Florio: Manning-Brady Debate Would Get New Life With Broncos Super Bowl Victory
Felger & Massarotti were joined by Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio on Monday afternoon on radio row in San Francisco, and he discussed what's at stake this Sunday in the Super Bowl for Peyton Manning.
"If Manning gets to 2-2 all time in the Super Bowl, Tom Brady's at 4-2, Manning's got all the records now, do you have a potentially vigorous debate as to which is the best of all time?" Florio asked. "There's going to be people out there that throw asterisks on Tom Brady's championships. That's one of the beauties of sport, it's like politics and red state/blue state, people have their minds made up. But I think you give the pro-Peyton Manning people more ammunition when they can say, 'Yeah, Peyton won two, but he won them fair and square.'"
At that point, Felger stepped in: "He did? Doesn't Manning have an asterisk now just like Brady does?"
Felger was of course referring to the ongoing probe into whether or not Manning had HGH shipped to his house while recovering from neck surgeries several years ago.
"I don't think Peyton has an asterisk. I don't know about the HGH," Florio said. "First of all, based on his physique, if he was taking it, I don't think it worked. And second of all, you assume that, especially to recover from a chronic injury, and you're out there against defensive players who are clearly taking something. The average fan looks at it and says they're clearly doing something pharmaceutical to be that size and be able to play. And if you're the only one who's not [taking PEDs], especially if you're trying to come back from an injury that knocked you out for an entire year, you're crazy if you don't. We just have such a different attitude toward PEDs in other sports and PEDs in football."
Florio added: "Would I be surprised if he did it? No. Am I going to view him differently if he did it? Probably not."
What about the fact that Tom Brady faced an all-out attack from the league office while Peyton Manning has skated on by?
"I think there should be more scrutiny of Peyton Manning, and I hope people do ask him tough questions tonight at media night," Florio said. "
Listen to the full interview, which included in-depth DeflateGate revisitations, below: