I love stats and wish Packers owned every single one of them, but especially Lombardi trophies.

Favre was a Packer for most of his career. Manning never was a Packer. Now if Rodgers and Manning swap teams, I'll be rooting for Manning to break Favre's records. If not, I hope Favre keeps playing and puts them out of reach.

But like I said, Lombardi trophies are more important and that's a team record.

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I'm not sure though if Manning will be as good as Favre at a later age as he doesn't have the mobility or arm strength Brett has but his smarts might make up for it. Also I feel the Colts are due for some down years as no teams stay on top for a long time anymore

Peyton Manning is prototypical NFL QB. Brett isn't.

I've seen Peyton Manning make great plays because the guy is an expert at what he does.

I've seen Brett Favre make great plays because the guy won't quit, no matter what's stacked against him.

Beating Peyton Manning is a systematic approach. Beating Brett Favre is about how much you wanna do it.

I really doubt Manning is going to be throwing the balls Brett throws now at age 40. But he CAN catch the records. I just don't see anybody else playing this long.

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The decades they play in also means a lot. 14 of the 17 players ranked higher than Favre on the all time list are Active Players. Including Jeff Garcia and Daunte Culpepper. Now is a great time to be a QB.

Life time accumulation records don't mean much if you play twice as long as the vast majority of QBs. He also got more ints, more fumbles, more sacks, more ints in the playoffs... I would be more interested in things like TD/TO ratio, Yards/TO, Completion percentage, QB rating and stuff like that. Even that is subject to the team they play with. Look at Tom Brady and Matt Cassell. The Patriots make them both look great, Cassell goes to the Chiefs and his rating drops 20 points. Bradys line starts to break down and their D retires and he has trouble scoring.

The one stat that impresses me is the consecutive games. No matter what, that is out standing and will probably never be beaten.

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Dexter, I've been fighting this fight long before you arrived here, and I can tell you it's a losing battle. People are blinded by the raw numbers -- the life time accumulation records, as you call them -- and never put them in the context of the ratios you mention.

Ah, well, stand back-to-back with me and we'll bravely wield our swords together. 😉

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We few, we happy few, we band of brothers, for he today that sheds blood (theirs, not ours) with me, Shall be my brother.

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I don't care about the importance of the stats.
I don't care about the validity of the stats.
I don't care what anyone thinks about stats in relationship to greatness.


What I'm asking is ... will Peyton be able to catch Brett record wise? I think he can, but I don't think he will.

Some of you have ADD worse than me, dayum!!

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To answer your question, Kevin...

Yes, I think Peyton will catch Favre record-wise.

Favre might keep the consecutive game record, but I'm skeptical of that, too, unless Manning (i) gets hurt before Favre retires, or (ii) somehow ends up his career with another team because Indy has a brain fart and doesn't pay him between now and next year.

Why do I think Manning will break the game streak? Because he just doesn't get hit as much as most quarterbacks. Part of the reason Favre hasn't been injured is that his footwork as a QB tends to suck (by pro standards). Manning is textbook in his form, but he still rarely gets hit -- partly because he's got a damn good line in front of him, partly because he's so smart in finding receivers/getting rid of the ball fast.

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Dexter & NSD - I'm actually on your side on this one. Different eras are entirely different. Another thing people forget is the blocking schemes. Pass protect is much, much better than Bart Starr's and Joe Namath's days. Makes a huge difference. Heck, it's even much better today than it was 10 years ago.

Zero - Depends. If Favre keeps playing, Manning will eventually take an injury that's too severe to continue. I'm of course not hoping for anyone to get hurt. I'm just saying the percentages. It's a freak occurrence that Favre has played this long. Don't know if it will happen again any time soon.

CDN has a good point. Do you really think the Colts can be good this long? What happens when the OL starts to taper off? Football is still a team game.

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I can't be arsed to sift through all the archives at the moment, but several months ago I did an analysis of every record Favre holds and exactly how long it would take Manning (assuming career averages, of course) to beat them. At that time, Manning had the potential to start breaking some records in as few as three years, though he would have required four to five for most. Favre's subsequent return obviously puts a wrench into that analysis and will extends the timeline a bit.

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