Torch Passed

Sure to get a few knickers in a twist in this neck of the woods, Shank hereby declares Peyton Manning a better quarterback than Tom Terrific:

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Peyton Manning is better than Tom Brady.

There. I said it. Call the cops. Have me arrested and sentenced to 10 years of hard time watching “Patriots All Access’’ and listening to programs called “Patriots Monday’’ and “Patriots Friday’’.

Sorry, folks. Sometimes the truth hurts. And the truth is that outside New England, this argument is over. Everywhere else in the continental United States. The proverbial ship has sailed and its name is the SS Peyton.

And yet back in Patriot country, fans soldier on, clinging to the past, unwilling to acknowledge the obvious.

Manning is better.

Sorry, Tom. Shank's just not into you anymore...

...

He wasn’t better in the first half of the decade, when Brady was orchestrating the comebacks and winning three Super Bowls, going a perfect 9-0 in the playoffs. He wasn’t better when Ty Law picked off three of his passes in the 2003 AFC Championship game at the Razor. And Manning couldn’t get his team in the end zone in the 2004 AFC Divisional playoff game at frosty Gillette, remember?

But that was then. This is now. For those of us living in the present, it’s time to give up the Ghost of Tom and face the truth.

Who says irony is dead?