http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/061103(snip)
Every year, I dislike them a little bit more. I'm tired of seeing them, tired of reading about them, tired of hearing about them. Seeing their white and blue uniforms puts the same sneer on my face that Nicholson had when he saw Cruise's JAG outfit at Guantanamo Bay. Getting constantly bombarded by those insufferable Manning commercials makes me want to throw my remote against the wall. And after seeing him choke like Aurora Snow against Pittsburgh last January, I thought everyone would realize he was the A-Rod of football, someone who couldn't deliver in the clutch, someone who routinely shrunk from the pressure. How many more seasons of evidence did we need?
Of course, with the Colts undefeated through eight weeks, the same crap has started up again. Manning is the best quarterback ever. The Colts are unstoppable. On and on it goes. Nobody seems to care that their front seven can't stop anyone, or that January football is completely different that regular-season football. The whole thing gives me a headache. Even worse, everyone's lack of historical perspective has been more skewed than ever: Like Phil Simms remarking during the tail end of Indy's victory in Denver, "over on the sideline, you've got two of the best clutch players in NFL history in Adam Vinatieri and Peyton Manning." Um ... what?????? What planet is this? And to think, I used to defend Phil Simms. I don't even know how to react to a statement like that; Simms could have called Manning "one of the greatest African-American quarterbacks of all-time" and it wouldn't have been any less perplexing.
Meanwhile, here's Tom Brady and his three Super Bowl rings. He's never had a top-10 receiver on his team. He's never had a top-10 tight end on his team. He's never had an elite runner except for Corey Dillon in 2004. His receivers leave for other teams and completely fall off the face of the earth. During his first Super Bowl season, he survived a QB controversy with local hero Drew Bledsoe and the loss of his only deep threat (Terry Glenn). Two summers ago, his offensive coordinator fled for Notre Dame and the team didn't even bother spending money to replace him. This season, they lowballed his top two receivers, pushed them out the door, then expected Brady to break in a new group of guys as the season was going on. And the guy just keeps winning. Out of all the must-win games over the years, he came up short only in Denver last January.
And obviously, I'm horribly biased on this subject. But after everything that's happened since 2001, for the life of me, I can't understand why anyone would ...
A. Take Manning over Brady in a big game.
B. Even bring this topic up.
It's perplexing. It's completely illogical. It's like standing in front of a used car dealership looking for something reliable for a cross-country trip, having the oily salesman tell you, "The car on the left won't knock your socks off, but it will definitely make it to the West Coast, while the car on the right is more fun to drive, but there's a 99 percent chance it will break down somewhere around Arizona or Nevada," then saying, "Screw it, I'll take my chances with the car on the right."
...more...
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