Posted on 01/10/2005 7:57:52 AM PST by agenda_express
By BARRY WILNER AP Football Writer
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- Peyton Manning's phenomenal season earned him his second straight Associated Press NFL Most Valuable Player Award. He was nearly a unanimous choice.
The Indianapolis Colts' star quarterback, who surpassed Dan Marino and Steve Young with his passing prowess in 2004, earned all but one of 48 votes from a national panel of sports writers and broadcasters who cover pro football. Manning tied with Steve McNair for the award last season, but this time only Atlanta quarterback Michael Vick drew a vote.
Manning joined the likes of Joe Montana, John Unitas, Steve Young and Kurt Warner as quarterbacks with two MVP awards. Brett Favre is the only player to win it three times.
"Individually, I accomplished a lot in a short period of time," Manning said. "But no question, we did not win a Super Bowl in the time I've been here as a quarterback."
Ever the team man, and ever championship-oriented, Manning refuses to concentrate on his statistics. He might have thrown for 49 touchdowns, surpassing Dan Marino's 20-year-old NFL record. And he may have shattered Young's passer rating record with a 121.1 mark. And he might have established other league marks and a bunch more team records.
But to Manning, unless it all culminates in a championship, it's not what he's after.
"Just because you played well in Week 2 or Week 10 doesn't mean anything for the playoffs," Manning said. "Except that you're capable of doing it."
Manning was capable of doing almost anything in leading the Colts to a 12-4 record and the AFC South title. They routed Denver 49-24 in the first round of the playoffs - the MVP voting was held before the postseason - and play at New England on Sunday.
He also turned two of his previously unaccomplished receivers, Reggie Wayne and Brandon Stokley, into threats almost on a par with Manning's favorite target, perennial Pro Bowler Marvin Harrison. All caught at least 10 touchdown passes and went over 1,000 yards in receiving - an unprecedented combination for three teammates.
"Peyton is such a competitor, he has such high expectations to go out and win," Wayne said. "You want to make a play for him and bail him out of tough situations."
Tough situations? Manning tends to make everything look easy.
Sort of like Young and Montana and Unitas and Warner and Favre did. But all of them have that championship along with their MVPs. Manning doesn't.
And it drives him to do even more.
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Yeah and Eli is 2-0 against Florida. Seriously though Peyton had some great games against the Gators but just did not win.
I would agree that it was UT's running backs and their propensity to fumble in crucial situations that cost them in those games, not Peyton. He almost did bring them back from 35-0, it ended up 35-29, and they had a chance in the end to pull it out.
I just read your profile page. I should point out that I have season tickets at Ole Miss. Did I mention that Eli was 2-0 against the Gators? By the way what do you think of Urban Meyer? Is he the savior he is made out to be? Talent should be abundant.
Vick is a less accurate and more injury prone version of Randall Cunningham with less ability to pass for TD's. I wonder if Vick can punt? Randall could've led the league in punting if Buddy Ryan had let him.
Randall in 1990 - a year far superior to anything Vick has produced so far.
| Passing | Rushing
Year TM | G | Comp Att PCT YD Y/A TD INT | Att Yards TD
| 1990 phi | 16 | 271 465 58.3 3466 7.5 30 13 | 118 942 5
Terry Bradshaw never broke 58% completion percentage, and mostly wallowed down around 50%. But he's got 4 rings.
Manning has a lot of personal demons he has to get through in Foxboro. The past few years he's come in just as hot and fallen apart (usually in clutch situations). For some reason, the Pats are in his head.
I'm not sure if the Pats have beaten Manning or if Peyton has beaten himself. He gets this deer in the headlights look the minute he steps into the Stadium (both Foxboro and Gillette). He never looks that way against other teams.
I would have like to have seen Eli go up against the Gator teams his brother had to face instead of the watered-down Ron Zook version of the Gators. As far as Urban goes, we shall see. He's got his work cut out for him having to recruit against Miami, FSU and the rest of the SEC. This ain't Utah. But I'm cautiously optimistic, he can't be any worse than what we had before.
Joey Harrington had almost identical numbers when compared to Vick. And everyone knows Joey sucks.
I was a huge Archie Manning fan back when he played for Old Miss. I recall him playing in the Sugar(?) Bowl with a cast on his arm.
One has to wonder how he'd have done in the pros, had he not been playing for the Aints.
Not at all true.
The Eagles in 2002 and 2003 scored 26 points per game. The Eagles in 2004 through the first 14 games with Owens scored ... anyone?, anyone? ... 26 points per game.
Perception is not reality.
The Eagles are a completely different team in perception because last year was the year of the three headed monster in the backfield (Staley, Westbrook, and Buckhalter - 20 rushing TD's, 7 recieving TD's, 1618 rushing yards 847 recieving yards), and this year was the year of Owens (14 TD, 1200 yards receiving) and Westbrook (9 TD's, 812 rushign yard 703 receiving yards). 2002 was the year we had a balanced attack of Staley and McNabb on the ground and Pinkston, Thrash, Freeman, and Staley performing to ability through the air. Point being, Owens simply plugged into an existing potent offense and became its most spectacular component.
The real difference has been the defense, which had just 3 outings this year before our second pre-season in Weeks 15 and 16 that violated Defensive Coordinator Jimmy Johnson's limit of 17 points to the opposition rule (Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Dallas). This compares to 7 (3 resulting in losses) such disastrous defensive outings in 2003 and 5 (3 resulting in losses) in 2002. This untold story comes from the return of Trotter at middle linebacker, the signing of Kearse and emergence of Rayburn at the D-Line, and the emergence of pro-bowlers Sheppard and Lewis, along with Brown in the backfield to complement Dawkins.
Imagine how bad it would have been without two Hall of Fame receivers.
The MVP should the team as it plays with the player to the team as it plays without. Comparing this year's to last year's team is meaningless when we can compare this year's record with Owens to this year's record without.
13-1 with Owens, 0-2 without.
I also believe that Randall was the last QB to rush for 1000 yards in a seasonn. Years of pounding, however, finally turned Cunningham into a pocket passer and it will Vick also if he lasts that long.
Manning can only be considered to have "fallen apart" in one game against the Pats - last years AFC championship. (Granted a really bad time to fall apart.) The regular season game last year against the Pats Peyton played quite well and the Colts lost only because Edge James couldn't gain one yard on the goalline in four tries. In the first game this year Manning had a very good game, much better than Brady, but Edge fumbled twice inside the 10 yard line and the Colts lost by 3. The main reason the Colts have lost to the Pats is a weak Colts defense that can't stop Tom Brady's excellent short passing game.
Archie was a lot better QB than the W-L record shows. He played on some pretty awful Saints teams, and when they finally started to turn things around in the 80s, he got shipped to Houston as the Oilers were descending into mediocrity, and finally ended up on a horrible team in Minnesota. Believe it or not, his best season was in 1980, when the Saints went 1-15. He was the only player on that disaster of a team who never quit.
Give him the talent that they've surrounded the grossly overrated Aaron Brooks with, and the Saints would be playing this coming Sunday. Give him some of Jim Mora's teams from the late 80s and early 90s, and he'd have won a Super Bowl.
Way to go, Peyton. Cut that meat, cut that meat, cut that meat!!
A) only played a portion of the game in the last week of the season and
B)Did not play at all this week.
Randall's best season was his 15-1 1998 season with the Vikings. He barely ran.
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