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Brady-Manning XIV...some previews


laughedatbytime
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Added bonus: We learn RNB's real name, Seamus McGillicudy...

 

http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/64113476/

 

Regular columnist Mike Tanier:

 

It's impossible to do justice to Brady/Manning XIV in a few hundred words. The sports rivalry of our generation has become the stuff of history, and also the stuff of overbearing hype: note the Roman numerals, which are never a good sign. Fans have spent more than a decade forming their opinions about each quarterback, so one more compare-and-contrast session won't change any minds. Breaking down the Broncos and Patriots means maximum effort for minimal gain: both teams are headed to the playoffs, so as much as the Broncos and Patriots each need a win to keep pace in their divisions, this matchup feels like a preliminary for a January main event.

 

So instead of drowning in purple prose or analytics, let's sit back and let Brady/Manning be. You know the people at Yellowstone who fumble with their cameras to get a perfect picture of the moose instead of watching the moose? We are becoming a whole society of those people. No hype, no frills, no meta-ironic commentary: let's just watch two of the greatest players ever, while they are still here.

 

Guy who left no tip on a $98 tab because waitress was wearing a Peyton Manning jersey:

 

http://www.sportsonearth.com/assets/images/5/5/4/64115554/cuts/waitress_note_28carbmb_h5u2rpbn.jpg

 

TV Guide capsule: (ed. note: Do they still do this?)

 

In this matchup of top quarterbacks, the Pats Tom Brady has won nine of 13 meetings with Peyton Manning. In last year's 31-21 victory, New England had four 80-yard-plus drives, 35 first downs and Stevan Ridley ran for 152 yards (Football, 180 Mins)

 

Batman and Superman:

 

BATMAN: Tom Brady is a lot like me, when you think about it. A self-made man who worked to turn himself into a hero. He even hides behind a metrosexual playboy façade, just like I do.

 

SUPERMAN: Yeah, well Peyton Manning is a lot like me: a mild-mannered, dopey Midwesterner who is really a strange visitor from another planet.

 

BATMAN: You really think Peyton Manning is an alien?

 

SUPERMAN: Forehead. Hello?

 

BATMAN: I guess you are right. And just like you and I, Manning has all the superpowers, but everyone likes Brady far better. They know that behind the glamor, Brady is just like me: grim and gritty.

 

SUPERMAN: I am grim and gritty too now. Did you see Man of Steel? I stone-cold killed General Zod, even though neither of us has killed anyone in a comic book since World War II.

 

BATMAN: Good job making sure both Metropolis and Smallville got destroyed, by the way. The collateral damage was amazing. Most heroes would have led the villain out of Smallville, which is probably surrounded by 100 miles of farmland on all sides. But you took the fight straight to IHOP!

 

SUPERMAN: I had to one-up you and Bane blowing up three-quarters of Gotham and nearly killing Hines Ward. (Sigh). Remember when superheroes actually saved cities?

 

BATMAN: Remember when Tom Brady and Peyton Manning won Super Bowls? Now it's all Peyton's little brother and that lumbering paisan from Baltimore. It's like taking a Superman television show off the air and replacing it with a series based around Oliver Queen and Helena Bertinelli.

 

SUPERMAN: I see what you did there. Anyway, Brady and Manning are meeting for the 14th time, and we have been appearing in comics together for over 60 years. And we are finally getting a movie together! Think Brady and Manning will ever be in a movie together?

 

BATMAN: I do. After a critically-acclaimed Tom Brady trilogy, Brady will appear in a made-for-television Manning family movie on the CW.

 

SUPERMAN: You never quit, do you?

 

Seamus McGillicudy (or our very own RNB?)

 

 

Let me start by saying that I don't have a dog in this fight. In 11 years as a Patriots season ticket holder, I have never met Tom Brady or Peyton Manning (though my sister-in-law once shook Joe Andruzzi's hand at a fundraiser!!!!) As I wrote in my four-part series The Lamentations of a Red Sox Fan last week, I don't care if the Boston area has to go six months without a championship parade, or as long as ten.

 

I simply need to speak up against the overblown pseudo-rivalry between Tom Brady, one of the greatest humans of his generation, and Peyton Manning, a slightly above-average game manager who routinely lucks into excellent organizations and systems. The media continues to feed the public pabulum about some epic "rivalry" between an eternal champion and a guy who managed to squeak out one measly Super Bowl by beating Rex Grossman in a downpour.

 

Now, I am not one of those people who calls Peyton Manning a "choke artist." I will admit that he has had some solid games. He looked darn good in the 1996 Citrus Bowl. Since then, the media has insisted on propping up Manning as some "standard of excellence." It is part of the same conspiracy that orders us to be silent when the NFL blows two calls on purpose in one month to keep the Patriots from running away with the NFL. BUT WE WILL NOT BE SILENT AGAINST THE PERSECUTION KUECHLY MUGGED GRONK THE JETS GOT AWAY WITH PUSHING JUSTIN TUCKER'S FIELD GOAL WAS WIDE LEFT THE PATRIOTS CANNOT BE BEATEN THEY CAN ONLY BE CHEATED OUT OF VICTORIES...

 

Oops, lost myself for a moment. Anyway, I get it: the NFL needs to sell tickets and television rights, so it cannot allow Brady and the Patriots to win all the Super Bowls they deserve to win. And making up a cute little "rivalry" with some guy who throws six-yard passes helps. I just refuse to buy in to the narrative and swallow the tripe offered by a sports media complex that lacks a significant New England presence. Sunday night's game is just another game, and Brady's only true rival remains the high expectations he sets for himself and for all of us.

 

Prediction: Patriots 51, Broncos 3. Unless there is slight contact on the final play of the game, in which case: Broncos 24, Patriots 20.

 

King James Bible:

 

 

(1) And Belichick did sayeth before the Belichickites: "Send forth Ty Law that he may throw a blanket upon Marvin Harrison, thus covering him up." And Law did as Belichick told, and thrice did he intercept Peyton Manning, whilst Adam Vinatieri kicked field goal upon field goal, five field goals in all. (2) And thus the Belichickites entered again the Promised Land, where they laid waste upon the Delhommites.

 

(3) But in time disfavor fell upon the Belichickites. They did battle against the Manningites in which two offensive linemen did crosseth the plane of the goal line for fumble recovery touchdowns, which is an abomination. (4) Belichick's heart grew stubborn, and he turned his back upon righteousness. "See how I merely stretch my arms on fourth-and-2, and Kevin Faulk dost converteth?" Belichick told his people. (5) But Faulk did not converteth, and the Belichickites were defeated by the Manningites.

 

(6) It was then that the king of the Manningites, Irsaychadnezzer, grew jealous of his people's greatest champion, and Peyton was thus banished to live amongst the mountain people. (7) When Belichick heard this, he waged battle with Peyton and the mountain people, and did so humbly, and did rout them with 35 first downs, and Stevan Ridley did rush forth for 151 yards. (8) And lo, the Belichickians did continue to battle back and forth with these new Manningites. The battles still go on today.

 

(9) Now it happened that whenever the Belichickians became too stubborn and vainglorious, they did meet the kin of Peyton, a young man named Elisha...

 

 

(Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) spent her entire life in Amherst, Massachusetts as a near-recluse who never left her parents' house, making her uniquely suited to write about the Patriots.)

 

I saw Wes Welker clutch his skull -

 

Yet secretly rejoice --

 

He'd rather stay at home instead

 

Of hearing all this noise.

 

The sermons we are weekly told -

 

The folly of our quarrels

 

Unnoticed as a Kuechly hold -

 

Unused as Jamaal Charles.

 

Such foolishness! The toiling hands

 

That turn the conference winch -

 

Shall be buried in the meadow's lands -

 

By a plow called Marshawn Lynch

 

***

 

 

(Our next guest columnist is your sister-in-law's Facebook page, seen at right.)

COUSIN BEA: You named your kitty-cat Peyton, sweetie.

 

COUSIN SEAMUS: Manning is a choke artist and you know it.

 

SISTER-IN-LAW: That's right Bea! No he's not Seamus!

 

YOU: Seriously? How old are you, 13? I'm supposed to drop everything and change my Facebook status because you left an arch little note saying you would not be my friend anymore?

 

COUSIN SEAMUS: Chokety-choke. Chokarita. Chokatini. The Patriots are the only true champions.

 

UNCLE CARMINE: Won the first Super Bowl on a stupid call. Won the next two by spying. Cuss out referees when a call doesn't go their way. Your defense of the Patriots is as stupid as your defense of Obamacare.

 

AUNT PENELOPE: Now I am the last person to argue politics on the Internet, Carmine, but you have to admit this country isn't going in the right direction.

 

- see more -

 

(74 political posts later)

 

COUSIN SEAMUS: If this administration really wanted to do something, they would investigate all of these calls against the Patriots. And award them victories in the Panthers and Jets games.

 

COUSIN BEA: You Patriots fans are crazy, did you see this:

 

Woman Denied Tip for Wearing Peyton Manning Jersey

 

 

(The folks at Helicopter Parents Viewing Guide were kind enough to provide this preview of Patriots-Broncos for younger viewers.)

 

Sex & Nudity: ** No nudity, but Tom Brady's elegant grooming may confuse some younger viewers. If you joined us for our Bert and Ernie protest in 2011, you may want to fast-forward whenever he has his helmet off.

 

Violence & Gore: ***** Football is not as violent as something terrible like Paper Mario, but it is still a rough game. The violence has consequences, however, as defenders will learn if they come within five feet of either quarterback.

 

Profanity: * Roy Ellison is not officiating.

 

Final Verdict: ** This game falls in that large gray area between Baby Geniuses Explore the Rainbow (which had a few too many male characters in pastels for our comfort) and Django Unchained. Proceed with caution.

 

 

(We asked famous computer programmer John George Kennedy to weigh in on Brady Manning XIV. The fact that he has been dead for 20 years did not keep him from offering an opinion.)

 

10 REM *****AWESOME BRADY MANNING PROGRAM *****

 

20 FOR G = 1 TO 13

 

30 READ TOMSCORE, PEYTONSCORE

 

40 IF TOMSCORE > PEYTONSCORE THEN ? "Patriots win! Peyton choked!"

 

50 IF TOMSCORE < PEYTONSCORE THEN ? "Colts win! Belichick is arrogant!"

 

60 IF TOMSCORE < PEYTONSCORE AND G >= 13 THEN ? "Broncos Win! Belichick is still arrogant!"

 

70 NEXT G

 

80 DATA 44, 13, 38, 17, 38, 34, 24, 13, 27,24,20, 3, 21, 40, 20, 27, 34, 38, 24, 20, 34, 35, 31, 28, 59, 24.

 

90 ? "In last year's 31-21 victory, New England had four 80-yard-plus drives, 35 first downs and Stevan Ridley ran for 152 yards (Football, 180 Mins)"

 

100 END

 

 

(Mrs. Edna Teekwillow of Warren Harding High School in Glen Burnie, Md., asked the 10th graders in her Common Core Prep Class (formerly called "Useful Life Skills") to write five-paragraph essays on the Manning-Brady showdown. Here is the winning entry by Conner Jordan Mandelbrot, who completed his essay while waiting for his smartphone to download Angry Birds: Blue is the Warmest Color.)

 

The Tom Brady/Peyton Manning rivalry is the greatest football rivalry of all time. It is the greatest football rivalry of all time because the players are great, the teams are great, and the games are a lot of fun to watch. That is why it is the greatest rivalry of all time.

 

Tom Brady and Peyton Manning are both great quarterbacks. Tom Brady has won three Super Bowls and played in two others. Peyton Manning has won one Super Bowl and played in another one. Both have set a bunch of records. Peyton Manning makes a lot of commercials. They are funny. I like to watch them. Tom Brady makes commercials, too. My mom watches those. That is why Brady and Manning are both great quarterbacks.

 

The Patriots and Broncos are both great teams. They are always in the playoffs. They are both going to be in the playoffs this year. My dad says he has won a lot of money because of the Patriots in the playoffs. He says he lost money because of the Broncos. Last January, he lost so much money because of the Broncos that we did not have heat for a while. February was cold. That is why the Patriots and Broncos are both great teams.

 

The games are a lot of fun to watch! There is nothing more fun than watching a great football game on a Sunday. My father has so much fun watching Manning/Brady games that he sometimes has to sleep all day on Monday. My mother likes it when dad watches games all day, too. She spends the whole day chatting on the computer with her bedroom door closed. That is why the games are a lot of fun to watch.

 

In summary, the Tom Brady/Peyton Manning rivalry is the greatest football rivalry of all time because the players are great, the teams are great, and the games are a lot of fun to watch. I do not know who will win on Sunday, but I may have to walk myself to school on Monday, because our family gets so caught up in all of the football excitement.

 

 

(Our final guest columnist is bestselling novelist Stieg Larsson, who, like Tupac, has done all his best work since his death.)

 

"The Girl with the Broncos Tattoo"

 

Sallymander Lingonberries was a sultry young computer hacker with lots of tattoos. She longed to learn the secrets of the Dolphins locker room, but sometimes she forgot she was a super-hacker. When that happened, she could only learn the truth by exposing herself to the kinkiest, most depraved situations a repressed middle-aged author could think of.

 

"Take that! And that and that!" Richie Incognito said as he enacted his cruelest fantasies about the helpless, lithe young woman. "Please, don't make me watch another episode of Betrayal!" Sallymander cried, but Incognito would not relent. Luckily, she videotaped the whole disgusting binge-watch, then turned the tape over to Tony Dungy as soon as she escaped.

 

"That's quite a piece of detective work," said a man at NFL headquarters. His name was Bjorn Bennyannafreda. He was a dour liberal journalist, the kind of man sexy young Goth girls find irresistible in novels written by dour liberal journalists. "I know who you are," Sallymander said. "I hacked into your computer weeks ago. I know that you are chasing some secret."

 

"Yes, I am investigating the disappearance of a man named Peyton Manning," Bjorn said. "You can join me, but we must travel to a barren, windswept village in an icy part of the world where nothing interesting ever happens."

 

Once in Indianapolis, Bjorn explained that Peyton Manning was the son of Archie Manning and the brother of Eli and Cooper Manning. He then explained more of the Manning genealogy. It went on for page after tedious page. Then Sallymander slid off her blouse and begged Bjorn to make dour Scandinavian love to her on the counter of an abandoned Panera Bread.

 

After about 100 pages of mumbling about genealogies and conversations with boring people, Bjorn was hit on the back of the head by a vintage guitar. He awoke chained to the pipes in the basement of the millionaire who hired him. "So it was you all along, Mister Irsay?"

 

"Yes," Irsay replied. "My public persona as a groovy philanthropist is all an act. I will now tell you what I really do to the people who disappoint me, and no one ever disappointed me more than Peyton Manning!" Irsay then detailed a gratuitous, implausible series of grisly, titillating crimes that is probably supposed to represent capitalism's inhumane treatment of the working class or something but, let's face it, would be the script for a Lindsey Lohan movie if an American wrote it.

 

Luckily, Sallymander kicked down the door, dropped a vintage guitar on the ground, and poured gasoline on it. "Nooooo," Irsay shouted. "That's a Jimi Hendrix guitar! It's not meant to be lit on fire!" She threw the flaming guitar at Irsay, and Bjorn and Sallymander escaped as Irsay rushed to save his Super Bowl ring and Strawberry Alarm Clock vinyl from his burning mansion. "There," Sallymander said, "now that I have defeated the bad guy, all of the filthy stuff that happened to me in this novel is feminist meta-commentary. I'M LITERATURE!"

 

(After five more numbing chapters of procedure and exposition)

 

"It turns out Peyton Manning was alive after all," Bjorn told his foxy female editor after they made somber Scandinavian love atop her ergonomically-perfect desk. "He has been in Denver the whole time. In fact, he is playing in an important American football game against his arch-rival this week."

 

"And what of this mysterious Sallymander?" she asked while Febreezing her office.

 

"Oh, I am sure we will see her again in a sequel, perhaps at the Super Bowl" he said.

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I picked the Pats vs the spread and gave them 7 pts in the confidence pool. This is the kind of game they usually play well in. But I'm hoping for a different outcome.
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17-0.

 

Hopefully this game will be more like the Raven-Patriot playoff game in 2009 than the SNF game vs SF last year.

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The picture they keep showing between them on the game shows a burnt orange Brady looking more evil than ever, and an aw shucks Manning lacking just a halo. If ever there is a more clear case of good vs. evil, I've never seen it.
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The Patriots don't care, they know they've got their division won no matter what. This is their last difficult game on their schedule, the Dolphins, Jets and Bills will never mount a challenge. And with the Colts and Chiefs unraveling a bye seems guaranteed.
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The picture they keep showing between them on the game shows a burnt orange Brady looking more evil than ever, and an aw shucks Manning lacking just a halo. If ever there is a more clear case of good vs. evil, I've never seen it.

Not to mention Brady's doofus haircut. He just wants to get this over with so he can watch the AMAs.

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The Patriots don't care, they know they've got their division won no matter what. This is their last difficult game on their schedule, the Dolphins, Jets and Bills will never mount a challenge. And with the Colts and Chiefs unraveling a bye seems guaranteed.

We'd only be two back and we have the hapless Jets twice and the Pats once. So this isn't over yet.

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The Patriots don't care, they know they've got their division won no matter what. This is their last difficult game on their schedule, the Dolphins, Jets and Bills will never mount a challenge. And with the Colts and Chiefs unraveling a bye seems guaranteed.

We'd only be two back and we have the hapless Jets twice and the Pats once. So this isn't over yet.

You'd be in a good position if you'd beat them Pansies today!

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