Some thoughts on Peyton

It's kind of funny how this blog has evolved into a defense of Peyton Manning sheet over the last few weeks. There was never any intent to steer in that direction; it just did. But there is a reason why it did, if that makes any sense. It seems that whenever somebody has a historic year like this, there are a certain number of people in denial about it. I know all about this--I've been there. The year that Mark McGwire hit 70 home runs, I was rooting against him the whole time, and I never could be persuaded that he was really that terrific. The year Bonds hit 73, the whole media was like that.

(Maybe, by the way, we were both right to be skeptical in that case. And I'm not talking about steroids, just the external evidence of the times. After all, Sammy Sosa was hitting over 60 three years in a row, home runs were flying out of the park in general--it was a new era. Like the Nasdaq hitting 5,000 in 2000. You didn't know what to think. Not that any of that justifies this idiotic article.)

Anyway, once you find yourself in this adversarial position, you start saying some pretty stupid things (and generally complete non-sequiters) to justify your skepticism in the face of overwhelming, hard statistical evidence. And when sports reporters say stupid things, SRAM has to rise to the occasion.

In the case of Manning, the numero uno fallback is the old "can't win a big game" shtick, ignoring the fact that there are, of course, two sides of the ball in football. Exhibit A is the AFC Championship Game last year, but as I recall, the Colts weren't even supposed to have gotten that far anyway--they had to beat KC on the road first. Taking your team farther into the playoffs than they were supposed to go doesn't qualify as choking in my book. But somehow reporters seem to think that this one game (along with, I suppose, a whole host of others that Manning's team was supposed to lose anyway) takes away from what he's doing right now. Plus, everyone knows that the Colts aren't getting through both Pittsburgh and New England in the playoffs, so they want to assume the "I told you so" position as early as possible. But "I told you so" what? I told you that the Colts would lose to a team that they were supposed to lose to anyway? But no matter when they lose, it will go down as another "choke."

There are also naysayers claiming that the rules changes, or the quality of the defenses, or what-have-you have made things easier for Peyton to have his incredible year. Interestingly, Aaron Schatz has just run an article on Page 2 which purports to project all historical data onto a 2004 norm to see what were the 10 truly "best" years for any quarterback. This is hardly a definitive study, but my goodness, it sure is interesting to see who's #1: Peyton Manning. Even after adjusting all other quarterbacks up, Manning's 2004 season still emerges as the greatest ever (through 12 games, of course). Schatz also includes the following comment under Manning's heading, which happens to lend credence to SRAM's Peyton Persecution complex:

A lot of people just don't like Peyton Manning for some unexplained reason. If you are one of those people, put aside your grievances for the next four weeks and enjoy history. Even taking into account the rise in offense across the league, Manning is on his way to the greatest passing season of all time, not just in TD passes but in terms of overall performance.

Well spoken, Aaron. He also makes the excellent point that Manning will be going up against one of the league's stingiest pass defenses in Baltimore in Week 15. Maybe we should all keep at least some rhetoric in reserve until after that game.