Forgot About Manning

I know Tom Brady broke Manning's single season touchdown record last Saturday night and I know that finishing the season with a perfect record is an unbelivable feat...I know all of this. But the Tom Brady slurping is excessivley wearing me out. Brady might have broke Manning's record but his regular season was not better...on par perhaps...but not better than Manning's.

In 2004 Manning passed for 49 TD's...threw 10 interceptions. His completion percentage was 67.6%. He passed for 4,557 yards with an average of 9.2 yards per completion. He finished the season with a QB rating of 121.1 (the best ever).

In 2007 Brady passed for 50 TD's...threw 8 interceptions. His completion percentage was 68.9%. He passed for 4,806 yards with an average of 8.3 yards per completion. He finished the season with a QB rating of 117.2.

Pretty comparable. It is worth noting that in 2004 Manning threw for 49 TD's in only 497 attempts...while Brady threw 50 TD's in 578 attempts. It is also worth pointing out that Manning played all 16 games but only played in the first quarter of the final week while Brady played all of his team's final game.

Granted...in 2004 Manning played 10 games in a dome (eight in the RCA dome...with one in Detroit and one in Houston). That does give Manning a big edge with him playing well over half his games in temperature-controlled environments. Brady only played one game in a dome (that was in Indy).

But another interesting aspect of comparing their two seasons is their respected divisions. The AFC East in 2007 was one of the worst divisions in the NFL. The other three teams (Miami, Buffalo, and the NY Jets) finished with a 12-36 record (.250 winning percentage). In 2004 the AFC South's other three teams (Jacksonville, Tenessee and Houston) finished with a 21-27 record (.440 winning percentage). Bascially the Patriots had 6 games against very inferior competition while the Colts had 6 division games against competitive teams.

In essence what I'm saying is that Brady '07 season is not superior to that of Manning's. It was just as good as Manning's '04 campaign.