Where oh where, will Peyton Go?

Now, I know that we all know very well who Peyton Manning is, how good he has been, and more details about his recent bout with a stubborn neck/nerve injury that we probably cared to know.  But, just to put in perspective what kind of player we are talking about hitting the free market, let me throw some stats and records out there out there.  It may seem gratuitous when you see the length of the list, but that is exactly the point I am trying to make.  His career has been that. damn. good.

Well, first things first, his career stats.

Regular Season

He is the picture of consistent excellence.  Once since his rookie year has a team he played on won less than 10 games.  Only in that rookie year did he complete less than 60% of his passes.  The Cotls have been one of the best teams in the league because of him.  Not only because he was on the team, he WAS  the team.

 Post Season



If you adjust his post-season play, which by it's nature has put him against better defenses than he saw in the regular season, and extrapolate it to a 16 game season played, you woul get these stats.

4528 YARDS

24 TD'S

16 INT'S

NFL RECORDS



Regular season
-Most seasons with at least 4,000 passing yards: 11 (1999–2004, 2006–2010)
-Most consecutive seasons with at least 4,000 passing yards: 6 (1999–2004; tied with Drew Brees) -Most games with 40+ pass attempts in a season: 10 (2010)
-Most consecutive seasons with at least 20 touchdown passes: 13 (1998–2010) -Most consecutive seasons with at least 25 touchdown passes: 13 (1998–2010)
-Most games with a perfect passer rating, career: 4 (includes 1 playoff game)
-Most consecutive games started to open a career: 208 [45]
-Most consecutive games with at least 2 touchdown passes: 13 (games 1–13, 2004)
-Most consecutive games with at least 4 touchdown passes: 5 (games 7–11, 2004)
-Most games with at least 4 touchdown passes, season: 6 (2004; tied with 1984 Marino)
-Most games with at least 4 touchdown passes, career: 24 (includes 2 playoff games; tied with Brett Favre)
-Most games with at least 5 touchdown passes, career: 7 (includes 1 playoff game)
-Most games with at least 5 touchdown passes and no interceptions, career: 4 (tied with Tom Brady)
-One of only seven QBs with at least 6 touchdown passes in two games (tied with Sammy Baugh, Y.A.  Tittle, Daryle Lamonica, Tom Brady, Charley Johnson and George Blanda)
-One of only two QBs with at least 6 touchdown passes and no interceptions in two games (tied with Tom Brady)
-Most regular games with at least 300 passing yards: 63 (tied with Dan Marino)
-Most regular and postseason games with at least 300 passing yards: 71
-Most games with at least 400 yards passing and no interceptions: 4
-Most career touchdown passes in Thursday games: 25
-Most touchdown passes on a Thursday game: 6 (tied with Bob Griese)
-Largest career TD-INT differential: 201
-Highest career passing TDs/game average (min. 150 TD passes): 1.91 TDs/game
-Highest career passing yards/game average: 263.6
-Second-Highest career completions/game average (min. 100 games played): 22.5
-Highest completion percentage by a QB in one month in NFL history (min. 75 attempts): 81.8% (December 2008)
-Most career games with a completion percentage of 70% or higher (min. 10 attempts): 66
-Most consecutive regular season wins as a starter: 23 (2008–2009)
-Most seasons with 10+ wins as a starter (regular season only): 11 (1999–2000, 2002–2010)
-Most seasons with 12+ wins as a starter (regular season only): 8 (1999, 2003–2009)
-Only QB with at least 12 wins as a starter in 7 consecutive seasons (2003–2009)
-Only QB with nine straight seasons of 10+ wins as a starter (2002–2010)
-Only QB to lead five consecutive 4th quarter comeback wins (games 7–11, 2009)
-Most fourth quarter comeback wins in one season: 7 (2009)
-First QB to defeat the other 31 teams in the regular season (Tom Brady did this later the same day, and Brett Favre did it the following week)
-Most wins as a starting QB in a decade, regular season only: 115 (2000s)
-Most wins as a starting QB in a decade, regular & postseason: 124 (2000s)
-Most AP NFL MVP Awards: 4 (2003, 2004, 2008, 2009)
-Most Touchdown Passes in a decade: 314 (2000–2009)
-Most Passing Yards in a decade: 42,254 (2000–2009)
-Most Completions in a decade: 3,575 (2000–2009)
-Playoff recordsMost 300+ yard passing games: 8
-Most 400+ yard passing games: 2 (tied with Dan Marino; surpassed by Drew Brees in 2011)
-Most yards passing, 1st half of game: 360 vs. Denver Broncos, 1/9/05
-Led the biggest comeback in conference championship game history (18 pts), 1/21/07 vs. New England
-One of only four QBs to post a perfect 158.3 passer rating in a game (Don Meredith, Terry Bradshaw, Dave Krieg)
-Most games with 20+ completions: 14
-Most games with 30+ completions: 4 (surpassed by Drew Brees in 2011)
-Most games with 30+ attempts: 17
-Most games with 40+ attempts: 8
-Most completions and attempts in a single postseason: 97/153 (2006)
-One of only 2 quarterbacks to complete 80% of his passes in two playoff games (tied with Kurt Warner)
-Most consecutive postseasons with at least one start: 9 (2002–2010)
-Rookie recordsMost pass attempts: 575 (surpassed by Sam Bradford in 2010)
-Most pass completions: 326 (surpassed by Sam Bradford in 2010)
-Most passing yards: 3,739 (surpassed by Cam Newton in 2011)
-Most touchdown passes: 26
-Most consecutive games with a touchdown pass (games 4–16): 13
-Most games with at least one touchdown pass: 15
-Most games with 300+ yards passing: 4

With Marvin Harrison

-Most completions/receptions (career): 953
-Most passing/receiving yards (career): 12,756
-Most passing/receiving touchdowns (career): 112
-Most completions/receptions in a season, QB-to-WR duo: 143 (2002)
-Most passing/receiving yards in a season, QB-to-WR duo: 1,722 (2002)

Pro Bowl records

-Most Pro Bowl selections for a QB: 11 (tied with Brett Favre)
-Most consecutive Pro Bowl selections for a QB: 9 (following the 2002-2010 seasons)
-Most passing attempts (career): 150
-Most passing attempts (game): 41 (2004)
-Most completions (career): 92
-Most completions (game): 22 (2004)
-Most passing yards (career): 1,278
-Most passing yards (game): 342 (2004)
-Most passing touchdowns (career): 13

2012 Mock Bracket (Pre-Conference Tournaments)

Well , it seems like people are having a great time playing around with the potential for this year's NCAA bracket, so I thought I would take a shot at it too.

After all, I surely can't do any worse than the seeding committee does right?  lol, all kidding aside, this is a very difficult thing to undertake.  How do you separate out the teams who get a shot from the ones who don't?

Well, I chose to focus on a combination of Strength of Schedule, RPI, Conference Winning %, Overall Winning %, and Recent performance.  I note that last one to explain why UConn and Alabama are out despite numbers that would otherwise get them consideration.  After all UConn has the #1 SOS right now and Alabama has a top 40 RPI and a couple quality wins.  BUT, the Huskies have stunk it up late in the year and aren't looking to sniff 20 wins while the Tide just suspended their best player and look to be coming off the rails.

This is all as of 2/20/12 so by the time I publish, it will already be wrong, but still a useful exercise. 

First, here are the number of seeds per conference, and it is important to note that I assumed the best teams would win the tourneys.  That is not likely to be the case against the board, so there is some room for error in that regard.

AMERICA EAST: 1
ATLANTIC 10: 4
ATLANTIC COAST: 5
ATLANTIC SUN: 1
BIG 12: 6
BIG EAST 7
BIG SKY: 1
BIG SOUTH: 1
BIG 10: 6
BIG WEST: 1
COLONIAL 2
CONFERENCE USA: 3
HORIZON: 1
IVY LEAGUE: 1
METRO ATLANTIC: 1
MAC: 1
MID-EASTERN: 1
MISSOURI VALLEY: 2
MOUNTAIN WEST: 3
NORTHEAST: 1
OHIO VALLEY: 1
PAC-12: 4
PATRIOT: 1
SOUTHEASTERN: 4
SOUTHERN: 1
SOUTHLAND: 1
SOUTHWEST ATHLETIC: 1
SUMMIT: 1
SUN BELT: 1
WEST COAST: 3
WESTERN ATHLETIC: 1

It lines up much like normal though there are several "mid-major" leagues that pulled multiple bids.  If there are upsets in conference tournaments, look for the Power Conferences to be the ones to lose bids.  In my review the last 4 at-large teams in were Purdue, UCF, Mississippi State, Arizona.   Don't be surprised to see a third team from either the Colonial or the Missouri Valley sneak in either.  Both are deep conferences with history of success in recent years, and that is the sort of thing that tends to resonate with the tournament committee.

so, enough about the details.

Here are the seeds.

1's
Michigan State
Duke
Kansas
Syracuse

2's
North Carolina
Ohio State
Baylor
Michigan

3's
Florida State
Marquette
Kentucky
Georgetown

4's
Vanderbilt
Memphis
Southern Mississippi
Wisconsin

5's
Wichita State
UNLV
Louisville
Florida

6's
Indiana
Temple
Missouri
Gonzaga

7's
Notre Dame
Saint Louis
West Virginia
New Mexico

8's
California
Long Beach State
St. Mary's
Creighton

9's
South Florida
Iowa State
San Diego State
Washington

10's
Middle Tennessee State
Purdue
Brigham Young
Xavier

11's
St. Joseph's
Texas
North Carolina State
Oregon

12's
Murray State
Harvard
Oral Roberts
Nevada

13's
Iona
Akron
UCF
Kansas State

14's
Arizona
Davidson
Virginia
Belmont

15's
Mississippi State
Bucknell
Virginia Commonwealth
Drexel

16's (Play-in participants)
Weber State
Valparaiso
Texas-Arlington
NC-Asheville
Mississippi Valley State
Stony Brook
Savannah State
Long Island

The Yellow Highlighted teams are the Mid-Majors projected for the field.  That shows 35 of 68 (51.47%) teams being mid-majors.  Admittedly, that include some conference champs which would not be in as At-Large teams.  It is a striking number and says a ton about the parity which makes this time of year so much fun. 

Over under and mid-majors in the sweet sixteen?  I am going with 6.

Super? Bowl

Well, it was a close game, and it came down to the end.  That's about all I can give to this year's Super Bowl.  A few things were made apparent to me though.

Neither team can stop the pass.  Admittedly, these are both very good quarterbacks, but a combined completion rate of over 70% just shows how bad both of these teams are in the secondary.  I know that's not news with both team's struggles on defense in the regular season were well documented, but it just pains me to see such poor play from both sides.

The NFC is better than the AFC.  The Giants were not head and shoulders above the rest of their conference.  They barely made the playoffs, and played very well through the playoffs, but they were a good team in the NFC, not a dominant one.  The Patriots on the other side hadn't lost a game against and AFC team since before Halloween. 

The Patriots depth chart is horribly thin all over.  They just haven't had many successful drafts recently, and it's probably time to cash in those picks they have been hoarding to stock up.  That said, they were in the superbowl, so we should all be a bit worried.  Look for them to bring in receivers and a ton of defensive players.

That is all, please drive through.