Miami Heat star LeBron James was deserving, but he won last year. Sports Illustrated's Peter King said Yankees relief pitcher Mariano Rivera was considered too, and the retired closer would have been a fine choice.
He owns only one Super Bowl trophy, which constitutes some kind of moral failing in this all-or-nothing age, but he remains the reigning champion of the everyday.
Smiling Joe Hesketh said:
He owns only one Super Bowl trophy, which constitutes some kind of moral failing in this all-or-nothing age, but he remains the reigning champion of the everyday.
What the hell does this even mean?
tims4wins said:Wouldn't he have been a far better choice last year, coming back from his surgery and leading his team to a 1 seed? I get that he is on record pace this year, but does anyone actually care if he breaks the record?
I haven't read the article yet, but if Peyton won because he is an everyday guy like you or me like SMJ said, that is total bullshit. Manning being a down to earth guy can help him when he runs for political office, not for getting a sports related award.
This is dumb. Every previous winner except Brett Favre won a big title in their sport (most of them) or were honored for charitable work / social impact (Arthur Ashe, 1987 "athletes who care") or both (Drew Brees for SB / Katrina) in the year they were honored. Even Favre set the TD record and made the NFC championship that year. Peyton may set the single-season TD record, but he hasn't yet, and he lost the only playoff game he played in. He also has a stacked team though some others did too I suppose. He hasn't done anything exceptional for charity as far as I know.NatetheGreat said:I dunno, I don't have a problem with it.
He's never won it. He's got a very good shot to finish this year having had the best regular season by any quarterback ever. Last year may have been the comeback year, but its clear that he's still far from healthy and managing to play at an extremely high level regardless.
I don't want Lebron to win again, I think giving it to the Marathon victims would be sort of insufferably cloying and gimmicky, all Mariano did this year was retire, and I don't give a fuck about Nascar--when weighed against all the other contenders, I'm happy Peyton won.
This is dumb. Every previous winner except Brett Favre won a big title in their sport (most of them) or were honored for charitable work / social impact (Arthur Ashe, 1987 "athletes who care") or both (Drew Brees for SB / Katrina) in the year they were honored. Even Favre set the TD record and made the NFC championship that year. Peyton may set the single-season TD record, but he hasn't yet, and he lost the only playoff game he played in. He also has a stacked team though some others did too I suppose. He hasn't done anything exceptional for charity as far as I know.
NatetheGreat said:I dunno, I don't have a problem with it.
[sup]He's never won it. He's got a very good shot to finish this year having had the best regular season by any quarterback ever.
NatetheGreat said:
The article is mainly about his work ethic, and his capacity to push those around him to improve. Lots of stuff about his comeback from nerve damage and how unlikely it was, and then shitloads of quotes from former coaches and teammates about how hard he works. Thats pretty much it--apart from a few details about just how bad the nerve damage was, there's very little new in there.
There are two factors working in Peyton's favor here:
1.) The award has an unacknowledged, but clearly present, lifetime achievement component. Prior examples include Brett Favre in 2007, and Derek Jeter in 2009 (yes, the Yankees won the championship that year, but its not like Jeter carried them to it or did anything he hadn't been doing for well over a decade at that point). If a guy has been great for a long time and has a reputation (whether deserved or not) for being a good/classy guy, that significantly raises his chances.
2.) They don't like to give it to the same guy twice, and they've never given it to the same guy twice in a row. It happens, but only very rarely. No basketball player has won it more than once--not Jordan, not Kareem, nobody. Magic and Larry never even won one. Tim Duncan had to share his with Robinson. So for Lebron
In this case, the most obvious choice had just won it last year, and was unlikely to win it again despite being just as dominant this year. And since this may well be the last year where Peyton's elite, they're giving him a Favre/Jeter style "lifetime achievement" SotY award--he's having a great year, but this award (as the article shows since it focuses so much on things he's done in prior years) is very much about "he's been amazing for a long time, everyone likes the guy, he's probably done in a couple of years, so let's just give it to him."
loshjott said:It's always hard to give it to a football player because their post season is so early in the year, and so much happens in the interim.
Hate to say it, but Flacco would have been a decent choice.
mascho said:As usual, I start typing out a post to find out that Rev has made the same point in a way better than I could have imagined.
I'd go as far to say that Ortiz was such a slam dunk obvious better choice than Peyton.
glennhoffmania said:As a non-Pats fan, the over the top Peyton hate always amuses me. Christ, it's a meaningless award and he's having a great season so who gives a shit. Giving it to Mariano simply for retiring would've been annoying and dumb but I don't see the big deal about Manning getting it.
glennhoffmania said:As a non-Pats fan, the over the top Peyton hate always amuses me. Christ, it's a meaningless award and he's having a great season so who gives a shit. Giving it to Mariano simply for retiring would've been annoying and dumb but I don't see the big deal about Manning getting it.
OK, so you have Peyton on the back burner as a lifetime achievement thing (even though that's really only been the case in 3 of the awards but fine). Why would this be their last chance? He's only 37 and can probably play a couple more years. If he wins the SB in Feb he's a better pick next year. If he doesn't win the SB they will probably have a shot to win the year after. If he never wins one he'll still probably break all of Favre's records before he retires so why not just do it in his retirement year?NatetheGreat said:
I honestly think the Favre award is the perfect comparison, because that was very much a lifetime achievement-style, "people like this guy, he's been great forever, this might be the last good opportunity to give it to him and there's no slam dunk obvious better choice, so lets give it to him." Jeter's in 2009 was similar--the title was the excuse, but lets be honest, if some random shortstop had put up the same numbers as Jeter that year and his team won a ring, he would not have sniffed the award. Jeter won that because he'd been great and well-liked for a long time, and they likely thought it might be their last chance to give it to him.
tims4wins said:
Manning is a phenomenal player but what did he do in 2013 that merits this award?
Smiling Joe Hesketh said:
As mentioned above, my problem with it isn't necessarily the choice for the award, although I think several better ones could have been made. My problem with the article is that it's hot garbage. Poorly written and argued. It reads like a blowjob in print.
After signing with Denver he called Vince Caponi, executive chairman of the board for St. Vincent Health, which oversees 22 hospitals in Indiana, including the Peyton Manning Children's Hospital in Indianapolis. People were asking Caponi if he'd rename it after Luck. "I want you to know I'm committed to St. Vincent," Manning said. "That won't waver." His Peyback Foundation still hands out 800 bags of groceries in Indy for Thanksgiving, as well as 800 in Denver.
When Manning started the foundation, in 1999, he was advised to address one specific area of need. "But I like to say yes more than I say no," he explains. Peyback has awarded $5.5 million in grants to nonprofit organizations benefiting underprivileged children in Louisiana, Tennessee, Indiana and, now, Colorado. Most of the donations are relatively modest, around $10,000, but they are earmarked for roughly 90 organizations per year. Some want to buy school uniforms. Some want to launch afternoon programs. Some want to build gardens and grow vegetables. Online applications are due Feb. 1 and are graded by a board. Manning and his wife pick the winners.
glennhoffmania said:
He's having a great year, easily the best in the league, at obviously the most visible position. And he's not Tiger or LeBron. And again, who cares? When he wins a Gold Glove at SS I'll start giving a shit.
Criticism of the article is totally valid. Extreme reactions about Peyton are kind of pointless (not directing that at you).
Honestly, if any other QB with similar stats on another team won would the outrage be half as much?
drleather2001 said:
Yet every time a Patriots fan is caught bitching about yet another Manning Puff Piece, or because Tony Dungy regales us in yet another bon mot about how Peyton is the BEST, the response from the neighborhood Jets/Phins/Eagles/Vikings/Packers/etc... fan is "You have to be kidding me. Brady gets treated the same way."
It's simply not true. It's similar to the old arguments that Red Sox fans weren't allowed to complain about Yankees payroll from 2000-2007 because they had the second or third highest payroll themselves. Well, sure, but that completely ignored the fact that the Yankees payroll was something like 70% higher than Boston's, while Boston's was only 5% higher than LA, and only 45% higher than league average.
glennhoffmania said:As a non-Pats fan, the over the top Peyton hate always amuses me. Christ, it's a meaningless award and he's having a great season so who gives a shit. Giving it to Mariano simply for retiring would've been annoying and dumb but I don't see the big deal about Manning getting it.
DrewDawg said:
This is a message board where we talk about meaningless things.
glennhoffmania said:As a non-Pats fan, the over the top Peyton hate always amuses me. Christ, it's a meaningless award and he's having a great season so who gives a shit. Giving it to Mariano simply for retiring would've been annoying and dumb but I don't see the big deal about Manning getting it.
glennhoffmania said:Yeah, and? I was simply adding my opinion about how over the top Pats fans react about all things Manning. I've never understood how he could be so unlikeable even to the fans of his opponents.
Ralphwiggum said:
Why would giving it to Mariano (essentially as a lifetime achievement award) be more annoying and dumb than giving it to Peyton Manning for more or less the same reason? The award is either meaningless (in which case who gives a fuck) or it isn't.
It is pretty funny that in the same two sentence post you bemoan Pats fans for caring about a hated rival getting a meaningless award, and simultaneously express how you would be annoyed if a hated Red Sox rival would have won it.
DrewDawg said:
You asked why it was a big deal. You're equating a bunch of guys posting on a message board to those same guys thinking it's a big deal. It isn't.
You have as many posts in here complaining about the "over the top" Manning hate as others have talking about Manning. By your logic, you're over the top as well. Except you're over the top about people posting on message boards.
And I, and many others I bet, don't think he's unlikable at all. It's the fawning that is annoying.
There are two issues. One is the overreaction of Pats fans to anything about Manning. The other is how annoying the outcome of the voting may be. Mariano would've been a dumb choice in my opinion, I would've read about it and thought about it for 10 seconds, and moved on. But no matter the topic, whenever it comes to Manning some people get so bent out of shape. I just don't get why he's so despised.
drleather2001 said:
Probably not.
Here's why it's irritating, to me anyway (although this is hardly surprising and I don't really give a shit). There is this false equivalence that is often made when people compare Brady and Manning, that Brady gets tons and tons of great press, and is treated like Mr. Perfect by everyone. "He's so handsome!" "He's dating a model!". And there is absolutely some truth to the fact that Brady gets more good press than nearly every other player in the NFL. However, the amount of press that Brady gets, and the accolades heaped upon him by sportswriters and advertisers etc... is simply dwarfed by the amount of smoke blown up Peyton's ass.
Yet every time a Patriots fan is caught bitching about yet another Manning Puff Piece, or because Tony Dungy regales us in yet another bon mot about how Peyton is the BEST, the response from the neighborhood Jets/Phins/Eagles/Vikings/Packers/etc... fan is "You have to be kidding me. Brady gets treated the same way."
It's simply not true. It's similar to the old arguments that Red Sox fans weren't allowed to complain about Yankees payroll from 2000-2007 because they had the second or third highest payroll themselves. Well, sure, but that completely ignored the fact that the Yankees payroll was something like 70% higher than Boston's, while Boston's was only 5% higher than LA, and only 45% higher than league average.
glennhoffmania said:
Because it's Sportsman of the Year, not a lifetime achievement award. I don't consider retirement a sports achievement. And while there may be some who are more deserving than Peyton this year it's not like he isn't having a great season.
There are two issues. One is the overreaction of Pats fans to anything about Manning. The other is how annoying the outcome of the voting may be. Mariano would've been a dumb choice in my opinion, I would've read about it and thought about it for 10 seconds, and moved on. But no matter the topic, whenever it comes to Manning some people get so bent out of shape. I just don't get why he's so despised.