NFL New England Patriots #12 Tom Brady Red 50th Je

Some names in sports have been linked so long, it almost seems like they start to rhyme. Palmer and Nicklaus. Magic and Bird. Ali and Frazier. Woody and Bo.And on Sunday, we get a contemporary installment of such a rivalry, with Tom Brady and Peyton Manning locking horns for the 12th time in their respective star-studded careers. This one has a Hollywood-type of sizzle to it, of course, and carries the kind of star power that can draw the viewer from Des Moines who couldn't care less about the fortunes of either team.NFL New England Patriots #12 Tom Brady Red 50th Jersey But as much as it has style, there's a real substance to Brady-Manning that has marked all the iconic battles listed above. In fact, at this point, it's pretty difficult to argue against this one being the greatest quarterback rivalry in the history of the sport.
That's ever, and that's even though both these guys are still at a point where there's plenty of time left to take this one in.Or, at least, that's the way they see it. As I walked with Brady across the New England locker room on Wednesday, I made it clear that's what I'd write -- that this one is the greatest, that this one does reach across sports into the Ali-Fraziers of the lexicon.Brady didn't agree. Cheap NFL New England Patriots Jerseys He also didn't disagree."I still look at us like we're young guys out there playing," he said. "I know his goal is to continue to play for a long time. It's not like it's coming to the end. I just think when you're the quarterback on a football team, obviously, you get a lot of attention."Both of our teams have been successful,Cheap MLB Anaheim Angels Jerseys, for a lot of reasons, not just necessarily because of quarterback play. And we're both beneficiaries of that, guys that have been in the same system their entire career. I know other quarterbacks who've been in different systems -- five systems in five years -- and it's pretty tough to play quarterback like that."
That's all true, of course, and there are plenty of circumstantial things that help you arrive at this conclusion. To Brady's point, the Patriots' quarterback has been paired with the best coach of his era (Bill Belichick), and Manning has worked in tandem with the greatest personnel man of his day (Bill Polian). The two are in the same conference - which allows their meetings to be more frequent -- and play in a time where the passing game has been moved forward by both evolution and rules changes.But that doesn't mean it doesn't go the other way, too. Being in the same system's great, but a great player makes the system that much better, and each quarterback's ability to lift his teammates can make a coach or team president's decisions look more masterful.
What really makes this one great, though, is the competitiveness of each player, which was on display during last November's wild shootout in Indy. The two guys have, from across the Northeastern quarter of the country, implicitly pushed one another. Remember how Manning was once 0-6 vs. Brady and how Belichick was in his head? He's won four of five since then. Cheap NFL Jerseys That's how they push each other."Well, yeah," Brady agreed, when I asked him about that little extra shove. "But I really don't compete against him, per se. I watch him, as someone who's incredibly smart, with that command of his offense, his style of play, the way he gets rid of the ball, his accuracy, his throwing technique."Obviously, we have different personalities and different styles of plays, but I love the things that he does. I get to watch him a lot, and I try to always watch what the Colts are doing."