Peyton has the second-most TDs of any QB in history and he may end up with the most if he plays this way for another season or two. He would beat Brett Favre, who needed two retirements in order to set that record. There is no way in the world to say that Eli is better than Peyton regardless of this year.
Peyton had terrible teams when he played in Indy. The defense was shit, and the offense had some damn good receivers and a couple of good linemen, but otherwise wasn't worth much of anything. Joseph Addai and Dominic Rhodes had one good game together (just happened to be the Super Bowl). Tarik Glenn retired four or five years earlier than anyone expected him to and since that day the Colts line has been a bunch of stop-gaps and misfits (excl. Jeff Saturday).
Bill Polian relied on undrafted players like Saturday and Gary Brackett on defense to make things move, and while they were great guys and solid players, Gary Brackett was by no means an elite linebacker and I'd much rather have kept a guy like Cato June or maybe even Rob Morris over him if Morris could have run more than a 5.2 40-time. Bob Sanders was hurt too often to make a real impact and I don't know if we ever had a kick return taken more than 25 yards when Peyton played here.
All in all, Polian drafted a few guys - Peyton, Marvin Harrison, Reggie Wayne, Dwight Freeney, Robert Mathis - but the team was never well-rounded. The reason we won is because Peyton is just that good, and when he showed his human side or a little bit of nerves down the stretch, the team absolutely collapsed because it was nothing without him. If you don't believe that, just look at the year we went 2-14 with Curtis Painter and Kerry Collins. I'm not saying Eli is bad by any means, and he is generally good in the playoffs, but you've got to give just as much credit to guys like Tom Coughlin as you do to Eli and you have to give credit to Peyton for being the only reason the Colts won anything in the decade prior to this one.
"Pick 6 with 3 minutes to go in 2010 superbowl, scoring on that drive would have tied the game at 24, instead Colts loose 31-17."
There is something about this play that most people don't know. Tracy Porter knew it, and if you look at the footage again, you'll see it immediately. Jim Caldwell (terrible, terrible coach) called the exact same play out of the exact same formation (with the pre-snap motion, which I assume is how Porter knew to jump the route) earlier in the game. You don't do that in the Super Bowl, and Porter made Jim Caldwell pay. Peyton Manning gets the blame because he made the throw (and it was probably a foot too far inside, but really, how can you judge that), which was certainly ill-advised since Austin Collie was wide open over the middle of the field, but he threw to the intended receiver and his first read. If you watch Peyton, you know that that's what he almost always does. If that were the first time that play had been called in the game, it might have worked, but Tracy Porter picked it up right after the inside shift and that was that.
Was life better under Labour or Tories?
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