06-20-24 Ryan Michael with Broncos Country Tonight

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
We are going to go right outto the KWA commons Parrel hotline, though,
bring on one of our favorites,Ryan Michael at the Ryan Michael on
the Twitter. How you doing,Bud? Doing well? Ben? How
are you guys? It's been afun day, a little all over the
map, but a little busy,but overall been a pretty good day.
Steve was in here a segment ago. We were I was noticing with the

(00:21):
Marlin Brisco thing, the number fourteenpops up a lot. Have you have
you noticed that that number popped upa lot as well? It sure has,
and I've been just waiting for theopportunity to come on to explain to
people why the number fourteen is somuch more impressive than it probably seems,
because I bet you a lot ofour listeners are thinking of what raw numbers

(00:44):
look like in the NFL today,in a seventeen game schedule, modern day
rules, and they wouldn't necessarily knowthat fourteen touchdown passes in nineteen sixty eight
in the AFL ranked sixth in theleague, and if you combine Marlin's three
rushing touchdowns that year, he tiedtwo Hall of Fame quarterbacks. Joe Namath
and Lenn Dawson for fourth in theleague in total touchdowns with seventeen totals.

(01:08):
So it's so much more impressive thanjust the raw number fourteen or the raw
number seventeen would lead you to believe. And he didn't play the whole season.
I mean, he didn't start untilI think it was the first week
of October. He came on arelief in the fourth quarter of the last
week of September, that's correct.And he only he appeared in eleven games,
but he only had five starts intotal. So the numbers again just

(01:32):
to break them down, and Ilove to adjust statistics for Era just to
put into perspective how impressive our forefathershad been. He was seventh in the
league with ninety three pass completions,sixth in the league in passing yards one
thy five hundred and eighty nine,as I had mentioned, six and touchdown
passes with fourteen, second in theleague in game winning drives, second in

(01:53):
the league in touchdown pass percentage atsix point three, led the AFL in
yards per pass completion at seventeen pointone. So it was an explosive brand
of football. So in you comparehim to Steve Tenzie, who was the
incumbent starter whom he replaced in Marlinranked higher than Steve did in completion percentage,

(02:14):
yards per attempt, touchdown pass percentage, interception percentage, So by every
measure, he outshined the guy whothey groomed to be the starting quarterback who
would end up taking the gig backthe following year. So when I look
back to Marlin Brisco's nineteen sixty eightseeds and he should have been the rookie
of the year, but statistically farmore impressive than you would think just looking
at the world numbers. Yeah,it was kind of an interesting year,

(02:37):
you know, with that you had, was it nineteen was it sixty eight?
I think you had eight quarterbacks lebroncois eight quarterbacks on that team,
Steve Tenzie, Jim mcclare, JohnMcCormick, Marlon Brisco, of course DeVito,
who is actually the guy in betweenTenzie and Brisco. DeVito who came
in went one of six for sixteenyards, and then they brought in Marlon

(02:59):
Briscoe and you know the rest.Of course, I guess his history as
it were. It's interesting to methat he came in had this success,
they still didn't quite believe in himas the starter. Then they move on
from him, and he just couldn'tseem to get a starting job anywhere else.
Part of that, I think wasgoing to Buffalo, where they already
were stocked at quarterback with Jack Camp, Tom Flores, James Harris, you

(03:21):
know all those guys, and theyhad more prototypical size at that point anyway,
Absolutely, and when he went toBuffalo, he was already a formidable
receiving threat. Bear in mind,and I encourage all of our listeners to
listen to Nick's interview because he reallybreaks it down in great detail there directly
with Marlin that he had never playedreceiver in his career before, not in

(03:42):
high school, not in college.By his second year with the Buffalo Bills
in nineteen seventy, he finished seventhin the NFL in touchdown receptions. He
had a second in the NFL inreceptions fifty seven, second in the NFL
in receiving yards one thy thirty six, and he was only sixty five yards
shy of leading the league. Ithink people really need to pause for a

(04:04):
moment and recognize just how impressive itis for a guy to switch positions with
no prior experience at that position,and in the first year where the NFL
and the AFL were merged, hewas putting up what would have been the
equivalent of Justin Jefferson like numbers andJustin for era. Incredible. He was
a first team All Pro selection evenhe was a vote for League MVP that

(04:26):
year at the receiver position. Yeah, he finished. He finished his career
with a Pro Bowl, two timeSuper Bowl champion, thirty five hundred receiving
yards, thirty touchdowns. You know, it's just it's interesting. There was
a movie are they were trying toget a movie off the ground about his
life, called The Magician, butit was it's one of those things that's

(04:46):
kind of sort of been languishing anddevelopment for, you know, for years
in trying to get that thing offthe ground. He had a fascinating life.
I mean, he was one ofthe the fifteen plaintiffs and MacKiev National
Football League in which the Roselle rulewas declared violation that he trust rolls is
Back in seventy five, he movedto La became a successful financial broker.
He had a problem with cocaine andthen recovered after rehab and became more director

(05:09):
for the boys and Girls clubs.He's just he had a fascinating life and
it's a shame that they can't getthat movie, that that biopic off the
ground. I agree, because Iwould definitely go to see that movie.
I think it's a tremendous story ofa guy who broke down barriers, turned
his life around, and really,to this day, I've always been a
very strong advocate for players who Ifeel are underrated. And when you consider

(05:32):
the success he had a quarterback inreally somewhat unprecedented circumstances, and then the
success he had in Buffalo and thesuccess he had winning two Super Bowls with
the Dolphins in that undefeated nineteen seventytwo season, source noting in a fifty
two to nothing blowout against the Patriots, caught four passes for one hundred and
twenty eight yards and two touchdowns.So he wasn't just a role player in

(05:55):
Miami. He definitely contributed to winningthose championships. Yeah, it's fascinating to
me because it's i mean, themagnitude of what he did and was able
to accomplish, you know, hewas he really wasn't the third string quarterback.
He was a corner at that pointwhen he got, you know,
the tap to come in for yeah, to come into play quarterback. It
would be it's similar to like theKendall hitting thing, except if Kendle Hitton

(06:17):
had gone on to ball out.Yeah. Yeah, I think they are
definitely similar parallels there to be had, and I think, and for whatever
reason, the number seventeen is thestat then that really sticks out to me
to have tied Jon Namath and LenDawson truly at the peak of their power.
Namith would go on to win theSuper Bowl that year the upside over

(06:39):
the Baltimore Colts, and Len Dawsonwould go on to upset the Minnesota Vikings
the following season to produce an equalamount of touchdowns to quarterbacks who are Hall
of famers playing at the peak oftheir power, surrounded by Hall of Fame
talent when you're stuck on a Broncosteam that hadn't quite found its footing yet,
it's impossible for me to overstate justhow impressive that was for a rookie

(06:59):
quarterback. I'm going to do thatthat number fourteen, Yeah, impressive,
Yeah, it's fascinating and talking aboutthese numbers. I want to get to
the rookie touchdown passing record that heholds. Talking with Ryan Michael d Ryan
Michael on Twitter, fourteen passing touchdownsis a rookie passing touchdown number that still
stands to this day. Part ofthat is bolstered by the fact that the
Broncos haven't had a whole lot ofrookies playing for them since then. You

(07:25):
look at you know, John Alwaysrookie year, only threw seven touchdowns,
Jay cutlerly played five games, DrewLock only played what four or five games,
Trevor Senming only played one game hisrookie season, and you know then
he had eighteen touchdowns in his firststarting season. Brockdon plays rookie year,
Paxton barely played his rookie year.Boonix looks like he has the best shot
to break Marlin Brisco's record. Ithink it's a realistic expectation. You know,

(07:50):
whether he starts week one or wesee him get his feet wet sometime
around week three or week four,I can see either of those scenarios becoming
a reality. And you know,it's one of those records that is eventually
going to fall. But I assureyou this. As much as I am
the biggest campaign manager for pone Hicks, I think if he throws for fourteen

(08:11):
or more touchdown passes, he's certainlynot going to finish fourth in the NFL
in total touchdowns. That would beas if a rookie quarterback stepped in and
put up Patrick Mahomes numbers today.So I'm rooting for him to break the
number fourteen. But let's just keepit into context a little bit adjusted.
Fererra Well, yeah, obviously,And I think there's a part of me
that doesn't want him to break it, you know, I mean, yeah,

(08:33):
I do want to see the Broncossucceed, all the cast up on
succeed, blah blah blah. Butthere's a part of me that nostalgia where
there's a record that you don't wantto see falls. Is there any other
record that you can think of thatyou would maybe not want to ever see
fall. That's a really good question, because there are so many records.
If we're talking specifically in Broncos history, part of me would say I never

(08:56):
want to see someone throw for morethan fifty five touchdown passes in the season.
But you know, being a Broncofan, I can't possibly say I'd
be disappointed a Phoni fifty six.I think records are meant to be broken,
and for me, as someone whohas a great appreciation for pro football
history, as long as you're adjustingfor era and looking at those records through

(09:18):
the lens of what they were atthe time when they're achieved, there's no
need to feel threatened by having arecord be broken. It's all relatives.
Yeah, I think most of therecords that I would not want to see
broken would would would would harken fromanother sport, you know, like cal
Rinkin's Lodgevity streak in baseball, whichI don't think will ever. I don't
believe that will ever be broken.Nolan Ryan has several of them, you

(09:39):
know, the leading the league instrikeouts eleven times. I sincerely doubt anyone
will ever be able to do thatever. Again, those those kinds of
things stand to me is nostalgic ofmy youth type records that I just don't
want to see broken. I'm rightthere with you, and I don't think
that we have any any reason tobe concerned about them being broken in our
lifetime. Even so, I thinkthose are there to stay. Football records

(10:01):
a little bit more malleable. Wetend to see them broken more often than
a lot of Major League Baseball's toprecords. But nevertheless, even if you
look to a number of the careermarks, let's say Tom Brady broke career
pass completion's, career passing the yards, career touchdown passes, it's really only
two handfuls of quarterbacks since the nineteenforties who have held those records, and

(10:24):
most Hall of famers never even touchedthose records. So yes, they're changing
hands a little bit more often,certainly the Major League Baseball, but it's
still rarefied, air records being somethingeven in professional football. Don't let the
haters tell you otherwise. Well that'strue. Five six six nights tchne.
I think interesting to me, gettingback to the subject of football records,
that while Peyton Manning's touchdown record wasfun, exciting and Broncos fans obviously proud

(10:52):
of all that, to me,the record that had the most sizzle that
you were sort of watching multiple timesover the years as people got close to
it, it had more accepted.It was almost the home run record in
baseball. He's the season rushing yardrecord, which has stood since nineteen eighty
four. Twe hundred five yards EricDickerson. We saw in my lift,
have see Adrian Peterson come close.He got within was it like eight yards?

(11:16):
I think it was. We sawJamal Lewis get close. He was
within one hundred yards. Barry Sandersgot close. Derrick Henry got close in
twenty twenty. I think he hadwas a twenty twenty five for twenty twenty
seven yards something like that. TDof course got close in ninety eight.
I remember Chris Johnson. So forme, and it's funny because we use

(11:37):
back by committee now, so that'sit's probably even more out of reach.
But that one has had more sizzleto me. And I don't know why.
I don't know why the single seasonrushing yard has been the one that
I kind of if there's anybody everclose, all of a sudden, I
perk up. I would assume it'sbecause it's a record that hasn't been challenged
as often as a number of thepassing records. And you know, the

(12:00):
NFL season has expanded from fourteen tosixteen to seventeen, So when O.
J. Simpson rushed for two thousandand three yards. In nineteen seventy three,
he averaged one hundred and forty threepoint one yards per game, which
to this day still the NFL record. Just punching numbers real quick in a
seventeen game season, that would betwo thousand, four hundred and thirty two
point seven yards impossible, an impossiblenumber. And so he actually averaged more

(12:26):
yards from scrimmage in nineteen seventy five, when he rushed for oney eight hundred
and seventeen and was more formidable threatthrough the air. I think records that
stand for longer periods of time tendto be more hallowed. I think that's
human nature. So whether or notanyone's going to break Dickerson's record, you
know, we could wait in anothertwenty years and still be having the same
conversation when we both had gray hair. I understand the appreciation for that record

(12:48):
for sure. Yeah. And wouldyou say both of us have gray hair.
I'm assuming you're a friend yourself,because the grays are creeping in for
you know, from a and bycreeping, I mean they're here. Oh
my goodness, talk about Ryan Michael. Let you Ryan Michael on Twitter.
All I we gotta we gotta hita break here. When we come back
on the other side, I wantto talk to you about Tom Brady's struggles

(13:09):
here in devth the greatest of alltime struggled here in Denver. What lessons
we can take from that, andmaybe if there's things that that the Denver
Broncos can do uh with a naturalmaybe built in advantage, we'll get to
go inside the numbers then as well. You listen to Broncos Country to Night
right around Kaway. Welcome to it. Broncos Country Tonight. Benjamin Albright,
Gret Smith, the Man, theMyth, the Mustache back there himself be

(13:33):
Ryan Michael on the the Guest hotLine. We'll get back out there for
a second. Shout out to myboy Nate Skinner who's listening to the show.
I joined his podcast. It waslast week. He's got a link
up for that. If you guyswant to listen to it. I retweeted
it. You can find all BrightNFL and find the retweet there and you
get a chance to listen to it. He's up and covering. Man.
It's got a good little podcast.You guys want to listen to, Uh,
listen to that as well. Fivesix six nine zeros. The text

(13:54):
line you want to get involved inthe conversation. I had several people text
in their see you there just tena chance to get back to you guys.
If I don't respond on the textline sometimes I mean I don't see
it just means a lot of timesto time to get back to you during
the breaks and we have what seemedlike lengthy breaks forever, but there are
actually things going on during the breakas well. We're talking with the Ryan

(14:16):
Michael on Twitter, Ryan Michael beforewe went to before we went to break,
and we wanted to talk a littlebit about do the Denver Broncos have
a built in advantage here? Ifso, figuring out exactly what that is
at altitude and how do we harnessthat against the great quarterbacks that we have
to play against in this division.You put some data together after we put

(14:41):
the poll out there, but youknow why, I wanted to know why
Tom Brady struggled at mile high.So Ryan, you got the data,
run us through it. Yeah,I would say to generalize, Ben,
it's a combination of altitude culture andaggression on defense. Because we've had success
against great Hall of Fame quarterbacks overdecades, with different head coaches in different

(15:05):
defensive coordinators, so it's impossible forme to quantify the impact of altitude.
But I don't think it's any secretthat opposing quarterbacks struggle when they come to
Denver. Using Tom Brady as theexample from two thousand and one when he
took over as the starting quarterback forthe New England Patriots through twenty fifteen,
the lost in the NFC Championship Gameto Manning and the Broncos and that historic

(15:30):
defense, Brady finished with a recordof two and seven in Denver, Colorado.
He ended up going three and lafter that point in time, but
it's really that two and seven that'sworth honing in on. It actually started
his, for lack of a betterphrase, whose unofficial rookie season in two
thousand and one. It was actuallyhis second loss before going on that Super
Bowl run. They had lost toKurt Warner and the Saint Louis Rams on

(15:54):
Primetime, but a little bit beforethat, they lost to US thirty one
to twenty and Brady threw four picks. So it started there and it really
didn't let up all the way goingthrough twenty and fifteen. So when you
look at the history of a quarterbackthe caliber of Brady. Many people consider
him to be the greatest of alltime. He sustained long period of losing

(16:15):
here in Denver, some of themore notable losses being the two thousand and
five NFC Divisional loss to our guy, Nick Ferguson and the rest of the
defense there Ferguson with the safety blitzChamp Bailey with the famous one hundred yard
interception return. You fast forward anumber of years to the twenty thirteen AFC
Championship team. That was the gamewhere Brady was overthrowing receivers left and right.

(16:38):
Peyton Manning put up four hundred yardson Bill Belichick in that defense.
Then comes twenty fifteen and there's thebrock Osweiler Wine Anderson's forty eight yard game
winning touchdown run and overtime. Thatwas the difference between the Broncos being the
number one seed versus the number twoseed, which gave us homefield evang In
the af Championship game, he goeson to throw two picks, really three

(17:02):
if you consider the game loser ona two point conversion attempt and interception,
which it was a pretty rough historyin Denver, Colorado. So we're looking
to try to carry a little bitof that tradition over to the next generation.
And so far, a little bitof luck against Patrick Mahomes, Well,
we would need a lot more luckbecause we've only beat Mahomes one time
and he sort of had the fluidthat game. So maybe we need a

(17:23):
little more with that. But isthere anything to harness from that? Is
there is there anything you know withthose struggles? Is there any any element
of that that we can sort ofharness and say, Okay, this is
why quarterbacks struggle here in Denver,and this is how we use this to
our advantage. I would say it'sa combination of scheme, play, style,

(17:45):
altitude, and personnel. So underWade Phillips in twenty fifteen, we
saw a lot of one gap penetrationup front, right man coverage on the
back end, and we just reallysmothered our opponents. And you look at
the personnel that we have that year, Chris Harris Junior, a key to
lead TJ. Ward von Miller toMarcus ware Branded Marshall, Derrek Woolf.
I could go on and on.When you have that kind of personnel,

(18:07):
it allows you to be a littlebit more aggressive up front. So we
look to what Vance Joseph does andwe're still very much in the process of
assembling the personnel in order to playthat aggressive style of football. Right,
You're going to see some base threefour, some high safety on normal downs
and distances oftentimes of safety in thebox. On run plays, it'll cover
one, they'll cover three. Butthe common ground here is the fast and

(18:30):
aggressive nager. So you bring ina guy like Jonah allis a guy who
can generate pressure where we really reallyneeded to generate pressure. Last year didn't
have the success certainty that we've hadin previous years. So I think if
we can find a way to combinethat aggressive play style and assemble it with
personnels who can really win, especiallyin those one on one matchups, it's
the perfect recipe combined with combined withaltitude to give these posing quarterbacks a lot

(18:53):
of trouble. Yeah, and Iyou know, I tend to agree with
That's something I've I've harped on andNick and I really you've talked about quite
a bit. Is I feel likesomething that Broncos could do offensively, uh
is go up tempo right off thebat. You know, come out,
come out the gate, go uptempo with a nice you're on the script.
You should know what the plays are. I shouldn't be confused with They
go up tempo and gass them onthat first drive, you know, really

(19:15):
get them sucking that you know,that thin air early. Uh, and
and do it fast enough where theycan't substitute. And I think that puts
you on the front foot, youknow, kind of kind of you know
in game something that Broncos really youknow, I don't know, haven't done
that much of in recent years.Uh. There are other things I think
that that you could you could dokind of tweak that to your advantage,
but that seems to be, youknow, a big one. And then

(19:36):
you mentioned sort of the way thatWade Phillips and his protety events Joseph want
to play defense versus what we've donethe last few years, you know,
with with Wade and with Vance.Uh you see that that you want to
kind of send everything that you canat the quarterback, put your guys on
an island and play middle of thefield closed one high, you know,

(19:57):
three high type coverages with with withVic Fangio and a geral Vero and then
even advanced last year, kind ofcontinuing it to a degree. They were
playing quarters match. He was tightfront. You know, you want to
send the least amount of people atthe quarterback possible, drop everybody else back.
It's middlefield, open, C two, C four to six, you
know, even coverages stuff like that, and so it's it's interesting to see.

(20:18):
It'll be interesting to see this yearif they do pivot all the way
back to what vance Joseph wants torun, because it looks like, based
on the personnel decisions that they've made, that that is what they want to
do. I agree, and Ithink at the end of the day,
it's going to come down to personnel. We really have to take a moment
to appreciate just how special that twentyfifteen team was. That was a nineteen

(20:41):
nineties Yankees all star lineup of defensers, defensive players that allowed us to do
a lot more than most teams couldtake chances and succeed. So it's a
gradual process. And as I've beensaying, in terms of what we've been
assembling through the draft and through freeagency, with the resources that we have
in the reality of the salary cabhell, that we're living through right now.

(21:03):
It's going to be a slow retooling. It's not something that's going to
happen overnight. So we look backto the Peyton Manning era offense of the
twenty fifteen era defense. We'd loveto have even a poor man's version of
either of those two things, butit's going to take some time. It's
going to take some patience. I'mconfident we'll get better, but those are
some very high expectations to live upto. Absolutely. Talking with Ryan Michael

(21:26):
v Ryan Michael on Twitter, youtalked a little bit about Tom Brady's struggles
here at never somebody who didn't strugglehere endeavor Peyton Manning. Manning is widely
considered one of the best quarterbacks ofall time. You you might even pause
it that he was one of thebest, if not the best quarterback of
all time, even though he didn'twin the same amount of rings as Tom
Brady, and I think it's interestingto take a look back at, you

(21:48):
know, what Tom Brady and PeytonManning were able to do. Contextually,
it's interesting to note that there wasan article out today or yesterday as it
were, a six thousand word opuson why Mike Jordan's nineteen eighty eight Defensive
Player of the Year award was actuallya phantom. And you go back in
this guy who wrote this article,complete with tape and everything else. They
were cooking the books on the stats. He evered something like four steals and

(22:11):
two blocks a game at home andthen you know regular numbers on the road,
and they were cooking the books forMichael Jordan while and nobody I guess
caught it or whatever. He woundup winning DPOY in nineteen eighty eight.
As we look at these numbers,as we look at what they were able
to do in their career, whywould someone consider Peyton Manning better than Tom
Brady. I would say that whenyou're having a discussion Ben about who the

(22:37):
greatest of all time is, whatI often see is I'll see two sides
of the debate having two different conversationsat the same time. It really comes
down to what one's criteria is.So say I'm the Manning guy in the
scenario and you're the Brady guy.The Brady guy is going to come to
the debate table and say, well, Tom Brady won seven Super Bowls,
he had the highest winning percentage ofany start quarterback in NFL history. He

(23:02):
has all of the volume records interms of career completions, passing yards,
and touchdown passes. That's a closecase, especially if championship rings are the
best measure for greatness. Because hehas seven. Auto Graham also had seven,
but in terms of the modern SuperBowl era, nobody else has more
than four. And I would saythat if that were a good criteria,
I don't think there is a discussionthat's worth having. Not only would Peyton

(23:26):
Manning be number two or number three, but he'd be a distant number two
or number three if that were agood criteria. And then you'll have a
conversation with a Manning guy who willsay, well, Manning is a five
time League MVP, more than anybodyin history, a seven time First Team
All Pro selection, so in themodern Super Bowl era, and nobody else
has more than four. Aaron Rodgershas four. A handful of quarterbacks,

(23:48):
including Brady, has three. Manninghas seven. He broke the NFL's all
time touchdown pass record at the ageof thirty eight. Brady didn't break that
until the age of forty three.He broke the all time passing yard record
at the eight to thirty nine.Brady had to play until age forty four
to break that record, And sowhat you're having is a debate with two
completely different criteria. So what Isay is, if you're looking to Tom

(24:11):
Brady as the greatest of all time, and if you're going to start that
debate with team wins in Super Bowlrings, use that own criteria against Brady
himself, because I'd make the argumentthat the greatest seasons of Tom Brady's career
were all non championship winning seasons.Two thousand and seven, far and away
not only the greatest year of hiscareer, but one of the greatest single

(24:32):
seasons in the history of American sports. Twenty ten. League MVP through thirty
six touchdowns to only four picks intwenty ten. Nowadays it stuff to have
single digit interception totals if you're playingsixteen games. Come through four in a
sixteen game schedule almost fifteen years ago. League MVP again in twenty seventeen and
had some incredibly underrated years that areacknowledged to advanced metrics like DVOA. Twenty

(24:56):
twelve was a tremendous season. Twothousand and nine was a t end of
season. I made the argument intwenty fifteen when we beat him in the
AFC Championship game, he should havebeen the league MVP. So if the
greatest years of Tom's career are theyears that he didn't win championships, then
how is championships the best argument tobe made for him being the greatest of
all time? Because you might loveTom, you might appreciate all the success.

(25:18):
He's an easy guy to love.He's an easy guy to root for.
But if you're going to acknowledge himas the vote because there's seven rings,
what you're doing unintentionally, that isyou're underrating two thirds of his career.
The man played over twenty years.So when you adjust statistics for Eric,
we're just talking, certainly from astatistical standpoint. Hayden Manning and Tom
Brady both retired as the all timetouchdown path leader passing yardage leaders, But

(25:41):
you look at the actual adjustment Carra. When Peyton Manning was a twenty two
year old rookie, he finished fifthin the NFL with twenty six touchdown passes.
Kit would have been thirty seven touchdownpasses during the last sixteen game season
in NFL history. Twenty twenty,he was third in the NFL, number
one in the AfD and pass yardswith three thousand, seven hundred and thirty

(26:02):
nine yards. That would have beenseventeen from twenty twenty. Third place would
have been four thousand, six hundredand thirty three yards. Then you adjust
for the fact that they actually didplay a considerable amount of time in different
eras a lot of people. Youknow, there's obviously the overlap from the
head to head matchups, but peopleforget Peyton started fifty games before Tom made
his first start, and Tom startedone hundred and twenty seven games, to

(26:26):
his credit, the greatest quarterback bymeasure of longevity, far and away after
Manning retired. That's a one hundredand seventy seven game non era adjusted swing
that basically takes away from Manning's numbersand adds to Brady's numbers, especially if
we're talking from an efficiency standpoint,And despite that one hundred and seventy seven

(26:47):
game stretch, Payton Manning every singleefficiency metric with the exception of interception avoidance
interception percentage, so he had ahigher completion percentage, higher yards for attempt
to average touchdown pass percentage, morepassing yards per game, lower sack percentage.
So by every measure, Peyton anda top Tom Brady. And that's
even without factoring in one hundred andseventy seven game adjustment five six sixty nine

(27:11):
Zero's the text line. Quite afew of the texts disagree and think that
Brady was and always will be theGoats. I guess we'll have to reload
that argument and give you another chanceto break that down at some point.
What does Sean Payton have to gainthis season? We know Sean Payton came
back because he loves coaching, buthe also came back because Sean Payton wants
the Hall of Fame, and heknew he was not getting the Hall of

(27:32):
Fame unless he did something significant withanother football team without Drew Brees. It's
similar to the Belichick Brady sort ofthing, you know. And so Sean
Payton has an opportunity to come inhere to Denver. He's trying to do
something no other head coach has everdone, and that's win a Super Bowl
with two different teams. But whatis it that Sean Payton has to gain
here in Denver? Ironically, thenI think that Sean Payton has found himself

(27:56):
in almost the exact same situation thatRussell Wilson has found himself, in the
sense that if Russell Wilson had,for whatever reason retired as a Seattle Seahawk,
he would have put together a decadeof dominance that very few players in
all of NFL history could compete with, and in my view, he would
have been a first ballot Hall ofFamer. The fact that he came to

(28:17):
Denver struggled tremendously in twenty twenty twowas a lot better than given credit for.
But people are still going to focuson the win loss record from twenty
twenty three. Now people are sayingit's to make it or break it.
In terms of his performance in Pittsburgh, I put him in the Hall of
Fame regardless. He's a top twentyfive all time quarterback. I don't think
there's anything he can do to takeaway from that. But that's a very
comparable situation to what Sean Payton findshimself in, where if he had just

(28:41):
retired along with Drew Brees, hewould have gone down as one of the
greatest offensive geniuses of all time.I believe he put together nine seasons where
the offense ranked top five in scoring. Two of them led the league in
New Orleans. That's as perfect asa head coach of resume as you could
ever ask for, at least froman offensive perspective. But the issue is
he hung in there after Drew Breesretired. He came over to Denver eight

(29:04):
and nine last year, and I'lldefend him in so much as to say
that it could be a lot worsethan eight and nine. Bronco's country has
felt greater pain than eight and nine, But it's not the standard that we're
hoping for because the combination of RussellWilson Sean Paigon, we were hoping for
a Super Bowl. Now were ina little bit of a different scenario.
If he wins a Super Bowl withthe Denver Bronco, it's a slam dunk.

(29:26):
Will be a first Hall of Famerrealistically, being able to be the
first person in all of history towin a Super Bowl of the second team.
It's not likely, but I'll tellyou this. If he helps rebuild
Denver into a competitive, double digitwinning playoff contending team, and if he's
able to develop Bo Nicks into aPro Bowl caliber When I say Pro Bowl
caliber, I mean top three inthe conference, not the game itself,

(29:48):
no game anymore. But if he'sable to help bow Knicks become that poor
man's Drew Brees that I refer tohim with affection, I think that that
makes a very compelling case for himin the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
If things go in a different direction, you may also see his chances for
inductions to the Pro Football Hall ofFame become more of a struggle than they
would have been otherwise. Ryan,we always appreciate the time at the Ryan

(30:10):
Michael on Twitter. Look forward tocatching up with you again next week.
Brother sounds good Man, appreciate havingme on take Care