NFL analyst compares Tom Brady-Peyton Manning rivalry to that of NBA legends

Tom Brady vs Peyton Manning, Larry Bird vs Magic Johnson. The NFL and the NBA found success through the rivalries of Brady against Manning and Bird against Johnson.

American football is more of a team sport than basketball (where only one star player can vastly change the makeup of a team). Still, the NFL enjoyed over 10 years of star quarterbacks Peyton Manning and Tom Brady facing off against each other in the playoffs.

John Middlekauff, on his podcast 3 and Out, argued that the rivalry of Brady and Manning was like that of Bird and Johnson in the NBA of 1980s.

"I've said over and over. Peyton Manning and Tom Brady were the Larry Bird and Magic Johnson of the NFL. Now, unlike Larry and Magic, who saved a dying brand of the NBA in the late ‘70s and made it culturally relevant, help David Stern take the league and print cash into Michael Jordan. The NFL was already rolling... But they rode the backs of Peyton Manning and Tom Brady and that rivalry, because those were the two biggest stars in the league."

Tom Brady and Peyton Manning head-to-head in NFL playoffs

Tom Brady and Peyton Manning have faced each other 17 times, but they have faced off five times in the playoffs (when the games matter most). Brady and Manning exclusively played each other in the AFC, so whoever won usually went on to the Super Bowl and kept the other quarterback from the big game.

Of course, Brady and Manning did not play defense. So, often their victories or losses depended mainly on how well or how poor their defense fared. In the NFL, Brady and Manning were the biggest stars and rivals to go head-to-head from 2001 to 2015.

Manning squeaked by with a 3-2 advantage over Brady in the playoffs, with the two playoff wins occurring when he played for the Denver Broncos. Brady was more successful and often kept Manning out of the Super Bowl when the latter played for the Indianapolis Colts.

The home team won all five playoff matchups (Brady’s two wins came in Foxborough, and Manning’s in Indianapolis and Denver). The winning team in each of these playoff matches went on to represent the AFC in the Super Bowl, with only Manning’s 2013 Broncos losing in the big game.

These two future Hall-of-Fame quarterbacks have a combined nine Super Bowl rings (Brady has seven and Manning has two). From 2001 to 2015, the NFL indeed had a true rivalry between two of its biggest stars.