And Trent Dilfer is Better Than Dan Marino, Certainly in the Playoffs

 

 

These are the men I want leading my team to the Super Bowl

Our next little diddy comes to us from Jason Cole who decided to write a pointless article, baiting idiots like me to read it and get angry.

Mission accomplished.

I dislike Peyton Manning. I've never been a fan of his from his days at Tennessee. I feel about Tennessee the same way this guy feels about Tennessee. The media has over the years taken the contrarian cap and worn it like Yankee Doodle fucking Dandy. They will make arguments insane by nature and present positions that nobody believes they actually believe. By no measure is Ben Roethlisberger a better quarterback than Peyton Manning. You would be a fool to make any argument otherwise, unless you're going to use a very small sample size and have nothing better to do with your time than presenting a converse theory which is doomed from its inception. And now I'm going to take like 30 minutes of my life calling Jason Cole a moron because I'm a ten times bigger moron than he is and I don't even think he's a moron to begin with, he's simply being "fresh".

Big Ben towers over Manning in playoffs

The headline says it all. Roethlisberger has a better playoff winning percentage and more Super Bowls than Manning and since we all know football is a one man sport like tennis and there are only two people on the field at any given time, it's logical to conclude Manning falls short of Behemoth Ben's shadow.

At the risk of being a heretic (or worse, completely agreeing with good friend Dutch Wydo), there is a case to be made that Ben Roethlisberger is a better quarterback than Peyton Manning.

Certainly in the playoffs.

No, there is no case that can be made proving Roethlisberger is better than Manning.

Roethlisberger has one more Super Bowl than Manning. Trent Dilfer has more Super Bowl wins than Dan Marino. Brad Johnson won more Super Bowls than Dan Fouts. Jeff Hostetler led his team to a Super Bowl win, Warren Moon never made a Super Bowl. Hall of Famers Jim Kelly and Fran Tarkenton were 0-7 in Super Bowls while Doug Williams was 0-2 in the 1987 regular season and only became the started after Jay Schroeder was ineffective most of the year with a separated shoulder and he won a Super Bowl against the Broncos.

Just because you win a fucking Super Bowl doesn’t mean you’re a better quarterback than someone who hasn’t. It doesn’t mean you’re more clutch or whatever other nonsense people dispute. Football is a team game with many many players and coaches and each game has calls/plays/situations germane to that game only which will help determine the outcome. Please Jason, say you are kidding and that you are simply making a hollow argument because Yahoo! needed a space filler article.

Before you send that email calling me crazy

Na. I’ll call you crazy on our blog. You’re crazy

or mocking me only days after I wrote that Manning is the fourth-best quarterback of all time, let’s put this in perspective. It is impossible to truly measure Roethlisberger against Manning or Tom Brady just yet.

And yet that is what you are doing.

Roethlisberger has played six years. His regular-season stats (only two seasons with more than 18 touchdown passes) pale in comparison to those of Manning, Brady and many other quarterbacks. In short, so much of his career is yet to be played that it’s silly to rank him even among the top 25 quarterbacks of all time.

Ok stop the article right now. You’ve proved what I was saying earlier. Manning is better. We are done.

Bottom line, it would take serious guts to draft Roethlisberger ahead of Manning at this point of their respective careers.

You're not done. Exactly! Please say no more I beg of you. You used logic and reason. Don’t you want to write about Drew Brees and his cute kid?

Furthermore, there isn’t a defensive coordinator in the league who won’t tell you that the challenge of facing Manning is much tougher from a game-plan aspect than facing Roethlisberger.

Jason has taken the role of Charon and is ferrying me over to hell.

“There’s nothing you can do against Peyton that he hasn’t seen,” said Detroit defensive coordinator Gunther Cunningham…“With Roethlisberger, he’s a completely different kind of player…He’s great, but figuring out how to defend isn’t the hard part. The hard part is executing the plan.”

This is the most worthless article of all time history.

Roethlisberger has also been backed by one of the great defenses of this decade.

All the more reason why this article shouldn’t have left your typewriter.

But mentioning the Steelers’ defense means that you must also credit the Colts for surrounding Manning with great offensive weapons and amazing consistency on the coaching staff.

Huh? Although not as explosive as the Colts, the Steelers won their Super Bowls with a ball controlled running game (Willie Parker, Jerome Bettis, Mewelde Moore), skilled receivers (Hines Ward, Santonio Holmes, Heath Miller) and the aforementioned great defense. Manning’s had some good teams. Ben has won one more Super Bowl. This doesn’t mean Ben is a better player, even in the playoffs, as much as they had arguably better teams, had fortunate opponent match ups and some opportunistic bounces and decisions that went their way.

The bottom line is this: Roethlisberger is currently 8-2 in the playoffs, has two Super Bowl rings – including his great final drive against Arizona – and a quarterback rating of 87.2 in the playoffs. That includes his bad performance in the Super Bowl win against Seattle, a bad first half in a playoff loss to Jacksonville and a typically bad playoff game against New England in the 2004 playoffs when he was a rookie.

This looks impressive until you realize that the Steelers missed the 2006 and 2009 playoffs. You’re giving Manning shit for not blowing games against the Oakland Raiders and Cleveland Browns in the regular season as your basis for proving Ben is better in the playoffs because if the Steelers made the playoffs and lost both years, he’d be 8-4.

There is also the “bad performance” you brought up in Super Bowl XL. How bad did Ben play? Roethlisberger was 9-21 for 123 yards, no touchdowns and two interceptions for a QB rating of 22.6. It was the lowest rating for a Super Bowl winning QB ever. He sucked. He flat out sucked. The Steeler wide receivers threw more touchdowns than starting QBs. The Steelers won 21-10. Behind a great defense, rushing for 181 yards and Seattle Seahawks playing shity, Ben has one more SB win than Manning. Full proof iron clad facts making Roethlisberger better than Manning.

He did have that great final drive against Arizona a team that was a fucking sieve on defense all year, giving up 426 points and 26.6 points per game (28th in the NFL).

For Manning, he is now 9-9 in the playoffs over his 12-year career, has one Super Bowl win, is coming off a bad finish against New Orleans and has a quarterback rating of 95.5 in the playoffs. If you break down the stats further, you’ll note that the Colts have asked Manning to do a lot more (38.4 attempts per game) than the Steelers have of Roethlisberger (28.8 attempts).

Gosh, if only Manning attended class at the “School of losing to shitty teams in the regular season” like Roethlisberger did in 2006 and 2009, Manning could have lost to the Bengals, Eagles, Browns and Patriots in 1999, the Chiefs and Bills in 2000 and the Texans and Bengals in 2002, missing the playoffs each year and also avoided the New England Patriots, arguably the best team in our generation that won three Super Bowls in four years, Manning would be like 12-4 in the playoffs. Also the "bad finish" was partly due to a shitty route run by Reggie Wayne.

But the bottom line is that Roethlisberger has succeeded (he was great in the 2008 playoffs and also in the 2005 playoffs before the Super Bowl against Seattle) and Manning has struggled.

I like how Manning had a great playoff this year, except for one throw, and struggled where Roethlisberger had one of the worst games of his life where he went 9-21 with two pics and is considered a success.

But I'm guessing Manning garners more blame for failing to recover an onside kick he wasn't even on the field for where Ben's playoff success propelled Willie Parker to make his 75 yard touchdown run in Super Bowl XL.Therefore:

Roethlisberger > Manning

I would like to use that stuff that researchers use...I believe it is called 'research'...to examine Manning’s 9 playoff losses. I've included the record of the Colts opponents in parenthesis:

1999 – Lost to Tennessee (13-3) 19-16 team that came up one yard short of winning the Super Bowl. Manning was 19-42 for 227 yards, no TDs and no INTs and it should be noted that Edgerrin James only had 56 yards on 20 carries while Eddie George had 26 carries for 162 yards.
2000 – Lost to Miami (11-5) 23-17 in OT. Manning was 17-32 for 194 yards, 1 TD, no INTs. Mike Vanderjagt missed a 49 yard field go and the Dolphins drove down field and scored a touchdown.
2002 – Lost to New York (9-7) 41-0. Manning played like shit. The team played like shit. And the while the Colts were only 10-6 they should have played much better.
2003 – Lost to New England (14-2) 24-14. NE that year was one of the best football teams in the last 20 years and won the Super Bowl. Manning got beat up and picked four times. Flat out, Colts got beat by a better team.
2004 – Lost to New England (14-2) 20-3. NE had an outstanding team that once again won the Super Bowl. Manning was 27-42, 238, 0-1. Overall, eh. Kinda crappy.
2005 – Lost to Pittsburgh (11-5) 21-18 and were a fluky arm tackle away from winning the game.

Head to head:
Roethlisberger: 14-24, 197, 2 TDs, 1 INT
Manning: 22-38, 290, 1 TD, 0 INT

2007 – Lost to San Diego (11-5) 28-24. Manning was 33-48, 402, 3-2. SD happens to play Indy real well.
2008 – Lost to San Diego (8-8) 23-17 in OT. Manning was 25-42, 310, 1-0. The Colts never saw the ball in overtime.
2009- Lost to New Orleans (13-3) 31-17. Manning was 31-45 333, 1-1.

I am not attempting to make excuses for Manning. However it isn’t like Manning was throwing 4-5 pics every playoff game and crippling 4th quarter interceptions. He played well in a lot of the Colts losses.

Holding Manning solely accountable for a 9-9 playoff record without factoring in the other offensive players, defense, coaching decisions, relative strength of teams they faced, match ups and any number of other variables would be equivalent to Valentine’s Day making 5 billion in the box office this weekend and concluding the picture’s success was spearheaded by the talented acting of Taylor Swift.

Just for the hell of it, I decided to pull out the numbers for Tom Brady over the last four playoff years:

W – 15 -27, 201, 3 TDs, 0 INTs
L – 20-36, 341, 1 TD, 2 INTs. One of those INTs was a backbreaker in the endzone.
W – 22-34, 212, 2 TDs, 0 INTs
W – 27-51, 280, 2 TDs, 3 INTs
L – 21-34, 232, 1 TD, 1 INT. The Patriots blew a 21-6 halftime lead.
W – 26-28, 262, 3 TDs, 0 INTs
W – 22-33, 209, 2 TDs, 3 INTs
L – 29-48, 266, 1 TD, 0 INTs. One of the biggest upsets in football history.
L – 23-42, 154, 2 TDs, 3 INTs.

Tom Brady has not morphed into a mediocre QB, but if you recall he started his career 9-0 in the playoffs. The reason Tom has struggled has more to do with the Patriots over the last few seasons not being as good as the early 2000’s teams they fielded.

After his first three playoff years, Tom Brady was 9-0 with three Super Bowl wins and the embodiment of a “clutch” big play quarterback. The last six playoff games he’s thrown 11 TDs and 10 INTs, losing as a huge Super Bowl favorite, being the quarterback on the other side of a huge comeback and losing the AFC Championship game (orchestrated by Manning and the Colts for what it’s worth) and the other AFC Championship game in that span that Brady played in, he threw three interceptions.

Ben has had the luxury of playing for a first class organization with an outstanding defense and solid coaches. In fact, the Steelers were so good he could go 9-21 with two interceptions in the Super Bowl and the Steelers still won that game by 11 points.

Ben has not fared better than Manning because he is more clutch or more likely to step up in the playoffs. He hasn't fared better because he is a better Quarterback. Manning has had some bad games no doubt but his worst playoff games came against a Patriot team that won 28 games and two Super Bowls in two years. Ben has played on very good teams, some fortunate luck and also missed the playoffs twice. Those are the reason his overall record looks so good while Manning’s looks average. It has nothing to do with Roethlisberger’s skills in the playoffs being paramount to Manning’s.

Anyone who really believes a team led by Roethlisberger over Manning is more likely to win a Super Bowl needs to get his head examined.