ win seasons in the process. So at a certain point we have to address the fact that something happens with Manning where he, more often then not, falls apart in the postseason.

There's two ways to think about this. The other way, the way I choose to see it, is that Manning was on a lot of (talent-wise) pretty mediocre run-of-the-mill football teams in his career and he often took them farther in the playoffs than they should've gone. (He took a Jim Caldwell coached team to the Super Bowl for crying out loud!) That means that when those teams got deep enough he was faced with the task of carrying all of that on his back against a very tough opponent and that's usually when things went sideways for him.

He also doesn't play defense or special teams and a lot of the playoff losses were errors by those groups outside of his control.

This loss doesn't change anything for me. He's still my guy if I'm picking a QB from the last 15 years to start a team with.

If it's a game that I have to win? I'm picking Brady. To turn your argument about Manning not playing defence or special teams around, Brady had to orchestrate game winning drives late in the game in two of his three Super Bowl wins.Drives he, not his team's stellar defences, had to lead. In Manning's second Super Bowl appearance he threw the ball away while driving to win the game, cementing the Saints' win. In his third Super Bowl appearance he never got the chance to have that drive. So I'm going with Brady there. Less of a chance he folds when the game is on the line.

Had Manning won tonight I would have seriously re-evaluated my opinion of Brady and Manning and who I felt was the better quarterback. That didn't happen though. What happened tonight just confirmed what I had suspected. And was barked down from in the face of Manning's inevitable victory

They had 267 total yards against the Rams (145 passing). You're not saying the defense put them in position to win that game? Why? Because he set one of the best kickers ever up for a hardly automatic 48-yarder? That's at least a little bit insane. Defense won that game.

They had ONE offensive TD in that game. You know who else had one offensive TD? The Broncos tonight.

[Kramerica Industries]

All things considered, we should be in line for some more Seattle/SF West and playoff duels for the next few years. Both teams are young, stacked, and extremely well coached. The Seahawks wrecked the Broncos tonight, and they very nearly didn't get to this game because of the Niners battling them tooth-and-nail two weeks ago.

Considering the state of the NFC West just three years ago, they've come an extremely long way.

Assuming Seattle can afford to keep this team together. There are quite a few Seattle players who will be up for new deals in next two seasons. If you listened to BAFS you'd already know this.

Well aware of this. Wilson, Sherman, Thomas, among others, are all on low wages right now which is why the Seahawks were able to add Michael Bennett and Cliff Avril to their already loaded defensive front. The Niners have a better front-seven on the surface, but they couldn't match Seattle's depth. The Seahawks were literally able to roll in different units for running downs and passing downs (Mebane and Bryant, for instance, more run-block and Avril and Bennett for pass rush purposes).

But you also saw how the Seahawks were able to seamlessly adjust to Brandon Browner's injury and suspension. Browner is no slouch, as you surely know, but they plug in Maxwell and the beat goes on. Thurmond did well. Lane did well. Pete Carroll is a defensive backs wizard (Chris Brown wrote a piece on this on Grantland, but I'm on a slow system and thus not providing linkage ATM). I also think a lot of Seattle's defensive success feeds on the fact that they are a mentality out there; they are out there to punish anyone who is in possession of the ball. It's a perpetuating cycle out there that feeds upon itself infinitely. I think the game in Indy in Week 5 was the only time a team posted 30+ points on them? One of those was a blocked FG, so obviously not a defensive miscue.

Earl Thomas provides so much versatility out there. Kam Chancellor can play just as well in the box as he can further down the field, but Thomas has some unreal range and instincts. Richard Sherman seals off his 1/3 of the field every single time. It's really, really hard to name the defensive MVP of that unit, and I hate to get into the debate on it; they all make each other better.

[JayMac]

My contribution to this conversation...The Seahawks won and I'm ecstatic! Also, Manning is still better than Brady. Brady won his last championship 9 years ago. If Manning is not clutch then it is only fair to say that Brady is not that clutch either.

[Seadragon76]

BUT PEYTON MANNING SHOULD HAVE WON

HE SHOULD HAVE CEMENTED HIS LEGACY

HE IS THE GREATEST QUARTERBACK OF ALL TIME

DIDN'T YOU WATCH HIM ON SNL?!

HE DOES FUNNY COMMERCIALS

HE SHOUTS "OMAHA"

YOU MUST LOVE HIM

Is it me or is my sarcasm meter running well for this post?

[See Red]

Tom Jackson just said that Seattle's got a seven year run at the top ahead of them. I guess he's forgetting that, in two years, they have to renegotiate a bunch of contracts in a salary capped league.

The one downside to winning Super Bowls, which really isn't so bad considering you just won a Super Bowl, is that guys want to get paid. Now all of a sudden, having helped you to a Super Bowl, their price goes up. Wilson's going to get a LOOOOT of money soon and it's going to have to take away from the talent somewhere on that team.

[DS729]

Gosh, these multi-paragraph responses to meaningless things are hurting my head. 

[WSU151]

One thing I want to point out. The defining play of the game, Seattle had absolutely nothing to do with.

True.

When is it not too soon to talk about this win in context of other dominant championship wins? It has to rate right near the top, right? No team had scored more points than the Broncos, and they were nearly blanked. That's pretty special.

It's gotta be right up there with the '85 Bears win over the Patriots. That's what it reminded me of anyway.

Yeah I would agree with this. It's rare we see this dominance and physicality in a Super Bowl. I'd say the 2007 Giants' defense was pretty dominant against the Patriots offense and rank in the top 5. The Buccaneers dominated the Raiders, and the 49ers had two dominating wins, but they weren't just physically dominant.

Not sure if you were trying to reply to what I said, but... (Didn't see your reply when I replied, it was blank)

I'm in no way saying anything other than Seattle just completely took it to Denver tonight. While Denver played their worst game since Manning has been here, it's not like they just played that way because... Seattle forced Denver into mistake after mistake and readily capitalized on them.

I was only saying that the defining play (at least in my mind), Seattle had nothing to do with. Which was the first snap Denver had.

Actually, thinking about it, the defining play was the INT for the touchdown. The Broncos could have easily comeback from a safety on the first play. But when it looked like they were going for points to cut the lead before half, the pass gets tipped, and it's 6 the other way, essentially clinching the game.