[I just sent this email to Bill Simmons of Grantland]
On January 25th, Bill Barnwell reflected on Tom Brady’s career in reverse chronological order: “He’s the guy who beats up on weak links and never shows up when his team really needs him. He’s got various maladies, he chokes when his team is a huge favorite at home, he can’t produce a drive to kill off a game.”
Barnwell notes that many critics had similar remarks about Peyton Manning earlier in his career, but that all changed in 2007 when Peyton won the Super Bowl. Now, the question is whether the tides area again shifting for these two quarterbacks.
While Peyton is breaking passing records with Wes Welker’s help, the Patriots are winning old school. The inverse relationship of Tom and Peyton’s careers is so surreal it brings to mind pop culture Disney classic “Freaky Friday.” Like Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis in the recent version (or Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster in the original), it’s as if Tom and Peyton have swapped pigskin personalities.
If you take for granted this zero-sum game of football karma, the obvious question is “when exactly did these two exchange quarterback qualities?”
It would appear the first shift occurred at halftime of the 2006 AFC Championship game in Indianapolis. After a thumping in the first half, Peyton turned the tables in miraculous fashion in the second half on the way to winning the ‘07 Super Bowl. Meanwhile, Brady and Belichick went home vowing never to play another road playoff game and assembled the world’s most outrageous offense, powered by Wes Welker and Randy Moss.
Brady’s injury and losses to the “other” Manning are trials too painful to recount. Was this change in karma penance for spying, offensive hubris, or bagging a supermodel wife? We don’t know, but it does appear circumstances are turning once again.
Peyton has the record-setting offense, made possible by Brady’s erstwhile Jonah at wide receiver, and the Patriots have rushed their way to the AFC Championship against injurious odds. This latest denouement, you may be wondering, appears to have been halftime of this season’s matchup in Foxboro.
Also the tale of two halves, that Patriots-Broncos game saw the football gods change allegiances as if by the flip of a coin. He was once the improbable David against the Rams, then Goliath against the Giants, now hopefully we have the Tom of old against Peyton’s Broncos. Do you doubt this theory? We’ll see what happens this Sunday afternoon.