Peyton Manning is officially the best regular season quarterback in the history of football. On Sunday, Peyton Manning, the Broncos quarterback, (not he-who-must-not-be-named that plays on the hands team for the New York Jets, thank g*#), beat the division rivals, Steelers. More importantly, he was the youngest player to ever reach 400 touchdowns.
First off, I’m not even going to mention Elway, who isn’t in the 400 club, as comparing the new hero to the old hero would get messy.
Second, I don’t care that Brett Favre had the longest starting streak in history (a record that will never be broken). Does that make him a better quarterback? Definitely not. Peyton beat Brett to the 400 club by 20 games. (He also beat Brett in the commercial contest, by not appearing in Wrangler Jeans advertisements…)
Sure, Brett has 508 TDs, but the guy played until everyone was sure that he would be the first player to ever break in half on the field (a title that Michael Vick is vying for.) He also has 909,020,234 interceptions (editors note: 336). Favre also tarnished his reputation by playing the will-I-won’t-I retirement game, and then never living up to the media circus that he created. I’ve got Proud Peyton over Brett the sex(t) offender, every time.
And third comes Marino, who Peyton beat to the 400 Club in 19 less games. The knock on Marino is that he never won a Super Bowl. Despite leaving them with the curse of the great Bambino (editors note: Marino), he was a god in Miami, (editors note: 17 quarterbacks have started for Miami since Marino.) In fact, he was likely the greatest quarterback to never win a Super Bowl. So he should have an inside track to the title of best regular season quarterback… right? This is definitely a close one. I cannot use irrelevant things, like fake retirements or speculation whether he sent a picture of his dangle to convince you, because Dan was and is a classy guy. Hell, he was even in an Ace Ventura movie. That is hilarious. Also, he only had one 1,000-yard rusher in his backfield over the span of his whole career.
But Peyton, at 142 wins, is within reach of passing Marino’s 147 wins this season. In doing so, he has easily trumped Marino’s winning percentage with 67.9 percent to Marino’s 61.3 percent which is giant, considering how many games they have played (thanks to Wikipedia for all of these killer statistics, glad professors are coming to terms that Wikipedia is omniscient). Peyton is within reach of all of these records, and without jinxing the part of his body that was under question (knock on wood), I am confident that he will surpass Marino, and Elway’s 148 wins (man, is that going to be an awkward post-game celebration). So let’s just do it. Let’s just give Peyton the crown now. He deserves it.
Henry McKenna
Sports Editor