Tom Brady and Peyton Manning both had highly successful NFL careers, and they will definitely go down as two of the best quarterbacks of all-time, but not everyone can agree on who was actually better.
The debate about who was better between Brady and Manning has been going on for years, and although Brady has more Super Bowl wins (7 to 2) and more head-to-head wins over Manning (11-6), that doesn't necessarily mean that the former Patriots and Buccaneers star is the better quarterback.
As a matter of fact, one former NFL legend seems to think that Manning might have been the better QB. During a recent appearance on "STAT Sports with Rob Lepelstat," Pro Football Hall of Famer Ray Lewis was asked about the debate. He seemed to cast his vote for Manning as the better QB.
"I would say from a quarterback -- from a student level of the game -- he made me alter my game," Lewis said of Manning. "He made me watch more film and that's what I call the greatest quarterback, to me, me and his battle. Brady, of course, rings, but when you talk about just walking out there and seeing a man knowing that whoof, here we go again, Peyton Manning was rough."
Lewis is the perfect person to weigh in on this debate because not only is he considered one of the best defensive players in NFL history, but he played against both quarterbacks while they were in their prime. Lewis spent his entire 17-year career with the Ravens (1996-2012), which spanned 12 years of Brady's career and 15 years of Manning's.
The former Ravens star thought so much of Manning's style that he actually wanted to emulate his game.
"The attention to detail, the way that he studied film, the way that he understood the offensive scheme and every check that he needed to make, every coverage, he knew what was coming," Lewis said. "As a defensive player, I used to ask coordinators, 'Why don't defensive players know it the way quarterbacks know it?' So I wanted to learn it like that."
That's pretty much the ultimate compliment: Manning was so good that he made Lewis want to change his own game for the better.
As for Brady, Lewis said his style was good; it just wasn't the same as Manning's.
"Playing against Brady was just pure chess. It was just patience," Lewis said. "He's going to make you bored, bored, bored and then BOP, gotcha."
Although Lewis seemed to favor Manning in the never-ending debate, he made sure to point out that both quarterbacks are two of the best who have ever played.
"Those two guys were legendary," Lewis said.
Lewis' final season in the NFL came in 2012, and he got to face both quarterbacks in the playoffs. His Ravens won a wild divisional round game over Manning's Broncos, 38-35, before beating Brady's Patriots, 28-13, in the AFC title game. The Ravens ended up winning the Super Bowl with a 34-31 win over the San Francisco 49ers.
It's almost fitting that Lewis has finally weighed in on this debate considering that two of the final three games of his Hall of Fame career came against Brady and Manning.
