Why Peyton Manning Is the Best Quarterback of the Current Generation

Controversial headline I know. With future Hall of Famers Tom Brady, Brett Favre and Kurt Warner playing in the modern generation, there are bound to be at least three fan bases who take offense at this title.

Nevertheless, the success that Manning has had with the Indianapolis Colts and his superb statistical record make him not just the greatest quarterback of the current era, but maybe of all time!

The argument that has always been raised against quarterbacks like Manning and also Dan Marino, and for those like Tom Brady and Joe Montana is the number of rings they won. For some reason, this has become accepted as the benchmark for quarterback performance.

However, this ignores for the most part the role of the quarterback, which is to play offense. However great a quarterback, they cannot play defense. This means that all time greats like Marino never win Super Bowls because their defense could not stop their opponents, while game managers like Trent Dilfer scoop up rings for not making mistakes.

In the case of Peyton Manning, he has never had a great defense in Indianapolis to cover for mistakes he makes. There have been good players, like Dwight Freeney and Bob Sanders, but on the whole the Colts would only win if Manning played well. While this may work in the regular season, in the post season it is a different matter. Games are tighter, players more passionate, the winner is generally the team who plays the best defense. 

Most supporters of Tom Brady will claim that his superior playoff record makes him the better quarterback. However, for the early part of Brady's career he had an elite defense that made plays and bailed him out.

Since 2007, about when New England became an offensively driven team like the Colts, Brady's has a post season record of 2-3 with no Super Bowls. More importantly, he has lost his last three playoff matches. Contrastingly, the Colts have always had a weak defense, and Peyton Manning's playoff record of 9-10 with one ring seems better to me.

What's more, in light of the catastrophic failure that the Colts season has been thus far in 2011, the value of Peyton Manning is further highlighted. Some media folks have quipped that he deserves the MVP this season because of the difference he makes to the Colts, and this does carry a grain of truth.

With Manning, and arguably a worse team overall with rookie pass catchers and an inferior defense, the Colts reached and almost won a Super Bowl. They have also been a consistent playoff team for his whole career. Without Peyton, the Colts are firmly in the running for the first overall pick in the 2012 NFL Draft. No other player in the league, and possibly ever, has had such a profound influence on the success of his team.

In search of a comparison, when Tom Brady was knocked out of the 2008 season with a knee injury, the Patriots still managed to win 10 games and almost made the playoffs. And the replacement for Brady, Matt Cassell, is by no means an elite quarterback if we take his body of work from the Kansas City Chiefs.

This shows that during the heyday of the Tom Brady lead, Super Bowl winning Patriots they had a much stronger supporting cast than the Colts do now, or ever had. 

Peyton Manning also has a much more impressive statistical body of work than any quarterback since Marino. No debate necessary. This is really the best indicator of a quarterback's ability to pass the ball, and regardless of what stance you take on football that is surely the primary role of a quarterback, especially in the modern NFL where games are won or lost through the air.

In conclusion, the singular effect that Peyton Manning has on the Colts and his remarkable body of work in the NFL shows that he is certainly the greatest quarterback since Dan Marino and possibly ever.

I just wish that the rest of the NFL would stop buying the "rings are the only thing that matter when grading quarterbacks" fallacy and see Manning for who he truly is. The greatest quarterback of our time.