Somehow, there are still Manning detractors

Alert reader Craig Hansen (no relation) (Ha! Just kidding) got himself quite worked up over the Sports Guy's latest NFL picks column. This kind of irritable, fomenting overreaction to immature adults making a living analyzing child's play is exactly the kind of attitude we need to encourage to make SRAM the runaway success it deserves to be. Forthwith, Craig's remarks:


I couldn’t let the SG’s latest rant about Manning go without contradicting him on every single point he makes. The SG is lobbing in some serious meatballs today. Let’s take the first point:

And how is the team better off with him changing the plays every down?

Let’s see: The Colts are 5-3 with a defense that ranks next to last in the league in yards allowed and 28th in points allowed. The Colts’ offense ranks 2nd in yards and 1st in points scored. How good would their offense be if Manning didn’t have the freedom to call the plays? That’s impossible to say but before you say that it doesn’t benefit the team it would be a good idea to check not only the numbers but also your own words. Multiple times this season the SG has raved about how good the Colts’ offense is. Everybody knows that they have a great offense but don’t you think that if the coaches thought it didn’t do any good for Manning to change the plays they wouldn’t let him do it? Just another arrogant pronouncement from the SG without a shred of evidence about how he knows more about coaching football than men who have been around the game their entire lives and get paid a ton to coach players on whom their professional lives depend. It never enters his mind that perhaps the coaches are doing what they feel is in the best interest of the team. The fact is that if the Colts did things the way everyone else did they couldn’t be much better off than they already are, but they could be a heckuva lot worse.

I've had it with this guy. If he breaks Marino's TD record, that would be almost as bad as Bonds breaking Hank Aaron's record with a size 9 3/4 head. Like Marino wouldn't have thrown 70 TDs in his prime with these passing rules and Indy's defense constantly putting him back on the field.

If it’s so easy to break Marino’s record in this day and age why has the record stood for 20 years? Not only has it not been broken but the closest anyone has come other than Marino was Kurt Warner in 1999 when he got 41. No one else has even broken 40. Manning is on pace to have fewer passing attempts than Marino did in the 1984 season, so I think Marino was spending plenty of time on the field trying to throw touchdowns. Besides, Brady and McNabb benefit from the rule changes just as much as Manning does and I don’t think they are a threat to the record.

But please, keep calling Manning the MVP over Brady and McNabb ... wins and losses clearly shouldn't matter.) (Seriously ... I'm getting angry. I might need to take a walk.)

The SG criticizes reporters who analyze baseball players purely on their stats, calling them robo-journalists. What is more robotic or lazy than anointing the quarterbacks of the teams with the best records as the only possible MVP candidates? Of course, we all know that as far as Brady is concerned the SG has lost all sense of objectivity so it’s not possible to argue with him, but there aren’t any statistics that suggest that Manning is clearly an inferior quarterback as he suggests. The table below shows the NFL rankings of Manning and Brady in several statistics.

Quarterback ranks:
Stat	Manning	Brady
Completion Pct.	6	17
Yards per attempt	1	11
TD pct.	1	6
Int pct.	6	17
Sacks	1	16
Passer Rating	1	11

Incidentally, Manning is also on pace to break the passer rating record. I’m willing to give Brady some breaks since Manning probably plays with better offensive players but the SG gives absolutely no evidence that Brady is the better quarterback other than that New England has the better record. But does anyone doubt that if the Colts had the Patriots defense they would have just as good a record? What’s worse is that not only does he not give any evidence supporting his points but his very attitude is that anyone who even remotely disagrees with him must be an idiot.