Peyton Manning will officially be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame this weekend, and his former rival will be there to witness the special moment. According to Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times, Brady will attend Manning’s Hall of Fame enshrinement ceremony in Canton, Ohio this Sunday. Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Bruce Arians will join Brady for the ceremony, as coached Manning when both were with the Indianapolis Colts.
Brady and Manning have faced each other 17 times in their careers with Brady winning 11 of those matchups. However, Manning got the better of Brady in AFC Championship games, winning three of the four head-to-head battles. Earlier this year, Manning talked about how Brady led the Buccaneers to the Super Bowl in his first season with the team.
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“I don’t have any special insight,” Manning said to 9News before the Super Bowl. “He’s done a great job adjusting. It’s been a challenging offseason with the pandemic. He has found a way to get on the same page with his receivers. They’ve improved throughout the season. It’s something I can relate to. It wasn’t all smooth in my first year, and it wasn’t all smooth for Tampa. But they had a good team in place. It took a while to form their chemistry, and he deserves all the credit for his hard work and adaptability and his leadership. His stamp is all over that team.”
Brady is the most accomplished player in NFL history playing in 10 Super Bowls and winning seven of them. But Manning is no slouch as he played in four Super Bowls while winning two. Manning also has won five NFL MVP awards, the most in league history. He also holds the record for most Pro Bowl appearances (14), 4,000-yard passing seasons (14) and single-season passing yards (5,477 in 2013).
“Peyton changed how a quarterback was playing everywhere in football. Because he controlled everything at the line of scrimmage,” former Colts general manager Bill Polian said, per ESPN. “And so, nowadays in high school you see kids doing that, everywhere in college they’re doing it. It’s being done to great effect in the NFL. And that’s his legacy, the fact that he was able to control the game by a pre-snap look, play selection, post-snap execution all by himself with just game-plan help from the coaches — it was a giant step forward for the position.”
