The fellow Patriots’ fans I’ve spoken with seem to
be dealing with this Sunday night’s game with a mix of resignation and hope. On
the one hand, New England’s defense is just two beaten up to hang with Denver’s
offense. If the Pats D was healthy and whole, this would be the biggest regular
season game in recent memory, a game for the ages really, with all the
anticipation and anxiety of a Super Bowl. Instead, with Wilfork, Mayo, Kelly
out and Talib, Arrington and Dennard – their top three cornerbacks – banged up
and questionable, this is a game Patriots Nation can shrug off if their heroes
should fail.
We’ll party if they win, of course. There’s some
spark of light and hope inside all of us who root for the Patriots that cannot be denied.
Peyton Manning is coming to town. It doesn’t get any better than this. It’s
never been better than this.
Brady and Manning are like the Beatles and the
Rolling Stones (or Tupac and Biggie for those of you who have no idea what I’m
talking about… Drake and Chris Brown?). You might grudgingly acknowledge the
existence of the Beatles if you’re a Rolling Stones Guy but you’ve got no time
for their music. There are the Rolling Stones and everyone else is playing for
second place. Same thing for the Beatles Guy. The Beatles are the greatest band
of all time; the Stones are just another bunch of white guys who wish they were
black. Ultimately, it’s like comparing the finest apple and the most incredible
orange that were ever grown. They’re both great; sweet, delicious and good for
you. You’re just looking for reasons not to like the other one.
Dealing with the inevitable avalanche of content
devoted to the fourteenth match up of Peyton Manning and Tom Brady, I tried to
come up with another pair of quarterbacks that conjure up the depth of devotion
the fans of these two first ballot HOF quarterbacks bring to the table. I
couldn’t think of any that came close. I googled “great NFL quarterback
rivalries” and came up with this
list from SI.com and this
list from Cold Hard Football Facts. There are a lot of similar references,
of course, and they confirmed my initial impression. We are witnesses to the
greatest QB rivalry in the history of the game. They are two of the greatest to
ever play the position and this Sunday marks their 14th head-to-head
matchup with #15 already scheduled for the 2014 season.
Their greatness fuels the rivalry in its synergy
with NFL scheduling. They routinely lead their teams to division titles,
putting them on next season’s 1st place vs. 1st place schedule.
(They were briefly division rivals; imagine if they had faced each other twice
a year until Manning moved on to Denver!) Their durability and resilience has
further elevated the rivalry. This isn’t a couple of games or a few years that we’ve
been watching this clash of titans. It’s been more than a decade of two of the
greatest players of all time. Seven Super Bowl appearances, four championships;
so many rings and records and MVP trophies that it feels immodest to keep count.
Any accounting of career accomplishments for quarterbacks already has Manning
or Brady or both on the list.
Once more unto the breach
tonight in Foxborough. Perhaps Belichick will come up with a defensive game
plan that stops Manning with backups and practice squad players. Maybe the cold
and the gales of November will be enough to take the ball out of Manning’s and
Brady’s hands. This could be a game that turns on a poor punt into the wind or
a rock hard football that slips a running back’s grasp. Or perhaps it will be
another nail-bitten chapter in the greatest novel the NFL has ever written.
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