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The NFL Will Never Forgive Tom Brady For Ruining Peyton Manning’s Legacy

Kings of Boston Sports



The NFL has long been a good old boys club. Franchises were a family business handed down from father to son by those lucky enough to buy in to the league at the right time. At the turn of the century the NFL’s hand-picked messiah was just getting started. Peyton Manning was to be the NFL’s Golden Boy, the son of former quarterback Archie Manning a long standing club member. Nothing was going to stand in Peyton Manning’s way of breaking every record and becoming a Super Bowl regular, challenging the All time greats to stand alone at the top of the NFL’s podium. But something unplanned happened that Patriots owner Bob Kraft had helped plant the seeds for a few years earlier.

Starting in 1994 the NFL had switched over to a Salary Cap based league. Prior to that time franchises like Dallas, San Francisco and Denver were able to stack their rosters with top end talent and build long-lasting dynasties. The new salary cap rule was supposed to promote parity between teams. In theory there would never again be a league dynasty and we would be seeing different teams reaching the playoffs and Super Bowl each season. When the agreement was made little did the league owners know that Robert Kraft would outsmart them all by putting pieces in place that would change the game forever.

Prior to the 1994 season the Patriots were the worst franchise in the league. The Patriots were so run down and unpopular that they could not sell out home games in the leagues 5th largest television market. Growing up north of Boston, I was lucky enough to catch every home game on a fuzzy Maine station throughout most of my childhood. The Patriots culture was as downtrodden as you could get. That would all change the day Robert Kraft took over the team. After inheriting legendary coach Bill Parcells who Kraft didn’t get along with, and an uneventful stint with Pete Carroll who to his credit was never given enough control the Patriots owner would bring in a rebel that would change their destiny.



When the Patriots hired Bill Belichick in the year 2000, the Patriots general manager said ” People were calling us from the league office and saying we were crazy. They said that he was a difficult guy and definitely not a head coach candidate”. But Bob Kraft saw something in Belichick. who had a rough end to his first head coaching position with the Cleveland Browns. The Browns organization didn’t exactly help Belichick as there were many distractions including the team announcing they were moving to Baltimore during his final season there.

With the right building blocks in place Bill Belichick was given full control of the team. Belichick would set the tone early and often by getting rid of players of questionable team character. Belichick set the tone for the franchise that would ruin the leagues hopes of crowning Peyton Manning king. Meanwhile in Indianapolis the Colts were building a high powered offense centered around Peyton Manning that they believed would certainly rule the league. One thing the Colts and the league did not count on was that an unlikely 6th round pick out of Michigan would force them to cancel Manning’s coronation.

The Colts general manager Bill Polian had invested the bulk of his teams salary into building an offensive juggernaut that on paper was supposed to be unstoppable. The problem was Bill Belichick is a defensive genius who was able to design plans to keep Manning in check, with Ty Law and Rodney Harrison in the defensive backfield. Meanwhile Tom Brady was able to dissect opposing defenses giving the Patriots an almost unstoppable advantage. Polian knew that his plan was not going to work and he cried to the NFL to change the leagues defensive rules because his receivers couldn’t get open, giving Manning and the Colts an advantage.

At this point by altering the rules, the Indianapolis Colts felt they were so far ahead that Manning would be in the drivers seat and the leagues most marketable player would be well on his way to claiming the throne, or so they thought. Manning would eventually win his first Superbowl in the 2006 season narrowly escaping with a win in the AFC championship, while the flu bug was going around the Patriots locker room. It was so bad, star Patriots safety Rodney Harrison wasn’t even able to play.



When the 2007 season rolled around Bill Belichick changed things up and Tom Brady was finally given a real offensive stud in Randy Moss along with Miami Dolphins castoff Wes Welker. Belichick did not forget how the league abolished long standing rules in a scheme to help Manning become more successful. This may have set the tone for Spygate, which would send fans around the league and the media into a Patriots hating frenzy. Prior to the 2007 season the league sent out a memo telling teams that they were only allowed to film in specific areas. Belichick was clearly being defiant and it was his way of giving Goodell and the league office the finger. The Patriots had cameras set up in an obvious area that was easily spotted by former Patriots defensive coordinator Eric Mangini on the New York Jets sidelines. This was clearly done by Belichick for intimidation as Mangini would point out himself, but the powers that be wanted to send a message. Taking shots at the Patriots accomplishments was a big selling point for the NFL. They wanted to market the Patriots as the Evil Empire to all outsiders.

Nobody would have ever thought Tom Brady and the Patriots would be still ruling the league for the next decade. That is why the NFL owners and media manufactured things like Deflategate. Nobody had ever cared about air pressure in a football prior to the 2015 AFC Championship. If that isn’t enough simple science could easily explain the minimal losses of air in the football that started a national outrage but the league owners were desperate and begging for a way to end the Patriots dynasty. Tarnishing Tom Brady’s legacy would just be simple revenge for the old boys club. To this day the media and league try to minimalize Brady’s accomplishments by creating a silly millennial driven idea of there being 2 GOATS “Greatest of All Time”, but no matter what they try to throw at him, at the end of the day Brady alone sits on the throne. Even after Brady has won his 6th Super Bowl there are still people out there doing whatever it takes to discredit him. He is still called a cheater after winning 3 more Super Bowl’s while going to 4 out of 5 and winning a league MVP since the time of the Deflategate debacle. He could win the next 10 and there will still be naysayers, but no matter how hard they try they will never replace Tom Brady with a more accomplished quarterback in our lifetime.