Resolved: Tom Brady is a better quarterback than Peyton Manning

C1 – Clutch My opponent suggests that wins at the end are a better measure, however, they fail to measure the stats of the player. They measure whether or not the team won, not how the player did. Digging through his source, I can find how the TD was scored, but it does not show the actual stats on those final drives. However, we can look at each drive and see how it ended. For Brady’s 41 “clutch” wins (one of them they listed was a 52 – 28 victory over the Bills [1]) only 16 came from passing TDs, with 7 from rushing TDs, 15 from FGs and 3 from defense (one pick 6, one fumble recovery, and one safety). Meanwhile Manning had 21 passing (with 12 rushing, 16 FGs, and 2 defensive). If we look at the passing (they are QBs after all), Manning was at 1.40 to Brady’s 1.33. ESPN (please refer to my references from last round [1][2]) tracks the actual QB stats in 4th quarter when the game is within 1 possession. Over their careers, Manning has 61 TDs (4.07 per season or 5.47 per 100 pass attempts) with a Passer Rating of 90.35. Brady only has 36 TDs (3.00 per season or4.93 per 100 pass attempts) with a Passer Rating of 83.57. Now, before anyone suggests that this is because Manning got himself into more tough situations, if we look at just the 13 season (where they each sat out one year), we see that Manning was 463 for 696 (to Brady’s 432 for 730) for 5,488 yards (to Brady’s 5,257). Manning also threw 38 TDs and 14 Picks (to Brady’s 36 TD’s and 25 Picks). Over this time frame, we see that Manning had a Passer Rating of over 100. These last stats are to show that Manning is not just in the situation more as his number of pass attempts is actually lower (despite him averaging more passing attempts per season). C2 – Efficiency My opponent attempts to argue that Manning’s stats are inflated because he played indoors. However, this is easily seen as false, given that the last two years have been inarguably Manning’s best and they are outdoor stadiums (he played 15 of his 16 outdoor this last record breaking season). Of course, everyone gets used to their own field style, regardless if it is indoors or outdoors. If you look at Brady during his 2007 season (inarguably his best season), he had a Passer Rating of 118.5 for outdoors and 95.2 for indoors. Now, I only went back to Brady’s best year in 2007, but since then, he has had a Passer Rating of 102.2. His passer rating for indoor stadiums in that time frame is 101.9, roughly the same. Looking to Manning in the same time frame, we see that he has done better in Outdoor as well (103.1 to 97.0). Both of them are marginally better outdoors than indoors, so to claim that it makes some major difference, at least for these two athletes, is inaccurate. My opponent also tries to claim that Manning had better weapons. This is not accurate. While the stats do not go all the way back, but players like David Patten, David Givens, and especially Kevin Faulk provided a lot of options and skill for Brady. Manning only had a few skilled options that he had to focus on, thus inflating their stats. This gives the disillusion that they are better players. Let us compare David Patten [4] to Reggie Wayne [3]. Over his years with New England, he averaged 15.23 yards per reception and only had 1 lost fumble (out of 165 catches), while Wayne averaged 13.49 with 9 lost fumbles (over 1,006 catches). While we don’t get to see how often one is targeted until recently, we see that when Patten was with Brees, he caught about 61.4% of his targets (the last year he was healthy). Brady is just as good as Brees (at least close to it, but that is for a different debate) and we see similar receptions and yards. Wayne is a little better with Manning (at 64.7% completion), but we find that as soon as Manning is gone, Wayne doesn’t do so hot. His full season with Luck we find him at 54.6%. Pierre Garcon was better with RG3 at 61.4% last year. Of course, we can also just go back to the QBR. The QBR is calculated to factor out the effects of the OL and receivers to be a true measure of the QBs pure talent. Now, this leads us into my opponent’s claims on QBR. He says that it is not accurate because it only goes back to 2006. However, my opponent later makes a claim regarding winning percentages [5] while only looking back to 2009. In reality, going back to 2006 covers 2/3 of Brady’s career, a significant enough time to have an accurate measure. While my opponent claims that Brady had weaker WRs so his QBR will be higher, he offers no conclusive reasoning for why this is so, or by how much. Brady’s best QBR season was 2007 (when he had his most powerful weapons). Manning is similar, though his last two years were not his “best” for QBR, they were both above average for him and clearly show that having better weapons does not equal having a lower QBR. From this, one cannot conclude that Brady would have a higher QBR in the previous years. As is, the QBR is still the best measure for who is the best QB. C1? (maybe C3) – Winning Run game, my opponent tries to down play the importance. Those 189 yards are the difference between being the 49ers and the Raiders or between the Chargers and the Texans [6]. That is a significant difference in run game and it translates to on the field. This is something that cannot simply be dismissed. My opponent tries to suggest that we should simply ignore 2009. That is called cherry picking data and is a statistical sin. As for the comment about the weakness of the division, that was somewhat tongue in cheek, as I am a Bills fan. However, it is partially true. If we look at the rest of the division (and compare the bottom 3 for each division), we find that the AFC East is the 3rd weakest division over the time frame (though we should argue that it is the 2nd weakest, as the #2 weakest was the NFC West, which is currently the strongest, or one of them). Of course, this is only the last 5 years, while the Patriots have owned the division for the last decade. The biggest indicator of both the overall strength of the team or weakness of the division is how they’ve done without their QBs. The 2008 Patriots, without Brady, were a pitiful 11 – 5 [7], while the 2011 Colts, without Manning, were 2 – 14 [8]. This clearly shows that the Patriots are a solid built team around Brady. == Conclusion == While Brady has the wins with his team to show success, this has clearly been shown to be a case of being on a stronger team (as evidenced that they do far better without him than the Colt did without Manning, that the team independent numbers show that Manning is a better player, that they have had a consistently more powerful run game, etc). Thank you, [1] . http://www.pro-football-reference.com... [2] . http://espn.go.com... [3] . http://espn.go.com... [4] . http://espn.go.com... [5] . https://docs.google.com... [6] . http://espn.go.com... [7] . http://www.pro-football-reference.com... [8] . http://www.pro-football-reference.com...