If it's 3 or 4, who is your #4 QB in the league, if not Manning. He has a SB, plays outdoors, puts up awesome numbers, has beat Favre, Rodgers and Brady in the playoffs (including Favre and Rodgers on the road). I hate him but I was wrong on him, after yesterdays game, I think there is no doubt he is an "elite" QB - which my definition is the top 3-4 QBs in the league.
It's difficult to win without a superstar D but its not impossible by any means. The Saints won two years ago with a D that gave up 350+ yards I am pretty sure. Everyone on O (except for Driver but including Rodgers, Jennings, Grant, etc.) crapped the bed. It happens, we faced a hot team at the wrong time coming off rusty. Its hard to win back to back Super Bowls. It sucks but I think it's just one of those days where we were just beat. I don't think the team was fundamentally flawed or anything, we went 15-1. We counted on the O for a lot of those games, the O sucked and that's on them just as much as it is on the D. If you give me the option of having our team or the 49ers, I'll take our team even with their mighty D - the O just picked the wrong day to not show up. But may be that is just me - I still think we're the better team than the Giants, the 49ers, etc. If we played them in a 7 game series, we win but its one and done, oh well. If the O showed up yesterday without all those turnovers and strange onside kick call and strange 4th and 5 call, I bet the Giants get to may be 23 points.