2010 NFL Season Proves That Tom Brady Is Better Than Peyton Manning

Tom Brady is the best there is, best there was and the best there ever will be.

The debate over who is the better quarterback, Tom Brady or Peyton Manning, has been raging unabated for nearly a decade now.  This year proves that Tom Brady really is better than Peyton Manning.  Well, actually, it's been proven for years, just nobody wanted to see it.

Peyton Manning has had the luxury of having great receivers and a solid running game nearly his entire career.  He had sure Hall of Famer Marvin Harrison for years as his primary receiver and for a good stretch of that time, he also had Pro Bowl running back Edgerrin James and Reggie Wayne, too! 

More recently he has had Reggie Wayne and Dallas Clark as his main receivers, two players who are among the best at their position in their generation.

Yet, when Manning finds himself with a new cast of receivers, even though he still has Reggie Wayne, what happens?  He falls apart, throws tons of interceptions and looks completely lost.

Tom Brady, on the other hand, has rarely had any stability at the receiver position.  He made mini-stars out of average receivers like David Givens and David Patten.  He made an average, mostly blocking tight end in Daniel Graham, look so good the Broncos signed him to a contract that made him the highest paid tight end ever at the time of his signing. 

He made a superstar of the talented but, let’s face it, not super talented, Deion Branch.  He won two Super Bowls with an, at best, average receiving corps and average running game. 

And then you hear the pundits this year, slyly but not directly, talk about the great quarterbacks who only dink and dunk, like Trent Dildo, oops, I mean Dilfer, who has grabbed his ankles for Philip Rivers it seems, and has anointed him the second coming. 

All Brady has done this year is lose one of the greatest deep threats of all time and make the offense work with a great slot receiver and a group of fill-ins like the young, and possible future star Brandon Tate and two rookie tight ends.

Funny, the greatest so called “dink and dunk” quarterback of all time, Joe Montana is praised for that style of offense, but pundits want to take oblique swipes at Brady for it. All Brady has done is take a group of not great receivers and made the offense hum.

And what does Brady do when he has a very average Jabbar Gaffney and a bottom-feeder like Reche Caldwell as his main targets?  He goes to the AFC Championship game, of course. 

And the Patriots would have won a fourth Super Bowl had it not been for the lousy Reche Caldwell, who dropped a sure touchdown pass in the game.  Caldwell couldn’t get above No. 5 on the depth chart on a Washington Redskins squad devoid of decent receivers the following year.  That goes to show you what Brady can do with a new and less-than-average cast of receivers.

And the "dink and dunk" criticism?  What does Brady do when he gets a motivated Randy Moss in the fold his first year?  Oh, he only throws for an NFL-record 50 touchdown passes and has an undefeated regular season. 

And don’t forget that many of the close playoff games that led to Super Bowls, particularly against the Pittsburgh Steelers, were broken open by beautiful long passes to Deion Branch when he was in his prime.

And to put the final peg on the board, Brady has three Super Bowl rings.  Peyton Manning has one, gifted to him by the Patriots, because Peyton's teams are perennial playoff chokers.

The bottom line is, to steal a phrase from Robert Redford’s move The Natural and Brett "The Hitman" Hart’s tagline:

Tom Brady is the best there is, best there was and the best there ever will be.