I was going to respond to the Peyton Manning thread to throw in my take on his greatness. Instead, I decided to write a thread that addresses one main thing missing in his game. When all is lost, tuck the ball away and run for the first down marker. I looked up Peyton’s rushing yards for the season and he’s at -7 yards. Drew Brees is right behind him at -8. I believe that Manning would have a little more playoff success under his belt if he wasn’t so reluctant to run when necessary. If he ends this season with negative yards rushing, it will be his third season with that ugly stat. Dan Marino had 12 seasons of negative yards rushing and look how successful his teams fared in the playoffs. You can point to his bad knees and lack of a running game all you want and I’ll bring up some guy named Elway who had the same issues throughout most of his career. The point is that as the leader of the offense, the Quarterback needs to do whatever it takes to move the chains and get his team some points on the scoreboard. Manning and Marino could’ve helped their teams a little more had they not shunned the run.
Here are four Quarterbacks that won multiple championships and that rushed for over a thousand yards in their careers: Johnny Unitas 1777, Joe Montana 1676, Bart Starr 1308, and Terry Bradshaw 2257. All four have 16 NFL Championships between them. Joe Montana had 5 rushes for 59 yards and a TD in his Super Bowl XIX MVP performance. Dan Marino had 1 rush for 0 yards. You can’t argue with success. Quarterbacks that run when all else fails get the job done time and time again.
It’ll be interesting to see which Quarterbacks step up come playoff time an deliver a big first down for their team by running as well as throwing.