One of the things I try to write in each edition of Scientific Football is essays about non-metric material. The subjects have ranged from rules-change suggestions to announcer reviews to clothing critiques (the Reebok coaching suit looked so bad that it simply begged to be mocked).

I do these not only so I can lend my voice to topical material, but also so that I can gauge the feedback of readers on these subjects. I did this in Scientific Football 2007 in an article about Peyton Manning, and since today’s topic is the Indianapolis Colts, I thought it would be interesting to re-run that article and hear what you have to say about the question:

WHY DOES THE PEYTON MANNING FAN CLUB
HAVE MEMBERSHIP ISSUES? LET ME COUNT THE WAYS


John Madden said that he couldn’t understand why anyone wouldn’t like Peyton Manning and the way he plays. With no offense to John, there are many reasons the Peyton Manning fan club has some membership issues:

1. His pre-snap histrionics. All that gesturing and leg-lifting and waving and dummy audibles drive fans up a wall. I know Manning thinks this gives him an edge, but compare his pre-snap moves with Brett Favre’s. Before just about every snap, Favre barks the same signal: “Blue 58…Blue 58…Green 19…Green 19, set, hut!” I swear that I have heard Favre do this so many times I can hear it in my sleep, yet it isn’t halfway as annoying as Manning. And since Favre has been just as successful as Manning over the years, one has to wonder about the edge this really gives to Manning
2. His history of on the field pouting when things don’t go well. He did this in the playoff losses to New England and also had more than a couple of regular-season occurrences of this. Fans don’t like to see any player act this way, but they are especially unforgiving about quarterbacks.
3. Throwing his teammates under the bus after a loss. Manning may have been trying to be very careful and fair about distributing blame after some of the big losses over the years, but again, it doesn’t come across well to fans.
4. His P.R. approach to everything. Manning has the same issue that some politicians have. They become so well-polished with their answers that they seem somewhat fake or phony. Football fans want to identify with their quarterback as the guy next door, a guy they could go out and have a beer with, and Manning might not strike a lot of fans as that kind of guy.
5. His commercial endorsements. Manning’s ubiquitous endorsement presence can be irritating. It can make him come across as being self-absorbed and mercenary, no matter how cute the commercials themselves are.
6. His football royalty lineage. Football fans aren’t the type of people who easily connect with someone from a privileged background. That’s where Manning came from, at least from a football perspective. Fans are much more likely to connect with a quarterback who had to fight odds and overcome being a second stringer. Someone like, say, Tom Brady for instance.
7. His intellectual style. I make my living by reviewing stats and other metrics, so I’m all for this approach, but even I don’t want to make the game quite as intellectual as Manning seems to want to at times.
8. His lack of physicality. Manning has already started more consecutive games than just about anyone in NFL history and there is a good chance he will end up breaking Favre’s quarterback record in this category. Despite this, he still isn’t seen as a tough guy. This is partly because he has an offensive system that is designed to protect him. He rarely takes any hits due to this, though he is also helped by his ability to get rid of the ball quickly. Not taking hits does help him survive physically but it doesn’t do much for his reputation.
9. He plays indoors. When you bring up a mental image of Favre, what do you see? A cold Sunday at Lambeau field when he is having a shouting match with Warren Sapp. When you bring up a mental image of Manning, what do you see? A domed stadium and an unsoiled uniform.
10. His clean off-field image. One would think this would be a big plus, but Manning in some ways is seen as almost too much of a goody-two-shoes. He’s kind of like the Roger Staubach of today. Staubach tried to fight that image, once telling an “NFL Today” interviewer that he liked sex as much as Joe Namath did, but he had it with one woman.

It’s not that Manning is a bad guy, but each of these issues gets in the way of fans seeing him in the same light that they see Favre, Unitas, Montana or even Brady.

The good news is that Manning did address a number of these perceptions in his Saturday Night Live skit after the season. I especially liked the part in the beginning where he was teaching the kids to do all sorts of bad things. If he keeps trying to bridge these perception gaps in the next few years, I bet that he will start getting some of the same fan adulation.

Extra point: Those were my thoughts a couple of years ago and they really haven’t changed much since, but I would be really interested to hear from readers what they think. Are these the reasons Peyton Manning doesn’t seem as glorified as Tom Brady is? Or is it something else?

http://fifthdown.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/20/why-peyton-manning-isnt-more-revered/

10. His clean off-field image. One would think this would be a big plus, but Manning in some ways is seen as almost too much of a goody-two-shoes.

I don't understand how that would be a negative. I mean, he's not Michael Vick.

Brian, the way Peyton Manning was described in your article he belongs more on a sitcom ABOUT pro football quarterbacks than on a real team AS a quaterback!