Peyton Manning and Tom Brady. Round 17. This Sunday. The Stakes? The winner of Sunday’s game advances to Super Bowl 50. The hype couldn’t be any bigger. And much of it is of our own creation.
On Thursday, Mike Luper and Sean Walsh of The Sports Guy Mike Show on Mile High Sports Radio 1340 were joined by Grant Meech, sports director at KOAA NBC5, to discuss Sunday’s AFC Championship game and what exactly it means for the Brady and Manning rivalry.
With the upcoming game being the fifth playoff meeting between Brady and Manning, and possibly the last ever, there is no shortage of excitement and hype revolving around the two quarterbacks. The truth is, says Meech, they don’t think of each other has heated rivals, but rather friends and colleagues.
“The Manning/Brady thing has admittedly been trumped up. Peyton even said it, ‘We really aren’t rivals like you think we are. We’re actually more colleagues and friends than anything,'” Meech relayed. While they aren’t by any means getting a beer after work or going to sit-down dinners, they don’t exactly have the heated rivalry that everyone thinks they do.
As the epic quarterback rivalry nears its end, fans in their respective cities, Denver and Boston, are blanketing the internet with propaganda about is better. Brady owns more Super Bowls, Manning just about every regular-season record in the books.
The truth is, they are pretty smack dab even when it comes head-to-head matchups in the playoffs. Yes, Brady owns the regular season series against Manning 11 to 5, but in the playoffs, they are each 2-2, with Manning holding a 2-1 edge in AFC Championships. And this Sunday’s game isn’t just a regular season game, it’s a playoff game, the AFC Championship.
Whichever you think is better, and whether you want to consider the Manning and Brady relationship friendly or foe-like, there is one thing that most of us can agree on: This might be the last time the two play each other, ever. At 39, Manning is the second-oldest quarterback to ever start in a playoff game – he is only behind Brett Favre, who was 40 in the 2010 playoffs. Brady is not far behind at 38.
So if a possible Super Bowl appearance wasn’t enough to fuel Manning, “To take down Brady one last time, I think that is what driving him right now. That is probably the most motivating factor for Manning right now,” Meech said.
Listen to the full discussion, plus talk about the the Broncos’ front line, in the podcast below…
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