Photo Credit: Andy Lyons/Getty Images North America
This past week Peyton Manning announced he was retiring from the NFL after 18 years and the flood of media coverage ensued. With the exception of DeAngelo Williams, there has been heaping praise of his play on the field and his numerous humanitarian contributions that have defined him. Some have gone so far as to question if he is the greatest quarterback of all time. As the stories were written one after another I became confused. Is this the same Peyton Manning that people have been saying for 18 years is overrated?!  Where are the naysayers now? I understand you don’t pile-on to someone who just announced their retirement and a month after winning his second Super Bowl title, but seriously “the best all-time”? Will we be arguing this from now until the draft?
We’ve all seen his numbers; they have been published all week. He passed Brett Favre’s all-time passer rating record and total passing yards. He owns the record for passing touchdowns, most wins, most comeback wins, most games with 4+ touchdown passes, and the list goes on for a mile. He holds 21 NFL records and will undoubtedly be a first ballot hall of famer. So what argument does anyone have that he’s overrated? Oh that’s right, he played indoors. What if we could compare him to other NFL quarterbacks who played indoors on the turf to see if this argument holds-up. How about Troy Aikman? Both players became starting quarterbacks their rookie seasons, and both played indoors.
Troy Aikman was drafted No. 1 overall by the Dallas Cowboys in 1989. Peyton Manning was drafted No. 1 overall by the Indianapolis Colts in 1998. The similarities are already showing. In Troy Aikman’s first start, he lost to the New Orleans Saints 28-0. He had a passer rating of 40.2, zero touchdowns, two interceptions, two sacks, and went 17/35 for 180 yards. In Peyton Manning’s first NFL game he lost to the Miami Dolphins 24-15 but threw for 302 yards, one touchdown, three interceptions, four sacks, and a passer rating of 58.6. Manning ends his career with a 65.3 passing percentage while Aikman ended his with 61.5. Aikman won three Super Bowl titles, while Manning won two, but the rest of the accolades are in favor of Manning. He’s been voted to the Pro Bowl eight more times, won four conference championships, five MVP’s, two NFL Offensive Player of the Year awards, and in 2012 after having major neck surgery and sitting out one full year he was named AP NFL Comeback Player of the Year.  Troy Aikman was a first ballot hall of fame recipient but doesn’t make most top ten lists of all time greatest NFL quarterbacks.
Is Peyton Manning really overrated? He’s a player who everyone thought would win five Super Bowls.  Instead, he barely won two. He’s a player who changed the play at the line of scrimmage with his loud audibles and coach-like reshuffling of the line that was unorthodox and awkward at first. He couldn’t run like Steve Young, he couldn’t scramble out of the pocket like John Elway, he didn’t throw the accurate end zone game winning touchdown passes like Joe Montana or Dan Marino, but he won games.
In the last year of his career he won games playing some of the worst football of his career. The Denver Broncos defense won the Super Bowl, which he himself has admitted. In fact, the Denver Broncos defensive performance in Super Bowl 50 was unlike anything we’d ever seen before, including the 1985 Chicago Bears. They completely shut down the Carolina Panthers who were overwhelming favorites going into the game. Manning, the undoubted leader of the team, led them to victory nonetheless. His leadership, his presence, and his determination to calm the team who had lost so badly just two years prior were all prevalent. His leadership carried him and his teams when his arm just was not getting it done. Does that make him a bad quarterback? It makes him the smartest quarterback to every play the game, because he played each game knowing the tools he had to work with and built a scheme around those tools. He called each play, executed the play as well as possible, and sometimes we even saw him on the sidelines coaching the defense.
Peyton Manning may not be the best quarterback of all time based on some of the difficulties he could not overcome in the last two years of his career but he’s definitely not overrated. His stats prove it, his intellect prove it, and his knowledge of the game prove it. There may not be any other in the position who plays situational football better.  I think we can officially put the “overrated” argument to rest.
